How does the New York Times measure whether a book has been read the most or just sold the most? The most sold books only implies that the purchaser read it or will read the book someday. Even a review of the book doesn’t mean the reviewer read the book.
What if there was a list of the most read novels and non-fiction books? I bet the list would be very small compared to the most sold list. Selling a book never assures the writer that the purchaser read the book.
I’m not writing books to sell them as much as I am writing them for people to read and be ‘touched’ or ‘engaged’ by the story. Do I want my books to become bestsellers? Sure, but I still want my books to be most read, most loved, most enjoyed for the content rather than most sold.
Hopefully, readers, writers, publishers and book reviewers will someday focus on the content of books rather than the sales of books. Can you imagine what a difference that would make? “Hey, everybody! I made the NYT’s Most Read list! Isn’t that exciting?”