Adrian Tchaikovsky. Classic-to-be. Start with Children of Time.

Robert wrote: "Adrian Tchaikovsky. Classic-to-be. Start with Children of Time."

Amazing book

Robert wrote: "Adrian Tchaikovsky. Classic-to-be. Start with Children of Time."

100% could not agree more!

Amanda wrote: "Robert wrote: "Adrian Tchaikovsky. Classic-to-be. Start with Children of Time."

100% could not agree more!"

Except this is supposed to be new authors and Adrian Tchaikovsky has been published for over 15 years now. Incidentally, I also love his work, at least his SF work, but he is not a 'new author' which is what this blog is about: "Rising Stars of Sci-Fi and Fantasy"

Ryan Cahill

The Fallen (prequel novella)
Of Blood and Fire--Book 1 of The Bound & the Broken
Of Darkness & Light--Book 2 of The Bound & the Broken
The Exile--novella
Of War and Ruin--Book 3---due out 12/22

y'all might find New Speculative Fiction Stars 2020 2029 interesting

I don't think many know about Queer Space Books yet. I have a first novel with them, and there is a decent list of very unconventional titles there.

"Forget the classic tomes of adult sci-fi and fantasy that are bound to show up in recommendations almost everywhere. (I know a few immediately came to mind.) Now is a great time to start reading emerging authors who are writing the classics-to-be! These new writers have expanded the genre: showcasing more diverse characters, imaginative worlds, and embracing every subgenre possible." <---- Yeah, riiight...Not!! If this was a true statement, I am almost positive we'd be seeing far more self-published Indie Authors on this list every single year. (-_-)

Christopher Ruocchio's Empire of Silence (Sun Eater series) is easily my favorite new author I have found in the past year or so.

Mitchell wrote: "y'all might find New Speculative Fiction Stars 2020 2029 interesting"

Thanks for linking this!

I fell in love with Legends & Lattes by Travis Baldree. Cozy Fantasy at its finest.

Ross wrote: "If this was a true statement, I am almost positive we'd be seeing far more self-published Indie Authors on this list every single year. (-_-)."

Your self-published books, I assume is what you're trying to hint at.

Speaking of self-published books, they're no different than trad publishing. They need to achieve actual popularity before they can be commended or widely recommended on social media lists. A lot of self-published books make it! I've seen plenty. But self-published authors who get noticed by the global reading community usually have a strong reason for it, like high 5-star ratings on GR, or a catchy book cover design.

I can't wait to read Silver in the Wood. Look at that gorgeous cover, too! 🤩

I still have to read the Tamsyn Muir first two books of the series before the 3rd one, Nona the Ninth, is released!! ^^

More to add to my TBR!

Patty wrote: "Ross wrote: "If this was a true statement, I am almost positive we'd be seeing far more self-published Indie Authors on this list every single year. (-_-)."

Your self-published books, I assume is ..."

Okay, Patty. I'll admit you're at least partially correct about me trying to hint at my own self-published works. Though I would certainly like to see other self-published books (And authors!) make it on a rising-stars list, like this one, sometime in the near future. Then perhaps I wouldn't act so down in the dumps in regards to immensely-popular authors and their words being showcased like this, year after year.

By the way, could you or anyone else here perhaps tell me what constitutes a catchy book cover design?

Ross wrote: "Okay, Patty. I'll admit you're at least partially correct about me trying to hint at my own self-published works. Though I would certainly like to see other self-published books (And authors!) make it on a rising-stars list, like this one, sometime in the near future. Then perhaps I wouldn't act so down in the dumps in regards to immensely-popular authors and their words being showcased like this, year after year."

Nobody owes you an audience, readership, or admiration. This is something that every author needs to understand. Whether you feel "down in the dumps" about Goodreads lists like this one or not, there are two things to keep in mind: #1, Goodreads is a business and an Amazon subsidiary meant to help readers keep track of their books. It is not a promotional vessel for self-published authors to hawk their books at people, and it never was. #2, you are not entitled by default to an audience or to respect from readers. You have to earn that by writing quality books and developing a strong fanbase. I don't know a lot about your book series because I only read one book in the series. I do know that you said some rude and offensive things earlier this year that upset some other authors, which was not a good idea - your public persona is just as important as your books themselves if you want to have a lasting fanbase that doesn't leave you.

Ross wrote: "By the way, could you or anyone else here perhaps tell me what constitutes a catchy book cover design?"

Not KDP cover templates and stock art. Ever.

If you can't financially afford professional-looking cover art like the cover art of the books featured on this list, trade for it. Reach out to new artists and ask them if they would mind volunteering to design your cover art for free, in exchange for credit in the book or public promotion. Ask another author you're friends with if they would do your cover art for you, assuming they designed their own themselves. But using stock art that's been used by others a million times before, and using KDP text/cover templates, is a big no-no and turn-off for readers, especially readers who buy and collect books with unique cover art. And this is not a slight against self-published authors: there are thousands of self-published authors with beautifully-illustrated book covers, but that takes either money or personal effort to create. This goes back to the simple fact that self-publishing is still vanity publishing if you want to have a professional-looking book, but it's worth the artistic effort or the money if it gets people more interested in buying and reading your stuff. Look at Still Alice or even that erotica title Fifty Shades of Grey, which required nothing fancy or expensive for cover art, and you'll see that the professional presentation of these books is what made them eye-catching. They didn't just put KDP template text over a random photo of a tree or a burning fire. They used careful minimalism and high-quality but basic images and text to create a professional appearance. Walk in those shoes, pal. Don't walk in KDP's shoes.

