Val over at Obsidian Bookshelf asked a while ago how often an author has to publish to stay relevant. There are some interesting answers and be sure to check out the thread over there. I remembered this thread when I started feeling overwhelmed by keeping up with author releases.

What stands out to me though is that lately authors seem to be publishing at lightening fast rates. Gone are the lengthy waits of six months to a year for your next author piece. With the instant publishing of electronic publishing (and decreasing quality of cover art, editing, and proofreading), there are dozens of new books every day in every genre. Lately it seems you can’t trip over your front step without falling on an author or aspiring author.

To that, I can only say thank god. As a reader, I love authors. So write, write, write.

Yet the caveat to that is that I’m finding I can’t keep up with even favorite authors, let alone new ones. In the past two months, there have been a total of 32 short stories, novellas, anthologies, novels, and free reads by authors that I consider “auto buys.” And believe me, this is not an extensive list. It’s still in single digits.

This list doesn’t include the some dozen + new releases being touted within the upcoming month and I’m left with fatigue trying to keep up with a list to buy, let alone read, and all those new authors? Yea good luck. All of this and I consider myself a pretty fast reader.

I can see why the novella is the best selling length. Who has time to sit down and a read a novel anymore? I’ve started checking page count and actually had to remind myself that I read for *PLEASURE* and thus, word count doesn’t matter. If it takes me *gulp* a week to finish a book, it’s ok.

And honestly this has nothing to do with reviewing. It’s just the fear of getting so far behind on the never ending crush of new releases that I’ve totally given up on my old release pile.

With new books introduced every single day and authors publishing numerous times a month, how does any reader keep up? How do you even –remember- all the new releases, names, titles, publishers?

I know everyone likes to say there is no competition within writing since it’s about individual choice but come on. There are only so many hours in my day and dollars in my budget I can allocate to reading and if I can’t keep up with my favorite authors, how am I ever going to discover that rare gem?

How do you do it? Because frankly I’ve already forgotten the title of the new JCP I wanted to buy and there’s a new Lethe Press that caught my eye and somewhere I forgot where I put my copy of The Coming Storm…and well.. you get the picture.

And authors – while I adore you (really I do) – why are you publishing so fast and so much? I promise I’ll still read your new releases even if you don’t publish 2 a month. I pinky swear.

Everyone’s heard about writer’s block and the many ways that writers fight it and try to get past it.  It’s something that every single writer experiences at one time or another and each time it’s a matter of either pushing past it or waiting it out.  Sometimes the words just don’t want to come and forcing them makes it even more difficult.

Lately I’ve started to wonder…is there a similar experience for reviewers?  Let’s call it “reviewer’s block” for lack of a better term.  Reviewing is most definitely a form of writing so it makes sense that at times it would be…well difficult.  I’ve experienced this myself quite a few times and am curious to see if others agree with me.  I’ve noticed that my reading patterns definitely have a cyclical nature to them, but so does my ability/motivation to review.  There have been times where writing a review comes easilyand I could whip out several in the span of just a few days.  Hell I’ve had a couple months in the past where I wrote a review every single day!  Then there are the other times when it seems close to impossible to form thoughts about a book to put together a review.  Where each word is like pulling teeth.

I’ve read several books recently that I haven’t reviewed and I’ve been pondering why.  It’s possibly because the books just didn’t elicit very much of a reaction from me.  They weren’t bad by any means, but they were okay reads, something to pass the ungodly number of hours I spend on the train commuting.  A few years ago it would have been nothing to read the book, decide I’m never going to read it again, pass it on and never give it a second thought.  But since I entered the world of reviewing, I’ve gotten to the point where I feel actual guilt for each book I read that I don’t review!  But then I think of how there just aren’t enough hours in the day and wonder why I feel like I must torture myself to write a review when I feel like there really isn’t much to say beyond, “It was an okay read but nothing spectacular.”

At the same time, I’ve definitely learned something about myself that I had a suspicion about but now I know it’s fact.  I don’t really enjoy having a long list of books I must review.  The more books I have to review, the slower I seem to go!!  It might be because it seems like an unsurmountable task to get through, even though I can logically admit that slowly but surely I’d make it through.  My brain instead gets sidetracked on other books or other projects and the poor books I’m meant to review don’t get finished.  And the books I do read don’t get reviewed either!  Rock, meet hard place, y’all have a lot in common.

As the weather improves and we enter the awesomeness of summer, at least in my hemisphere, I don’t think my pace with reviewing will necessarily increase, but right now I’m hoping to get over the top of the hill and go back to a steady pace of reviewing.  I will defeat my reviewer’s block!  Right?

Are there others out there that have had the same kind of experiences?  Do you find that you go through phases where you just can’t put together a review to save your life?  What did you do to get back into the reviewing groove?  Do you think it’s possible to simply burn out on reviewing?