Read it, Now what?

Earlier this month, I had the pleasure of being invited by Nora Comstock to attend a panel at the Hispanic Women's Corporation event in Arizona.  As she introduced our author panel, she explained to the audience the importance of supporting Latino authors.  "Support the authors by purchasing their books," she said.  "Then when finished reading the books donate them to a library, do not give them to your friends."

I've heard the support your Latino authors call before.  I've said this many times myself, because it makes sense; we have to support what we want to see in our market place.  Business continue to make more of what customers want and discontinue what customers don't buy, and publishing is a business even if we authors don't want to think of it that way.  So, if we like stories that have Latino themes and characters, we have to purchase these types of books.  But I had never heard anyone tell readers of how to dispose of their books once they were finished reading them.  Maybe because I rarely get rid of my books, I hadn't thought of it.  When I do get rid of books, I actually DO tend to donate them to a library.  All books, not just Latino books.

This helps the most people.  It helps libraries with extremely low budgets have more books in circulation.  It helps those who can not afford to buy a book, read great books.  And it helps the authors, because more people are reading them.

Another good idea is to find a senior center or hospital that stocks books and donate them there.  I've also taken a stack of books with me on vacation and depending on where I stay - if they have a library, I will leave books there if I can stand to part with the book.

The idea is to share your favorite authors with others - especially if it's a little known Latino author so that more people will become familiar with that author and hopefully buy their books.

Happy Reading!

Julia