My Head Is Full of Books: TTT: Indie and self-published books -- How to find them

"Outside a dog a book is man's best friend, inside a dog it is too dark to read!" -Groucho Marx========="The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel, must be intolerably stupid." -Jane Austen========="I don’t believe in the kind of magic in my books. But I do believe something very magical can happen when you read a good book."-JK Rowling========"I spend a lot of time reading." -Bill Gates=========“Ahhh. Bed, book, kitten, sandwich. All one needed in life, really.” -Jacqueline Kelly=========

Monday, April 3, 2023

TTT: Indie and self-published books -- How to find them

Top Ten Tuesday: How to find indie and self-published books

True confession: I don't often read either of these, indie or self-published books. I often feel overwhelmed trying to read all the books on my TBR, many of them classics or published long ago. Therefore I don't have the space in my brain to explore beyond the normal edges of publishing. So I decided to find out what is out there concerning help in locating these types of books. Here is what I found (click hyperlinks):

A. Locating good indie and self-published books

1. The 61 Greatest Indie Books of All Time. (Discovery, Jan. 19, 2023 on reedsy.com) with short blurbs and sorted by genres, this list is pretty helpful.

2. The 30 Best Self-published Books of All Time. (UpJourney. Dec. 14, 2022.) Who knew The Martian and Legally Blonde were originally self-published? Read on to find some other familiar books which had very lowly starts.

B. Award books for Indie and Self-published books

1. BIBA---Best Indie Books Award (Link to the 2022 BIBA winners) Links to other year's winners on the same page.

2. Next Generation Indie Book Award (Link to 2022 winners) This one has an international feel to it, so we can all enjoy the list.

3. A legit list of Indie book awards. (Writing Cooperative. Nov. 20, 2022) The author Alison McBain tries to highlight only indie book awards that cost little to have the book considered for the award. She mentions nine awards, so I guess Indie Awards are a thing.

4. Bellwether Prize (PEN/Bellweather Prize for Socially Engaged Fiction) Not really an Indie award but it is awarded to writers who have never published a novel before. Established in 1999, the Bellwether Prize has has launched the careers of many new literary voices, writers with outstanding literary skills, moral passion, and the courage to combine these strengths in unusually powerful fiction. Scroll down on the hyperlinked page to see a list of the winners.

5. Top 10 Self-published Book Awards ---Legitimate (IndieReader, Jan. 18, 2018) This is the second time I've noticed the use of the word 'legitimate' when talking about these book awards. This implies there are a lot of not-legitimate options out there. If you are a writer thinking about gaining attention for your self-published book, you'd better do your homework!

6. CYBILS- Children and Young Adult Book Lover's Literary Award-- Not specifically an Indie or a Self-published award but they allow publishers and authors, as well as book bloggers, to nominated books. Myself and many book bloggers I know also serve as judges for this award.

C. My favorite self-published books: