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Terri Schlichenmeyer's house in West Salem isn't huge, but it's large enough to comfortably hold the 9,500 books she keeps in it.

Schlichenmeyer is a professional book reviewer, reading five to seven books a week for a job that combines her passion for reading with the opportunity to work self-employed from home.

"I feel like I'm playing, it's just so much fun," Schlichenmeyer said. "And yeah, there are days I beat my head against the wall, but I'm at home. Barefoot."

Schlichenmeyer said she's always been a big reader, and can't understand it when people tell her they don't like to read for pleasure.

"I can't imagine not reading," Schlichenmeyer said. "I literally never go anywhere without a book."

She decided to turn her passion for reading into a chance to make a little extra dough by doing book reviews on the radio. She stayed with that for only six months before moving on to getting her reviews into print as a columnist.

"And then I began to think, there must be something more to it than this," Schlichenmeyer said.

Within a year, she was calling newspapers editors and publishers from around the country in an effort to get her columns nationally syndicated.

Now, her reviews are printed every month in 12 magazines and 104 newspapers.

Those numbers might seem high to most people, but not to Schlichenmeyer.

"It doesn't sound like a lot to me, because I have so many pending," she said.

Because of a lack of time, Schlichenmeyer said it's been two years since she's read a book for pleasure.

She said her favorite book of all time is "Salvation on Sand Mountain" by Dennis Covington, a book about the holiness of snake handling.

Her favorite books this year are "The Color of Love" by Gene Cheek and "Hero Mamma" by Karen Zacharias.

She said she forgets the plot of most books she reads within two weeks of reading them because she reads so many books and it's hard to retain everything.

"But there's some that grab you and you just can't forget," Schlichenmeyer said.

Most of the books she reviews are shipped to her by editors and publicists. And believe it or not, she gives most of them away once she's done reading them.

"The West Salem library gets a bag or two from me a month," Schlichenmeyer said. "I can't possibly keep them all."

She recently took very timely delivery of a book. "The day Hurricane Katrina hit, I got a hurricane book, which was really creepy," Schlichenmeyer said.

Schlichenmeyer tries to read books that come out of a variety of regions, including westerns and books about New England. She said she also reads sports books and one book per week by an African American author.

Her reviews are printed in 39 states and at least 17 African American papers.

Some of the largest papers she writes for are the Birmingham Times and the Florida Times Union. Most of her reviews appear in newspapers with a circulation of less than 8,000.

Locally, her reviews are in the La Crosse Magazine and the Spring Grove Herald.

Getting her name out there wasn't an easy task for Schlichenmeyer.

Her nationally syndicated book reviews have been running for two and half years, but her first year was a struggle. She almost quit a few times.

"A lot of people think this is going to be easy, and it wasn't," Schlichenmeyer said. She said she's been helping a lot of people to get started in the business.

She still spends plenty of time promoting her service. She racks up more than 3,000 minutes on the phone every month talking with editors and publicists.

Despite all the time and toil, she said she loves it. "It's a major cosmic gift to be able to do this."