Patty wrote: "Ross wrote: "Okay, Patty. I'll admit you're at least partially correct about me trying to hint at my own self-published works. Though I would certainly like to see other self-published books (And a..."

Okay, this was a firm but helpful reply in the end. I only wish this particular Amazon subsidiary had a like button or at least a thanks or acknowledgment button, so the commenter doesn't have to leave a reply every time there's a new post where they are mentioned in directly. I'll take your last bit of advice to heart, especially.

Ross wrote: """Forget the classic tomes of adult sci-fi and fantasy that are bound to show up in recommendations almost everywhere. (I know a few immediately came to mind.) Now is a great time to start reading emerging authors who are writing the classics-to-be! These new writers have expanded the genre: showcasing more diverse characters, imaginative worlds, and embracing every subgenre possible." <---- Yeah, riiight...Not!! If this was a true statement, I am almost positive we'd be seeing far more self-published Indie Authors on this list every single year. (-_-)"

I can only agree with you, they're focusing on trad-published authors who already have a decent enough backing (unless their publisher just sucks) but never actually helping to discover new authors, let alone self-published authors who need every bit of precious visibility.

At least 80% of my reads each year are self-published books each year. Rather than making the rich and famous even more so and feeding greedy corporations that give authors meager royalties, I'll give my money to someone who appreciates it.

Tomas wrote: "Ross wrote: """Forget the classic tomes of adult sci-fi and fantasy that are bound to show up in recommendations almost everywhere. (I know a few immediately came to mind.) Now is a great time to s..."

Thanks a lot for saying this, Tomas!

Many of the readers on here have no Earthly idea how many people are self-published authors but still remain in the dark, being virtually unknown because all-Or most-of the already popular 'mainstream' trad-published authors constantly keep on overshadowing the rest of us.

Just because I cannot afford a decent enough backing or professional-looking cover art right now doesn't mean the books I wrote should be kept hidden away and obscure forever.

On this note, you're welcome to add and message me on here, Tomas K. Grizzly.

Ross wrote: "Most-of the already popular 'mainstream' trad-published authors constantly keep on overshadowing the rest of us. Just because I cannot afford a decent enough backing or professional-looking cover art right now doesn't mean the books I wrote should be kept hidden away and obscure forever."

Some probably not-so-welcome advice: Trad publishers earned every right to "overshadow" you because the consensus is they write amazing books. You don't even have any consensus yet. Why shouldn't your books remain obscure in comparison? Your personal opinion that they're good isn't good enough. We were all told Empress Theresa would be amazing, too. And Goodreads isn't there to support self-published content. It was never designed for that (see its corporate mission statement). Did you know that some of the international world's most esteemed classics were never famous in the author's lifetime? They were censored by the government, or they were laughed at, or they simply never happened to earn enough attention to retain a strong readership. The authors did not take this as "trad authors overshadowing me". They wrote more stuff and moved on, or they started new projects. Some of them found creative ways to get their books in the hands of readers. Many of them never lived to see fame for their work, but that wasn't why they were writing. They wrote because they loved to write and had a story to tell. You can actually tell the difference between a book written out of passion and one written to make money. Pick up a copy of The Lightning Thief and compare it to Maradonia and the Seven Bridges. Which of the two do you think was written out of true love for the craft of writing?

Y'all should write to Goodreads's parent company, Amazon, or start your own website that you can use for promoting self-published books specifically. Or reach out to local news outlets. Did you know that local news coverage also gets aggregated into Google News? That's another vessel for self-promotion, because if your books are good enough to qualify for media coverage, then that's complimentary. Ask local reporters and journalists to cover your books as a human interest section. It'll cost you nothing to ask them, but if you wait around for Goodreads to promote your books, the truth is it's never going to. That might be harsh, but look at how and why Goodreads was designed - Goodreads was originally started in the early 2000s as a book-tracking site for READERS. Any comforts or capabilities for authors were always secondary to that. Then Amazon bought the site in 2013, and Amazon's goal is to make money, not to promote products that are either not selling or unlikely to sell. If your books have less that a 3.50 overall rating on Goodreads, and almost no reviews, or if the top reviews are mostly negative, then in Amazon's eyes, there's no good enough reason to spend time or money promoting that. It wouldn't be a good business decision, and Amazon can see what royalties you're making and how much of that compares to what trad authors are making for them. You could buy adspace (but from one reader to an author, here's a secret: we all use ad-blocking software now!), or use Goodreads Giveaways, but it will never get you where you want to be. You need to branch out beyond Goodreads and away from the internet. Even if it's embarrassing, you need to ask local businesses if they might consider selling your books. You need to contact the news media in your area. And you need to build a lasting fanbase for your work that goes beyond just one or two readers here and there.

