As you might expect, I get deluged with books. From publishers, fans, wannabe writers, published-yet-still-struggling writers, my book club, and friends and family as gifts. My to-be-read stack is two columns of a dozen books each, and that doesn’t count my bookcase with books I still told myself I would read. Don’t even ask me what’s on my Kindle. I’ve long forgotten those.

In my career as an author, I’ve heard so many schools of thought about what you should read.

1) Only read your genre, to improve what you intend to publish.
2) Read across the board of genres, to get introduced to variety and new thought.
3) Read bad books as well as new books, so you know what to write and what not to write.
4) Read whatever book you pick up, all the way to the end.
5) Read only when you are not writing, so you don’t accidentally plagiarize.
6) Read even more when you are writing, so you feel more motivated.

Bottom line, read a book that makes you wish you had written it. You will absorb more of it and take it seriously. But to finish a book because you started it? Nope. Read a badly written book? Nope. Read outside my genre when I know absolutely what I want to write? Rarely. Read while I am writing? Absolutely, and twice as much.

My time is precious to me. Grab me in the opening chapter or I’m done with it, because there are so many grand stories out there that will make my heart race. I want to have read something that left an indelible mark, not something that just added to the number I read that year. What you read impacts what you write. Make what you read count.