The Transcript

Listener Challenge: Could You Read 100 Books in a Year?

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Demian Farnworth: Howdy, and welcome back to another episode of Rough Draft, your daily dose of essential web writing advice. I am Demian Farnworth, your host, your muse, your digital recluse, and the Chief Content Writer for Copyblogger Media.

And thank you for sharing the next few minutes of your life with me.

Think about this challenge I have for you: read 100 books in one year. Since it is the middle of the summer, half a year is gone by, do you think you could read 50 books by the end of December?

50 books in 26 weeks is a lot of books to read. Why would anyone want to do that? To be a better writer, that s why.

See, one of the fastest tracks to mastering the art of compelling copy and seductive storytelling is to observe how others do it. Observe both the masters and the flops.

In fact, you could probably learn more from bad writers than you could from great writers. That is, you could learn what to do and what not to do.

Exactly How Many Books You Should Be Reading Every Week

So let s talk about The Mechanics of Your Reading Blitzkrieg. Let s do the math.

One hundred divided by fifty-two [fifty-two is the number of weeks in the year for those who are curious and not too bright] equals 1.92307692 books a week.

Let s round that up to 2.

That means you have to read 2 books a week if you want to read 100 in a year. Or 50 by the end of the year. Or about one book every 3.5 days.

Up to the challenge?

Well, if you re like me, which is an incorrigible sucker for ridiculous challenges AND a shameless book addict — then this is right up your alley.

But here s the deal: You re likely to fail.

Like me.

Two months from now you and I will be hopelessly behind and wondering what in the world we we we re thinking.

We re likely to shove our little challenge under the bed and pretend it never happened.

I don t know about you, but I don t want that to happen. I WANT you to read 100 books in a year and I WANT you to succeed.

So let s add a little twist to this challenge. Let s make this challenge a competition. You know, an old-fashioned, cut-throat rivalry.

Here s what I mean.

The Most Effective Way to Stay Motivated

Choose someone you know who likes to read and invite them to join your challenge. Once you ve got them nodding their head say, “By the way, let s keep score.”

I m telling you, when it comes to motivation THIS WORKS.

For example, my wife and I are rabid readers. I tend to keep lists of books I want to read. She keeps lists of books she has read. And when I saw the list of books she had already read, I am always floored.

I thought, “She s smoking me.”

Since then I ve streamlined my life as best as I could to make reading books my single and solitary focus. My goal is not to DEFEAT her necessarily. It s simply to read 100 books in a year [especially if she does, too!].

Granted, two months later I m still hopelessly behind my wife, who systematically rifles through hefty books at a blistering pace but I ve vowed to not give up.

I ve vowed to read and read and read until I see the last word on the last page of the last book for the year.

And hopefully when I do that it will be December 31, 2015 and it ll be book number 100 that I m closing. Yet, even if it is not, then I will be quite happy with the number of books I ve read. As so should you.

As long as we keep reading.

So, you in? Let me know in the comments. And give a list of books you re reading and recommend.