How do you decide what to read next?

I find myself reading a lot more when I'm trying to write (like right now). If I'm trying to write fiction, I read fiction, and vice versa.

I usually have a stack of stuff I've acquired from friends lending me books or things I saw in bookstores and bought and stuck on a bookshelf to read "someday." I just read The Red Tent, which I bought at least two years ago when I saw it on an endcap at a bookstore.

I'm a terrible book shopper. I usually shy away from the stacks and go to the clearance aisle. They always have classics there, or bestsellers from a few years ago that I never read. Of course, I worry that all book shoppers are like me and even if Sleep Is for the Weak were on a shelf in a bookstore (which, I fear, it's not anymore), nobody browses anymore.

What do you do? Do you browse the shelves? Do you look for more by an author you like? Do you do like I do and just look at the clearance rack? Or do you buy everything online? How does an author get her book in front of your nose?

Rita Arens writes at Surrender Dorothy and BlogHer and is the editor of Sleep is for the Weak. She is BlogHer's assignment and syndication editor.