As a marketing professional in my own private life, I can also give you guys one more important tip: Google yourselves. Look up your own names ("Ross Eberle author") and go from one Google results page to the next. Look at who's talking about your books, if anybody, and what they're saying. Look at where your main attention is coming from. Is it from Amazon? From YouTube? From Facebook? Check everywhere: Google Images, Google News, Tumblr, Wordpress, Instagram, Reddit, Blogger, all the good channels. Then use those channels to your advantage? Do you have accounts through these channels? Are you talking to your readers there, or mostly just on Goodreads? Branch out!

And if all else fails, try selling your print paperbacks cheaper. Nobody these days wants to pay more than $13 US for a self-published book. Read EVERY review people leave on your books too, even the negative ones, but try not to respond to them personally. Instead, use them as a tool for learning. You might already do this, I don't know, but negative reviews are your best friend. They'll tell you what you're doing wrong, but more importantly what you're doing right so you can keep doing what people like.

Patty, I see your point, though there are some inaccuracies with your post. And I don't mean the mistake where you say that traditional publishers write better books (because it's authors, not publishers, who write books). I've seen the QA levels on trad-published books decline (more typos passing through editors, formatting worse than I could do in 30 minutes with a HTML/CSS guide, not using some built-in tools of e-readers, etc.). Many trad-published books have quite bland covers (just look at the books mentioned in this very post - how many of them are something you instantly associate with S-F or fantasy?) DESPITE the major funding. They have access to much better (or at least better-paid) cover artists than most self-pub authors yet the results are often... meh. But that's not my point here.

My point is different: both Amazon and the self-pub authors actually make a better % per sale of s self-pub book (because that money is split just between them) than per sale of a trad-published book. Unless something changed over the last couple of years, traditional publishers sell books for more yet give authors lower % royalties. Traditional publishers are ripping off both authors (through low e-book royalties) and readers (by price-gouging e-books). That was one of the main reasons I started to read self-pub books more, and I realized that the quality can be just as good. And the writers actually appreciate your reviews more.

As for the pricing of Ross' books... I don't know the parameters, but the minimum allowed price can get quite high for a self-pub book if the book is on the longer side. Even for shorter books, Amazon may not allow less than $10 because they want to make a profit on that as well, and the pricing system is designed with that in mind. That said, self-pub books are, by a vast majority, read as e-books, so the pricing of a paperback isn't a major point for most self-pub authors (again, the price difference between e-book and print is probably a major factor.

If some parts of my knowledge are outdated, feel free to correct me.

Tomas wrote: "Patty, I see your point, though there are some inaccuracies with your post. And I don't mean the mistake where you say that traditional publishers write better books (because it's authors, not publ..."

Your knowledge is not wrong (BTW using publisher in place of author was just a typo on my part, sorry), but what you claim also ignores the reality of the publishing industry and the role that Goodreads and Amazon are supposed to play.

"both Amazon and the self-pub authors actually make a better % per sale of s self-pub book (because that money is split just between them) than per sale of a trad-published book."

That's if the self-published book sells well or readers actually want to buy it. This assumes that your books or Ross Eberle's books or any of these other self-published books are good enough to warrant any degree of strong marketing on Amazon's part, or else it would just be a business loss. I know nothing about your books (I won't judge them because I haven't read them yet, and they could be really good). I know Ross Eberle's first book is circling the 2/5 star rating drain and that most of his reviews are negative, and on top of that, if you search "Ross Eberle author" online, you find his book listed among titles like Maradonia and Onision stuff. I don't realistically see how or why it would benefit Amazon to try and market his books.

Many trad-published books have quite bland covers (just look at the books mentioned in this very post - how many of them are something you instantly associate with S-F or fantasy?)

I've bought some of these books. They're quite lovely in print because they have embossed dust jackets, gilt page edges and other features that make them stand out. A self-published book is always a flat matte or glossy cover in a select few available trim sizes. This comes to matter less with eBooks. But self-published books, at least if it's done through KDP, will always look alike to a certain point. There's also "bland", but then there's just bad. Would you pick out any book on this list and seriously say the cover was bad, even if you thought it was lackluster in design? Then look at some of the self-published books of Eberle's, and compare the covers. But that wasn't really a commentary on self-published covers in general, I was more pointing out that Eberle himself needs to up his game if he really expects a large crowd to pay for and want to collect his titles.

Amazon may not allow less than $10 because they want to make a profit on that as well, and the pricing system is designed with that in mind. That said, self-pub books are, by a vast majority, read as e-books, so the pricing of a paperback isn't a major point for most self-pub authors (again, the price difference between e-book and print is probably a major factor.

Yes, this is true. Here's the problem, though: a lot of self-published authors who are inexperienced think that larger books display better on a shelf, and so when I read my paperback of Eberle's Sky Fighters and Houndy Crunchers, this was an example of that trend. He had huge spaces between the paragraphs, no justified or formatted text (plenty of bolded/italic text, though), no footer/header, no proper paragraph indentation and no set text size. His book was huge, and more expensive as a result. It was not an omnibus. It was a small novel.

