Save our Cozies Readathon

If you haven’t yet heard, Berkley, which is an imprint for Penguin/Random House, is cutting their cozy mystery line way back.  Not only are cozies my favorite genre to read, but I read a lot of Berkley Prime Crime titles.  Right now, they are usually about half of the books I read every month.  In fact, the books that I review and host giveaways for every month are all Berkley titles.  So, as I’m sure you can imagine, this is bad news.  Not just for me, but for the writers I love.  After all, the reason I started reviewing years and years ago was to help readers find authors I love so that they’d buy the books and the authors would get contracts for more books.  (See, it was selfish all along – I just wanted more books by my favorite authors.)

Cozies readers are doing everything we can to raise awareness and hopefully get Berkley to see that there is a huge market for the cozy mystery.  Obviously, sales are the most important thing, but there are other things we can do to raise awareness.

One such brainstorm is the Save Our Cozies Readathon.  It’s just like other readathons out there – set aside a day, or a portion of a day, to read.  However, there is a specific focus to your reading list – cozy mysteries, but specifically cozies from the list of series that are either in jeopardy or have been canceled.  Authors of canceled or endangered series are even getting involved offering prizes to the participants.

Interested in learning more?  Here’s the official web site.  Sign up and spread the word.

Personally, I will have to miss it.  I will be reading that day; I’ll even be reading for several uninterrupted hours.  I just won’t be able to participate in blog updates and social media posts since I will be traveling that day.  Honestly, I’m jealous because I think this sounds like a fun way to raise awareness for the issue.  So I hope you sign up and have a ton of fun.