Writing rather than Reading

Though on this blog we generally pay attention to material books, it is worth pointing out the iconic status of authors. Both the book and the status of author seem to be more desirable than actually reading, as a blog of the Virginia Quarterly Review points out:

Here at VQR we currently have more than ten times as many submitters each year as we have subscribers. And there’s very, very little overlap. We know—we’ve checked. So there’s an ever-growing number of people writing and submitting fiction, but there’s an ever-dwindling number of people reading the best journals that publish it.

For commentary on this situation and its (possible) relationship to the internet, see Dan Visel's comments on if:book.