There's a reason why most self-published books sell as eBooks instead of as printed books, and it goes mostly back to aesthetics and limited budgets. Trad books (especially genre fiction) are displayable, self-published ones are less-so. And if you buy a terrible self-published eBook for $2 versus the $15 it might be in print, you're saving yourself a fortune. Most trad eBooks are priced much higher (Stephen King's go for $10 roughly, for example), so if you're a reader, you can get more bang for your buck with self-published books, whether they're good or bad or somewhere in between.

Some self-published books are great. Let's not knock self-publishing, if we remember that Charlotte Bronte was a self-published author! Are they deserving of promotion from a business perspective, though? From an altruistic standpoint, Amazon should be shouting out Ross Eberle's name from the rooftops and parading him around just to get his books out in the hands of readers, but Amazon is a business, not a fluff factory. It couldn't care less how Eberle feels or how he does with his content unless they can make money off it. Remember, this is the company that had no qualms happily releasing Is Greta Thunberg just a puppet?: The truth about the the youngest ambientalist. and How I Cured My Autism: By Correcting Its Cause (until they got slapped with a lawsuit). Goodreads, to Amazon, is a giant metadata bank and a business asset where readers can track their books, which builds more data for Amazon at no direct cost to Amazon. Somebody like Ross Eberle is so low on their radar that Amazon probably has no idea he even exists, except in the sense that it retains his stuff for royalties, like many other authors. If you look at Eberle's books from Amazon's eyes, there is no incentive to market those books. To risk a PR scheme on the hopes that the books will sell would be putting the cart before the horse. The consensus among what few reviews the books have gotten is that they're either bad, or "bad but imaginative" (which is being polite and seems to mostly be coming from this author who used to be friends with Eberle and doesn't want to hurt his feelings). When there are all these beautiful trad-published titles already lining up at the door for promotion on Goodreads, and all of them will undoubtedly sell well, why should Amazon toss in Eberle's books on the list? For charity? For shits and giggles?

This probably all sounds extremely mean-spirited and nasty to Eberle, but keep in mind that I'm one of the readers who actually coughed up over ten bucks for his paperback book, thinking it looked interesting, and I'm finding this more and more among self-published authors of the bad variety: they command respect and admiration by default, and they can't figure out why these big American corporations, like Goodreads, aren't right there promoting their books among books that have already proven successful with mainstream audiences. Sometimes I think the lack of tough love is what drives self-published authors towards KDP in the first place. They want the fame, they want the money, they want to put "author" on their social media profiles and get all the clout that comes with being published, but they don't want to have an audience first. Eberle is just the latest of these types of self-pubbed authors I've bought books from and came to regret. I should have read his Goodreads reviews first. That's my fault.

Patty wrote: "That's if the self-published book sells well or readers actually want to buy it."
Which isone of my points. Percentage-wise, Amazon gets a bigger cut on self-pub books than on trad-pub books. A $10 trad-pub book gives around $1 to the author, $1 to Amazon, and the rest is to the publisher (who uses part of it for profit and part of it to cover the costs). A $5 self-pub book gives the author around $3-$3,5 (assuming it's the 70% royalty territory) and Amazon around $1,5-$2 (details will vary depending on file size, taxes, etc). So a self-pub book (assuming it's good enough to sell) gives both the author and Amazon more money even if the book is sold on a lower price point - though, as you say, it needs to be discovered and stand up to reader's expectations first. And discovery is the biggest hurdle for self-pub authors who can't just grab $10k and splash it on a big launch promo.

You're right that there's a MASSIVE variety in the quality and originality of book covers among self-pub books. As someone who reads self-pub authors more than trad-pub, I've seen self-pub authors fail massively when it comes to their covers - but there's a difference between a large company with an almost unlimited budget and self-pub authors for whose even $200 may be hard to part with. But, yes, some of those books will lose readers faster than gain due to poor choice of covers. As for Ross, specifically, I've looked into my post and message history here on Goodreads and I've, in fact, mentioned something along those lines to him - TWO years ago. As for formatting - I haven't seen how Ross' books are formatted but I know - again, from other books I've read - that there are several ways to screw this up. And that trad-pub books screw up other aspects of formatting than self-pub books. Hell, I've seen people just directly upload their MSWord file to Amazon and that's it. Does it work? Yes. Does it look any decent? Rarely.

You mention price as a factor for the sale of self-pub books - and that's also a good point. But the fact self-pub books are more sold as digital rather than print is also because the lower price of ebooks (let alone services like Kindle Unlimited) make it easier for people to try new authors. Even downloading the free sample of an e-book is a good way - when you get to the end of the sample, you can buy the rest of the book with just one click.

My point here isn't to push Ross' books (or anyone else's for that matter), but to point out the obvious bias and the misleading title of this blog - which does nothing at all to help people discover something (because those books are well known). My point is that there's major bias and prejudice from various sources - including the staff and many users of Goodreads - against self-published books. Amazon will happily sell self-pub books as long as the author does the heavy lifting and emerges from the telephone number rankings to a point where they're getting sustained sales. Despite that, even many successful self-pub books get little space on these Goodreads blogs [which, more often than not, seems more like camouflaged advertising of big-name books than anything else]. That's one of my issues here.

