Quote:
Originally Posted by Steven Lake
This might sound silly, but I think a simpler answer to all this might be simply to ignore all the big houses for now, and focus strictly on the indie and small house authors. I'm actually starting to find that most of the books I'm picking up now (not counting the many classics in my library) are from indie and small house authors..
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That's what I'm mostly doing.
I do have some mainstream "big press" authors that I will read "no matter what" (mostly romance). Even in their cases I'm carefully picking out any cheaper backlist books or "bestsellers" that have dropped in price.
I read free books from Amazon. It introduces me to new authors in a range of genres. Not all of them are "good", but I judge them with the same standards I might judge a book I bought at a yard sale for a quarter. If they're a decent time waster, I'm satisfied.
I have a large collection of past ebook purchases. I'm happy to re-read books and so have been re-reading many of my old favorites.
I'm reading one Public Domain book a month.
Because I also read sci-fi/fantasy, I also drop into Baen from time to time. I'm trying to wok my way through the Baen Free library which is harder going than I expected (it didn't look that BIG on the site
).
Finally, I routinely check out the author self-promotion threads and buy books by authors who promote themselves on Mobileread. The books are usually cheaper than the big houses and I get the warm/fuzzy satisfaction of knowing they get higher royalties by self-publishing or going through a smaller publishing house.
This keeps me in a good mix of new/old/familiar/unfamiliar/established/novice books.