Know any Good Self-pub Books?

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by Rizla

I'm loose, baby.

Great! So which of all these wonderful suggestions have you decided to give a shot (since clearly, your intention for this thread thread was to find a book to read, and not to discuss the merits and trends of self-publishing in general--which would obviously be a topic for a different forum )?

[dickloraine]

Originally Posted by Rizla

One difference I note between trad-pub and self-pub books is that I never read a trad-pub book where the writing was simply, objectively amateurish at a word and sentence level. I may not like the trad-pub book, find it pointless, long-winded, going nowhere, or whatever (i.e. not my thing), but the basic craft is normally there. Presumably they wouldn't get into print otherwise. (Plus maybe they were edited?) Whereas I've seen a lot of self-pub stuff where the author's prose is execrable. They simply didn't know how to write at the most basic technical level. Obviously not always.

Looking at the two books I cite above, both author's make what are IMO technical mistakes that a good editor might have highlighted, and therefore improved.

Of course there are very bad self published books. What's the point? You don't have to read them and fortunately that kind of bad is the easiest to spot. As I said, one doesn't read random books. Comparing by the bottom is pretty useless. Who is interested in the worst book ever? The problem is simply one of discoverability. Of course with more books, the problem gets bigger (but it is more a problem for the authors than the readers).

[unboggling]

Ed Howdershelt - most of his books.

[Fbone]

Originally Posted by dickloraine

Of course there are very bad self published books. What's the point? You don't have to read them and fortunately that kind of bad is the easiest to spot. As I said, one doesn't read random books. Comparing by the bottom is pretty useless. Who is interested in the worst book ever? The problem is simply one of discoverability. Of course with more books, the problem gets bigger (but it is more a problem for the authors than the readers).

One sad point is out of the 1,000,000 self published titles there have been only a few dozen recommendations, the same ones people have recommended 5 years ago. The odds of finding a "very bad" or "worst book" is tremendously high ... near 100%. There should be thousands of titles for recommendation as I'm sure there are at least that many high quality books available.

Added: Yes, discoverability is a problem for everyone.

[AnemicOak]

Originally Posted by Fbone

Added: Yes, discoverability is a problem for everyone.

It really is. Personally I've read some pretty good self-pubbed stuff, but I'm unlikely to try any of it cold especially since I'm not lacking for a TBR pile. I'm only likely going to give something a try after recommendations from others I know have similar tastes to my own, of course this is largely true for indie or trad pubbed titles right now too.

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by AnemicOak

It really is.

I disagree. Discoverability is only a problem (for a reader) if they seek to limit themselves to finding "good" self-pubbed books, and/or they're in the habit of buying books from their descriptions/covers alone. There's no need to do either, IMO.

Originally Posted by AnemicOak

Personally I've read some pretty good self-pubbed stuff, but I'm unlikely to try any of it cold especially since I'm not lacking for a TBR pile. I'm only likely going to give something a try after recommendations from others I know have similar tastes to my own, of course this is largely true for indie or trad pubbed titles right now too.

Same here. I rarely buy books at random (trad- or self-pubbed). So for me there is no discoverability problem. Mostly because I'm not focusing on finding self-pubbed books--I'm focusing on finding books. And people are throwing good ones at me left and right: some self-pubbed and some some trad-pubbed. And I don't need/want the good ones to be one or the other.

If I started selecting books to read at random, I wager it would be the same crapshoot for me in trad-pub land as it is in self-pub land. Mostly that's because I don't value competently written books that I don't like any higher than atrociously written books that I don't like.

[Pablo]

Some great (IMO) self-pub books:

Shayne Parkinson's Promises to Keep series, historical fiction set in New Zealand starting in the 1880's. The first book, Sentence of Marriage is free.

Richard Herley's The Drowning (literary) and Dismemberment (horror).

Alan Hutchenson's Boomerang (tongue-in-cheek international intrigue) and The Baer Boys (literary).

Vicky Tyley mysteries, set in Australia.