Patty wrote: "I'm finding this more and more among self-published authors of the bad variety: they command respect and admiration by default, and they can't figure out why these big American corporations, like Goodreads, aren't right there promoting their books among books that have already proven successful with mainstream audiences. Sometimes I think the lack of tough love is what drives self-published authors towards KDP in the first place. They want the fame, they want the money, they want to put "author" on their social media profiles and get all the clout that comes with being published, but they don't want to have an audience first."

Yeah, the desire for gratification is a problem - in everything, not just writing. I was lucky enough to mostly encounter authors who write for the love of writing. That said, KDP is probably the most newbie-friendly way to publish something - which leads some to publish stuff that's not really ready in several aspects. And, knowing I have some expectations when buying a book, I'm not supporting that approach at all. So, again, my gripe is with cases where the person put quite a lot of hard work - up to hundreds of hours of revisions, makes sure to get things formatted right, does their best to create a story that actually makes sense - but people will avoid their book without even looking at the sample just because it's self-published, due to quite a numerous people publishing stuff that's not really ready.

Tomas wrote: "Patty wrote: "That's if the self-published book sells well or readers actually want to buy it."
Which isone of my points. Percentage-wise, Amazon gets a bigger cut on self-pub books than on trad-pu..."

I think Ross Eberle has kinda put the last nails in his own coffin at this point - he said some nasty things about female authors that I don't want to repeat here - but you are right that, generally speaking, there is an unspoken prejudice against self-published books, and newbie authors uploading junk doesn't help. I think KDP has a lot of flaws. It allows for an ease of plagiarized and pirated content to be published, it allows for sheer garbage to be published, and illegal material abounds. Self-published authors who want to be taken seriously and treated like true professionals may want to start distancing themselves from that.

They should buy their own imprints for a start. I failed to also mention the growing movement to boycott Amazon and its subsidiaries, and a book marked "Independently Published", "Createspace", "Kindle Direct" or blank is a dead giveaway to readers that the book is a self-published Amazon project. Buying an imprint for your ISBN reduces this bias, and also still allows you to publish through Amazon, which will accept your personal imprint in most cases. If the book then looks professional enough, it can pass for trad, which gets its foot in the door, at least.

The Martian, Still Alice, Hunger for Life and many more all started out as self-published in the digital age. Two of those three titles have been adapted into applauded feature films. Hunger For Life has a Wikipedia page. So, it can be done, but as you say, the struggle is real. But if there's a high enough demand for it, Goodreads might start promoting lists for actual indie authors and define indie less loosely than just "small imprints of trad publishers".

Ohh, man!

What have I instigated on this thread all of the sudden? Well, it doesn't really matter how I instigated it, but I would like to add in a few lines quoted by you, Patty Wilby, and you, Tomas K. Grizzly, and take the time to reply to each one in turn...

Ist quote by Patty: "Did you know that local news coverage also gets aggregated into Google News? That's another vessel for self-promotion, because if your books are good enough to qualify for media coverage, then that's complimentary. Ask local reporters and journalists to cover your books as a human interest section. It'll cost you nothing to ask them."

My response: Patty, this is a really good idea and certainly one I am willing to try, sometime in the near future. I don't know if they'll answer or take me seriously or my novel series for this matter, but again, if there's any chance for me to gain extra publicity, then I'm going to take it and give it my best effort!

IInd quote by Tomas: "As for the pricing of Ross' books... I don't know the parameters, but the minimum allowed price can get quite high for a self-pub book if the book is on the longer side. Even for shorter books, Amazon may not allow less than $10 because they want to make a profit on that as well."

My response: Well, up until very recently, the pricing of my Kindle books was precisely the same as my paperbacks. But several months ago, a new friend and fan of mine suggested I change the prices of those books down to around $2.99 each. Not only did I take his suggestion to heart, but I even made sure to price each one properly, according to its length, overall. This includes the page and word count. So, the novellas are priced at $2.50 each, while the longer novels are $2.99 each. And you guys don't know this yet, but if you check my Amazon author page (Not Goodreads!), you'll see which I also have a trilogy of short stories, which is the most recent work I published. It is available for $2.00 in Kindle format and $5.00 as a paperback. Amazon doesn't seem to mind such a low price for a self-published book. On this note, either one of you are welcome to message me privately for the link to my Amazon profile, since I don't want Goodreads assuming I may be trying to hijack this thread.

IIIrd quote by Patty: "Here's the problem, though: a lot of self-published authors who are inexperienced think that larger books display better on a shelf, and so when I read my paperback of Eberle's Sky Fighters and Houndy Crunchers, this was an example of that trend. He had huge spaces between the paragraphs, no justified or formatted text (plenty of bolded/italic text, though), no footer/header, no proper paragraph indentation and no set text size. His book was huge, and more expensive as a result. It was not an omnibus. It was a small novel."

