[darryl]

Some years ago I started a thread entitled “Sorting the Wheat from the Chaff - Selecting "New Market" EBooks”. The theme was essentially how to avoid really bad books and select good ones amongst the tsunami of Indie/Self-Published Books. More recently ApK started the very popular thread “The Wheat from the Chaff: Filling the role of The Gatekeeper”, which puts a slightly different emphasis on the matter. To quote from ApK:

“So much of the stuff on KDP is illegible, incoherent garbage, which, if the ideas of the content it self are worth sharing at all, should have been ghost written by someone else. Someone who can write.”

This is such a subjective area that I don’t think it’s possible to find a right approach for everyone. Personally I find little difficulty avoiding the “garbage”, and based on my experience wonder if the volume of it is not greatly exaggerated. Though logically, of course, one would expect there to be a significant volume of such materials in the absence of a gatekeeper. Personally I have found the experience to be enriching. I tend to read very few books published by the Big Publishers these days, not because I am boycotting them, but because most books to me are fungible, particularly now there are so many alternatives. I don’t believe in paying $14 or $15 or more for a book when I can read an equally enjoyable one for $4 or $5 or less. The few must reads I can wait until the price comes down or borrow. But this is my personal experience. I can understand that based on their own personal experience there are some who stick purely or mostly to tradpub books.

One thing that did come out of ApK’s thread is that recommendations and reviews from trusted sources including some fellow members of this forum are valued by many. Accordingly, if you read a great book by an Indie/Self-Published author please post here and share it with others. Likewise, if you have or discover an Indie/Self-Published author you enjoy and buy their books regularly, please share that to. If this thread is to have any value please don’t promote yourself or your friends books here.

Also, remember that tastes are very different. You may well abhor some books and authors I enjoy, and vice versa. Try to find posts by people with similar tastes to your own.

I will start the process off by sharing the names of 3 Indie/Self Published authors I read regularly and enjoy their books. For ease of reference and searching I will post each separately with their name as the header.