I just finished reading Luckiest Girl Alive  by Jessica Knoll. It’s on the New York Times bestseller list and it’s a good read. No complaints. Worth my time. Nice prose. Not bad characters. That’s not the point.

I always read the acknowledgements or author’s notes at the end of books. I find it fascinating to get a glimpse into how people write, maybe just to reassure myself I’m doing it properly. Besides the usual shoutouts to family and friends, the author thanked her agent, her editor, her film agent, her publicist, her marketing manager and everyone at Simon and Schuster, one of the big name publishing houses.

Hey, congrats to Jessica for having all that support but the vast majority of writers today are doing it all by themselves. I’m lucky enough to be with Joffe Books, a small UK indie firm which means I have a little back up. But most authors do everything from writing to editing to social media to marketing to choosing a cover and doing it all while trying to hold down a full time job, raise a family and not obsess about walking the dogs.

It’s crazy. The shift in the publishing industry has been massive and yes, it’s opened up a lot of doors but for every Andy Weir and EL James there are hundreds of thousands of writers praying for a break, desperate for somebody to notice their work in the avalanche of new material published each and every day.

With that in mind, I want to say a special thank you to the bloggers and reviewers who take the time to post something, anything about a writer’s work. We do it in the dark, in a small room and we live in our heads and we obsess and worry about each and every syllable and to have someone give us validation and take the time to post it online is beyond generous. This is why we do what we do—to share our stories. Not to make money, I promise you. So thank you all reviewers and bloggers on behalf of me and my fellow scribes.

I also confess, I don’t do enough of this myself since I am sick of writing by the end of the day, but I will change my ways. I promise to post more reviews and talk about what books I like and why. I also promise to post lots of stuff that makes me think about romance and sex and gender wars, so watch this spot and stay tuned.