The Great Indie Review Project 2015

I write a lot of reviews. I post more reviews than anything else in fact. And I do it for purely selfish reasons. I like to understand what works (for me) or not and why it works. The reviews help me to do that.

Well it's the beginning of the year and I'm feeling optimistic. Last year I wrote a respectable number of reviews, but this year I want to push that number way up. I plan to continue to read/watch my mainstream books and tv shows (plus the odd movie) and there will be the same reviews of those as always. But now I'm introducing:

Or #GreatIndieReviewProject as I plan to tag it.

It is a concerted effort on my part to expose myself to a wider range of media in addition to the mainstream that I am so fond of. There's a lot of activity in independent publishing both in novels, comic books and games. I want to start sampling that. And if I'm doing that, I'm going to be writing reviews. Because that's what I do.

So why bother calling it a project and giving it a hashtag if I'm just going to be doing what I always do?

Because there is a huge visibility problem with self or independent publishing. Yes they are out there on the internet, but unless you know to look for them, you won't find them. But how would you know to look for them? It's a vicious cycle.

Not only is there a lack of visibility but there's also a lack of independent information about indie projects. Mostly what you have is the self promotional pieces and reviews from friends and family. I believe my reviews stand as a more impartial information source.

This is my small, but hopefully useful, contribution to fixing that problem. And I'd invite others to participate in it.

What Am I Reviewing?

Books, Comic books and games (primarily tabletop games most likely) are my focus. And the reason for that is simple. It's stuff I enjoy so there's at least a reasonable chance that I will have something nice to say about them.

The initial book list is already set. Sorry any author who was about to send me a message. I may add to it again later, but I've already got 20 stories on that list and it takes time to read.

The comic book list is wide open so I'm happy to hear suggestions there. I have a few RPG entries on my Games list, but I hope to expand on that one as the year goes on as well.

Don't Buy, Or Do, It's Your Choice

The point of #GreatIndieReviewProject is not to get you to buy any particular book or game. It is simply to make you aware of their existence. To that end we have this post, which serves as the master repository for the books, comics and games that I am looking at and a Google Docs spreadsheet that contains all the information including links to them (and my reviews if I have written them yet).

The blog post is linkable, the spreadsheet is shareable. I want you to link to it and share it.

I will be doing reviews the way I always have. I will give my honest and fairly in depth opinion on the product. I'll say what I like and what I don't like. Again I'm not trying to persuade you to buy any particular thing. Nor will I be feeding into any of that "buy indie" guilt trip crap. I'm just making information available.

How Can You Join In?

Well it couldn't be simpler really. You can share this blog post. +1 it, Tweet it, Like it whatever. You can share a link to the Google Docs spreadsheet and if you do, please use that hashtag #GreatIndieReviewProject

You can also try out the products that I'm writing about. They are all there on the spreadsheet and there are links too. Some are free, some cost money. If you do try them out, post about that, share information about the product and again, use the hash tag.

Or if you're feeling ambitious, write your own reviews. Indie authors, artists and game designers love to get reviews. And again, use the hashtag.

The Great Indie Review Project Spreadsheet

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