My response: Patty, I'm not sure if you're aware of this or not, but one distinct advantage I have as a self-published 'KDP' author is the ability to go back and make changes to one or more of my own books. Doing so not only allows me to change my covers to something which might be more well-suited for novels of the genre I typically write in (sci-fi and fantasy), but I can also re-upload my book-files whenever I make changes to any of those books I wrote in the past. And yesh, I actually do re-write my novels every so often. I even do a thorough proofreading job on every single book I write before I click on the 'Publish' button on the final KDP author's page used in publishing those works. I might not be able to afford a professional proofreader on my current budget, however, this doesn't mean I'll skip out on ensuring my books aren't of the low-brow quality which the 'Maradonia and Onision stuff' is infamous for. Plus, I've been doing complete or near-complete re-writes of the first 4 novels I wrote. And in doing so, I've also taken steps to ensure everything within them is as professional as a self-published indie author with a limited budget can produce. This may not yet amount to hundreds of hours of revisions as you mentioned, Patty, but I am sure I've done more than several dozens of hours worth of revisions already. And this is also considering I have other things to do with my life besides writing.

IVth quote by Tomas: "My point here isn't to push Ross' books (or anyone else's for that matter), but to point out the obvious bias and the misleading title of this blog - which does nothing at all to help people discover something (because those books are well known). My point is that there's major bias and prejudice from various sources - including the staff and many users of Goodreads - against self-published books. Amazon will happily sell self-pub books as long as the author does the heavy lifting and emerges from the telephone number rankings to a point where they're getting sustained sales. Despite that, even many successful self-pub books get little space on these Goodreads blogs [which, more often than not, seems more like camouflaged advertising of big-name books than anything else]. That's one of my issues here."

I agree with you, here again, Tomas. And I may not be trying to push mine or anyone else's books on readers who came here to quote un-quote 'discover' new authors. However, how can anyone who reads headliner-posts like this one be able to discover all the new authors or far more obscure authors like Tomas and I if we're never given a fair chance to make ourselves well known or notable enough? Sure, we can seek out local news coverage as Patty noted above, but even if we do and they publicize us and our works, will it be enough to get a major corporation, like Goodreads to mention us on one of their front pages? On top of all this, and in direct reference to the last billet Patty mentioned of me, I don't believe I've struck the last nails in my own coffin at this point. I've been working extra hard on trying to turn over a new leaf and restore the damage I've inadvertently added onto my already cracked reputation. And it was cracked mainly by negative reviewers here and on other social media platforms, namely Reddit, which I refuse to participate in for certain reasons.

This is all I have to say. It might be longer than anyone here would be interested in reading, but I wanted to clear up a few misconceptions in regards to me and especially my writing.

Ross wrote: "Ohh, man!

What have I instigated on this thread all of the sudden? Well, it doesn't really matter how I instigated it, but I would like to add in a few lines quoted by you, Patty Wilby, and you, [..."

I don't believe I've struck the last nails in my own coffin at this point. I've been working extra hard on trying to turn over a new leaf and restore the damage I've inadvertently added onto my already cracked reputation. And it was cracked mainly by negative reviewers here and on other social media platforms, namely Reddit, which I refuse to participate in for certain reasons."

That's good, but it kinda illustrates my exact point. You're blaming "negative reviewers" for something you did. I don't know about anything on Reddit, but Reddit users have every right to criticize books. Anyway, you can't make bad behavior go away. You can only work to do better in the future, and try to make amends with anybody you offended. It would probably help if you didn't blame your reputation on reviewers, since from what I've seen, even your negative reviewers say flattering things about you as a person (Marc "Dark Reader of the Woods" and Rebecca Maye Holiday both have perfectly valid complaints, but they both also point out good qualities in your books). As for the Reddit stuff, all I could find about your books on Reddit were a couple of posts complaining about a t-shirt with a quote of yours on it that looked weird or something. Nothing reputation-ruining.

You have to learn to let those kinds of things go and not get involved with them, never mind not blaming them for the lack of your own success. There will always be critics. Some critics can be very rude, but they're allowed to be, and that doesn't mean it's their fault. Those people you say make your reputation look bad happen to be the audience for your books, so you might as well appreciate them more than you do, but more than that, you should also learn from what they say. Go back and read all the reviews on your books, and learn from them. Take the good, keep the good, and learn from the bad. Don't let the bad become a point of anger or resentment. Authors who do that, or who hold grudges, don't do very well in this industry.

"And yesh, I actually do re-write my novels every so often."

"Yesh" ?? 🤔

But seriously, good on you for re-writing... only, most published authors don't do this. If you need to routinely edit and re-publish your books, that's a sign that you need to either hire a professional editor or move on from this series and start something completely new. Authors who are published typically write static books.

"And you guys don't know this yet, but if you check my Amazon author page (Not Goodreads!), you'll see which I also have a trilogy of short stories, which is the most recent work I published. It is available for $2.00 in Kindle format and $5.00 as a paperback. Amazon doesn't seem to mind such a low price for a self-published book. On this note, either one of you are welcome to message me privately for the link to my Amazon profile, since I don't want Goodreads assuming I may be trying to hijack this thread."

I can look up your Amazon profile if I want to (I don't), but I might read your short story collection sometime. I'll add it to my to-read list if it makes you happy.

