Do people read books anymore?

When the Georgia Bulldogs play the Oregon Ducks next month in the Chick-Fil-A Kickoff Classic, an estimated 78,000 fans or more will fill Mercedes Benz Stadium in downtown Atlanta to watch a game of football. I went to the University of Georgia, so I’ll be watching from home. If even ten percent of that audience bought The God Conclusion, I’d sell almost eight thousand books. In truth, if even eight hundred books had been sold by this point, I’d be dancing in the street like a fool.

Selling a book is hard work.

Is my book not any good? In my opinion, it’s the best book I’ve written to date of the seven that have been published, but I’m biased. My opinion doesn’t count. Yours does. In addition to the hundreds (well, dozens for sure) of books sold so far, I’ve given away more than twenty additional books to readers who promised an honest review when they finished reading the book.

About three weeks have passed since the giveaway, and thus far only one person has attempted to publish a review, which Amazon then rejected for some unknown reason. I’m not having any luck getting book reviews. None whatsoever. There are a lot of books in reader’s hands, but no reviews except one from a reader with a rather strong bias against the content. I don’t mind a negative review, but when the only positive review isn’t legitimate in my mind, I’m left with only negative feedback.

Which begs the question — do people not read books anymore?

I’ve noticed that when I write an article, or even more than a couple of sentences, that those posts and advertisements tend to get less traffic, leaving me to wonder about the attention span of my prospective audience. I don’t expect people to put down everything else they are doing to read my book — it should probably take at least a week to read — but I do kind of expect people who promise to read my book to follow through on their promise and publish a review, especially after several weeks have passed.

Am I asking too much? Are my expectations too high? Interested minds want to know.