Marion Stein's The Death Trip (science fiction).

Simon Haynes' Hal Spacejock series (humorous space opera)

Wesley Allison's His Robot Girlfriend and sequels (science fiction)

Karl Drinkwater's Turner (horror) and Cold Fusion 2000 (literary)


Most of them (if not all) available at Smashwords.

[dickloraine]

Originally Posted by Fbone

One sad point is out of the 1,000,000 self published titles there have been only a few dozen recommendations, the same ones people have recommended 5 years ago. The odds of finding a "very bad" or "worst book" is tremendously high ... near 100%. There should be thousands of titles for recommendation as I'm sure there are at least that many high quality books available.

Added: Yes, discoverability is a problem for everyone.

Who cares about the odds? I don't randomly choose books. This is not the lottery

[GeoffR]

Originally Posted by dickloraine

Who cares about the odds? I don't randomly choose books. This is not the lottery

Odds are relevant when making any selection based on imperfect information, not just when selecting at random.

[Rizla]

I expected to see some really original works recommended. Something so out-there that a trad-pub, at least initially, wouldn't touch it because it was such a risk. I'm not seeing that. I'm seeing stuff that mostly falls within the known and well-trod territory of story-telling (zombie, mystery, big spaceships, etc). Apologies if I missed a recommendation that is very original.

[Pablo]

Originally Posted by Rizla

I expected to see some really original works recommended. Something so out-there that a trad-pub, at least initially, wouldn't touch it because it was such a risk. I'm not seeing that. I'm seeing stuff that mostly falls within the known and well-trod territory of story-telling (zombie, mystery, big spaceships, etc). Apologies if I missed a recommendation that is very original.

Did you read my post?
No zombies, only one author of mysteries and only one of space opera.
Give them the benefit of the doubt!

If you want one to start with, try with Shayne Parkinson's Sentence of Marriage. It's a wonderful book, and it's free.

Sentence of Marriage

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by Rizla

I expected to see some really original works recommended. Something so out-there that a trad-pub, at least initially, wouldn't touch it because it was such a risk. I'm not seeing that. I'm seeing stuff that mostly falls within the known and well-trod territory of story-telling...

Why would you expect to see that? Indie publishing is not about breaking the boundaries of traditional story-telling (though I'm sure there's some of that going on as well).

[ekbell]

Originally Posted by Rizla

I expected to see some really original works recommended. Something so out-there that a trad-pub, at least initially, wouldn't touch it because it was such a risk. I'm not seeing that. I'm seeing stuff that mostly falls within the known and well-trod territory of story-telling (zombie, mystery, big spaceships, etc). Apologies if I missed a recommendation that is very original.

Out there in what way?

It's worth considering that people publish books that they hope will sell -if the author doesn't think that a book or story about a were-octopus will sell the author is unlikely to write a were-octopus book for publication- and people will only recommend books that they've read and think others may like. Even if I've read and enjoyed a were-octopus story, I'm not likely to recommend it in response to a general inquiry.


If I want strange and sometimes wonderful and all too often just 'why? how? Brain Bleach please!' material to read I'll go trolling through the recommendation sites for the vast expanses of amateur fiction. (yes, it's mostly fanfic; yes it's mostly horrid drek but not all)

I'm not planning to recommend anything as my memory for which stories are an entertaining mess and which are pro-fic quality isn't reliable.

BTW the were-octopus example is hypothetical although I'm sure there is at least one smutty were-octopus fic out there (see rule 34) .

[cromag]

You might try going to MR's own Self-Promotions by Authors and Publishers forum and looking to see which promotions have garnered favorable comments from other members.

[soulfuldog]

I'd recommend the two Danny Gillan (http://www.goodreads.com/author/show...8.Danny_Gillan) books I've read Will You Love Me Tomorrow & Scratch, but checking on Amazon neither is available anymore? A quick Google finds he appears to have signed a book deal with Cargo Publishing and Will You Love Me Tomorrow is now showing as a pre-order for release March 2016.