As for starting your own imprint... that may be quite tricky and depend a lot on where you live. I don't know how it is in the USA but one of my beta swaps is from Australia and I believe she mentioned on her blog that Australia's laws are written in a way that favors creating your own imprint. In my country... not really the case. It would probably be a ton of paperwork and an endless treadmill of visiting various offices to set this up - and having to do two tax reports each year. If I go directly to Amazon, I just put my royalties (when I have some) into my standard tax report and that's it (plus, in my country, royalties are free of income tax up to ~400€/month).
I also don't know how it goes with ISBNs across countries - and that's another advantage of KDP, you don't need ISBN at all for Kindle e-books and Amazon assigns you a free ISBN for print books if you don't have your own. The last time I checked [around 2018 or so], ISBNs in the USA are ludicrously expensive to buy unless you buy by hundreds on bulk discounts.
So, whether a writer does or doesn't create their own imprint may end up being a financially and legally prudent choice more than anything else - and very dependent on location.

When I browse for books - I check the name and cover first, those need to persuade me that the book is in the genre I want to read (I've already mentioned this). Then, I check the description - and if this makes it seem like something I'd love to read, it goes to my TBR (along with notes about the book and series length). Who is listed as the publisher has exactly zero impact on whether or not I'll read a book. Whether that's normal or rare behavior, I can't tell.

Patty wrote: "You're blaming "negative reviewers" for something you did."

This may be true, however, I am not blaming all negative reviewers for this. The ones I blame are the obviously fake 'sock-puppet' accounts like this one: https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/1... ...Who leave blank ratings of 1-star on one or more of my books and others, who aren't fake, but left scathing one-liners on them, such as: "What even the ever-loving f*ck is this?" ...Ohh, wait a moment. You wrote this, Patty? I had no idea! But, here's another somewhat scathing review of my 7th novel: "I won this book in a goodreads drawing.

DNF There's a lot happening, but I didn't know the names or the situation, so I was lost from the first page, and never caught up." ...Sadly, reviews like this one don't provide a lot of information on much, if anything which the reviewer found so off-putting about a book I wrote, which they read and subsequently reviewed.

Patty wrote: "It would probably help if you didn't blame your reputation on reviewers, since from what I've seen, even your negative reviewers say flattering things about you as a person (Marc "Dark Reader of the Woods" and Rebecca Maye Holiday both have perfectly valid complaints, but they both also point out good qualities in your books)."

I have nothing personal against either of those people. In fact, Marc and I are good friends, and I actually found most of his reviews comical, if not downright hilarious. I also promised him and at least a couple of others within my audience which I would finish the series for them. And I am doing it more for them and less for myself, actually.

Patty wrote: "As for the Reddit stuff, all I could find about your books on Reddit were a couple of posts complaining about a t-shirt with a quote of yours on it that looked weird or something. Nothing reputation-ruining."

In one of my past blog postings, I went into some detail about each of the two posts on Reddit which I found were pretty far out of line, even some critics allowed to be very rude. Since I still would rather not act out as though I am name-shaming anyone, I will only quote what I mentioned seeing in those posts on Reddit: "I have also stumbled upon a public discussion-thread about me and my series, on Reddit of all places! And no, the two or more users weren't singing my praises. In fact, both of them-Who I suspect are very bored, male trolls-Are using Reddit as a means to publicly name and shame not only those novels, but ME PERSONALLY, as an author. Not only are they guilty of this blatantly-shameful behavior, but they've also accused me of creating a fake-name of an author, whom I've given credit to in the acknowledgments portion of my 7th Sky Fighters novel."
(In the second post made on Reddit by this guy, he accused me of being quote-unquote "in love" with my Mom. Not to mention doing so and including a few choice cuss-words.)

Sadly, it was posts like the ones I found on Reddit, coupled with blank ratings and vague negative reviews of my novels which led me to inadvertently begin responding in kind, via my own scathing reviews of other authors' books I read, mostly at the behest of said authors, which resulted in Rebecca severing her ties of friendship with me. I actually do regret most of the things I've said, especially on those books I reviewed.

However...You did point one detail out, which I feel could validate my reason behind my negative reviews of those authors: Patty wrote: "There will always be critics. Some critics can be very rude, but they're allowed to be, and that doesn't mean it's their fault."

While this is a valid point as well, it kind of sounds like it's contradicting itself, because I'm sure many people decide to read books which they would not normally take any interest in. As a reader myself, I've picked up certain books and read some parts or all of them, because I was curious and wanted to honor the writers because I spoke to them here and agreed to give their books a read. And I'm sure many of those authors I met might have also wanted to give my books a try.

...So, does this mean they can trash my books all they want, but I can't do the same to theirs if I had enough reasons to dislike their books? Well once again, I'm sorry, but a wise man on Goodreads once pointed something quite important out: A lot of self-published authors, and especially Indie authors like me have to "wear many hats" if we decide to write novels to be published, somewhere. These include not only having to be our own copyrighters, but also our own editors and/or proofreaders, if we can't find someone else to do so, our own publishers-For those of us who have little to no choice but to self-publish, our own cover-artists or creators, our own promotion-team, our own distributors, for those who earned free copies, and our own campaigners and/or networking strategists...Whew!

This is a lot of hats to wear, for someone, whose main goal was to write a book and have it be published and available to a wide audience...Wouldn't you agree? Being a Jack-of-all-trades like this is bound to become stressful after a few years or so.

Patty wrote: "If you need to routinely edit and re-publish your books, that's a sign that you need to either hire a professional editor or move on from this series and start something completely new."

Sorry, but since this is an epic-saga-length novel series, which I am very close to finishing, I cannot simply abandon it. Especially when I already promised a number of my readers I'd see this project all the way through to the end. And besides, when I start something which I'm passionate about, I'll do whatever I can to ensure I finish it. Because I've heard it's always a good idea for us to finish the things (Projects) we started.

Sorry, this became another lengthy response of mine.

A small edit: Patty wrote: "I can look up your Amazon profile if I want to (I don't), but I might read your short story collection sometime. I'll add it to my to-read list if it makes you happy."

In all honesty, Patty, nothing would make me happier than to know you've added my short story collection onto your own 'to-read' list. Hearing those words is enough to convince me which even people who aren't so fond of me still find my works intriguing. You have my thanks in regards to this.

"The ones I blame are the obviously fake 'sock-puppet' accounts like this one: https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/1... ...Who leave blank ratings of 1-star on one or more of my books and others, who leave scathing one-liners on them, such as: "What even the ever-loving f*ck is this?" ...Ohh, wait a moment. You wrote this, Patty?"

Do you even know what a "sock-puppet account" is? It's not anybody who leaves a rating without a review. A sock-puppet is a fake account designed deliberately for the purposes of inflating ratings on another person's book, or for review-bombing, which is a rare thing to happen to self-published authors. And yes, I did give your book a one-liner review. If you must know, your "Pocahontas" Sky Fighter character was offensive and a stereotype to me as a First Nations person, and the book was too full of typos to even be coherent.

"In one of my past blog postings, I went into some detail about each of the two posts on Reddit which I found were pretty far out of line, even some critics allowed to be very rude. Since I still would rather not act out as though I am name-shaming anyone, I will only quote what I mentioned seeing in those posts on Reddit: "I have also stumbled upon a public discussion-thread about me and my series, on Reddit of all places! And no, the two or more users weren't singing my praises. In fact, both of them-Who I suspect are very bored, male trolls-Are using Reddit as a means to publicly name and shame not only those novels, but ME PERSONALLY, as an author. Not only are they guilty of this blatantly-shameful behavior, but they've also accused me of creating a fake-name of an author, whom I've given credit to in the acknowledgments portion of my 7th Sky Fighters novel."
(In the second post made on Reddit by this guy, he accused me of being quote-unquote "in love" with my Mom. Not to mention doing so and including a few choice cuss-words.)"

We're all adults here, Ross. People swear sometimes, sorry, but that's life. And I couldn't find any Reddit posts like the one you're talking about, so either it was taken down, or it never existed to begin with. In either case, don't have kittens over it. Most authors get negative criticism, or what you call "trolling", at some point in life. And how do you know they were "male"? Why does that matter? I'm not even going to get into the dynamics of how you, as a "male" yourself, responded to females in your own social circle, but let's just say pigs will be pigs.

"Sadly, it was posts like the ones I found on Reddit, coupled with blank ratings and vague negative reviews of my novels which led me to inadvertently begin responding in kind, via my own scathing reviews of other authors' books I read, mostly at the behest of said authors, which resulted in Rebecca severing her ties of friendship with me. I actually do regret most of the things I've said, especially on those books I reviewed."

You might wanna read the review Rebecca Maye posted on your 7th book. There's a good reason why she might not exactly be interested in being your best buddy right now, and that doesn't even begin to address the Seducing Hope review (yes, people saw that, and yes, we all know you took it down, but that doesn't make it go away). You offended female authors with an inappropriate rant. Don't be shocked when they don't respect you after that.

"...So, does this mean they can trash my books all they want, but I can't do the same to theirs if I had enough reasons to dislike their books?"

Let's be clear here: the books you "trashed" were from authors who either didn't choose to review your book in turn for you (a prohibited practice on Goodreads if you get caught), or authors who wrote about things like r*pe, female authors who have every right to write about those things if they want to. As a man, you can't possibly understand why a woman might choose to write about a subject like that. Anyway, neither of these authors trashed your books, so why are you mad now at a backlash when you did something offensive? People "trashed" your books because your books were full of objective errors like typos, grammatical problems and poor characterization. You trashed a book by accusing one author of "glorifying r*pe", which is much more of a cruel jab to the author herself than anything anybody has ever said about your books.

"Sorry, but since this is an epic-saga-length novel series, which I am very close to finishing, I cannot simply abandon it. Especially when I already promised a number of my readers I'd see this project all the way through to the end. And besides. when I start something which I'm passionate about, I'll do whatever I can to ensure I finish it. Because I've heard it's always a good idea for us to finish the things (Projects) we started."

There's nothing wrong with that. I'm not saying not to finish your book series, I'm saying you shouldn't be preoccupied over already-published content because that's a sign of it being amateur or in need of a professional examination.

I have added your books to my "to-read" list. But if you ask me, you still have a lot to learn and a lot of apologizing to do, either that or you need to be more professional about your public persona in the future. Using a deadname of another author that was later used to plagiarize books of hers, or accusing a female author of "glorifying r*pe", are not things that any professional author would be doing.

The best new sci-fi author has to be Melanie Kallas who wrote Liquid Fire. I hope more people get a chance to read it.