Small and Independent Press Books discussion
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Werner
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Jan 30, 2017 10:35AM
I've just joined this group, and started this thread so that both new members and those who have been here for awhile can have a place to introduce ourselves to each other. My name is Werner Lind; I've been on Goodreads since Feb. 2008. I'm a librarian at a Southern Baptist college In the mountains of southwestern Virginia, an avid reader, and a supporter of small press and indie fiction. Although I'm a small press/indie author of sorts myself, I joined Goodreads primarily as a reader who loves to discuss reading. I hope to see this group become a place for active discussions of independent and small-press books!
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Welcome to the group.I own an online bookstore in Baltimore, MD; eventually, I'd like a brick and mortar bookstore, once I scrape up the money.
Right now, I mostly sell used books and new books from indie presses.
Thanks for the welcome, Melissa. And good look with your bookstore --hope you can make your idea of a brick and mortar store into a reality! I'm a big supporter of physical bookstores; but there ate very few of them that stock self-published or small press books (although they will special order them). So I think it's great that you're including books from independent presses in your inventory; kudos!
Hi. I am an avid reader in Arlington, Virginia and am also the president of Broken Column Press, an independent publishing company. I've been on Good Reads for a while and greatly enjoy seeing what others have read.
Carl, welcome to the group! It's great to have you here; we hope you'll be an active member, and that you'll feel free to post on our discussion board, as well as browse through the different topics. This group has been moribund for years (partly because our founding moderator hasn't been active on Goodreads since March 2013; the Goodreads management is trying to contact her to see if she wants to continue to be a moderator). But we're hoping to get discussion started up again, and to make this a primary place for publicizing and recommending small and independent press books!
Welcome to the group, Carl. Can you post a link to the publisher's website? I'm mostly going to be buying new books for my bookstore once the GoFundMe campaign is over and I sign a lease so I can turn my online bookstore into a brick and mortar bookstore.
Thanks to Werner for letting me know about this group. I am an avid reader and an indie author from NE England and I write a series of space opera, which is character driven science fantasy, called Fortune's Fools.Since getting involved with the indie publishing community I have realised how many stunng books and brilliant authors are to be found hidden away under the 'indie' brand. I have really been enjoying finding and reading books by these authors and this seems a superb place to do that and to share about others I have found :)
Hi All, Werner invited me to join this group. We met at another terrific group he mods Action Heroine Fans (https://www.goodreads.com/group/show/...).I'm an avid reader, Goodreads member since 2013, and self-published author of a SFR/Space Opera series The Twelve Systems Chronicles , book 4 releases tomorrow, 3/9/2017.
.I love reading indie authors and I can use all the advice I can get on producing and marketing good novels, so I'm really pleased to be here.
E. M. and E. G., welcome to you both. Glad to have you in the group! Make yourselves right at home on the discussion board, and feel free to share your recommendations. You can start threads for your own writing as well, and don't forget to add your books to our bookshelves.
Hi - I am Shane Joseph, a Goodreads member, an author, and the editor of Blue Denim Press - looking forward to the posts and to making a contribution, time permitting!Regards!
Howdy,I'm a published author of two novels and a novella, from both large and small publishers. I'm also an online, adjunct professor of religion for a couple of universities.
I truly look forward to interacting with this group. As both a reader and author, I've always been impressed with the power of words to change lives.
http://terrybarnes.us
Shane and Terry, it's great to have you in the group; welcome! Years ago, this was a pretty active group, and as I noted above, I'm hoping to see it revive and become a rewarding group once again. Being able to welcome four new members in one day is a pretty good start towards that!
Hi, I'm Alicia. I write mainstream fiction right now, but have very little energy, and am having a hard time promoting book 1 while writing book 2.Reviewers have left some wonderful comments, but each new reader is still a huge struggle, as I don't write - and therefore can't promote in - a genre.
Marketing is my nemesis so far.
Alicia, welcome to our group; I'm so glad you've joined! (I wasn't sure if you'd see my invitation or be able to respond to it right away, but I knew you'd see it eventually.)Hopefully, as the group becomes more active again, some other members who write general fiction might share some marketing tips designed for that type of fiction. (Or for any fiction --my novel, and the short e-stories I have for sale on Smashwords, are supernatural genre fiction, but marketing is my nemesis too! :-) )
Thanks for the invite. I'm a reader and writer living in the Memphis area and publish my own and friends work at EZ Indie Publishing and EZ Indie Press. I like to support other Indie authors, and encourage people to keep writing. Nice to be in this group.
You're welcome, Elisabeth, and we're glad to have you in the group! Yes, I see this as a venue where (among other things) independent authors can support and encourage each other with recommendations, advice, etc. Best wishes to you in your writing and publishing ventures --and to all of our members who write and/or publish!
Werner wrote: "Alicia, welcome to our group; I'm so glad you've joined! (I wasn't sure if you'd see my invitation or be able to respond to it right away, but I knew you'd see it eventually.)Hopefully, as the gr..."
Thanks for the invitation. I may be absent a lot in the immediate future - health concerns - but I almost always read all the posts of groups I'm in, and participate when I can.
You're welcome, Alicia; and I completely understand about how your health situation affects your participation. We value quiet members who mostly just read other people's posts, too --if there was no one to read our comments, it wouldn't be very worthwhile to post them, so that's a contribution in itself! And whenever you're able to comment, that'll be great too.
hi! i'm james, but you can call me jimmy. my pronouns are he/him. i am a youth services assistant at rochester, mn's public library. i write poetry and prose, and i love to read a variety of things. i am also an activist & punk rocker.
Jimmy, welcome to our group. Best wishes with your writing! We have some things in common --I work in a library myself (though it's a college library --I haven't worked in a public library since the early 90s), and I was born in Minnesota. (I'm tone deaf, though, so wouldn't make a very good rocker. :-) ) When you read books by other small press/indie authors, we hope you'll share your reading adventures with us!
Hi all, and thansk for letting me join. I'm a UK based author, both self-published and through small press houses. My latest piece, Addict, is a sci-fi/crime noir cross-over with an LGBT lead. I tend to write hybrid genre stuff with a grounding in speculative fiction.In terms of reading, I love finding new indie authors. There's enough of us out there for there to be soemthing for everyone to enjoy after all!
Matt, welcome to our group, and best wishes with your writing! Hope you find a lot of new indie authors here for your reading enjoyment.
Somehow, I managed to not jump in here when I first came aboard. Here goes...I've been an Air Force intelligence officer, information technology manager, computer-game artist, set designer and Jeopardy! contestant, and am now an emergency management specialist. I've had training in architectural rendering, terrorist incident response and maritime archaeology, but not all at the same time. I’m a semi-frequent contributor to Macmillan’s Criminal Element website. My Facebook author page features spies, archaeology and art crime.
Lance, we're glad to have you in our group! We wish you all the best with your writing, and especially with your soon-to-be-released new novel. (It just went on my to-read shelf!)
Hi all, my name is Alice and I joined this group some time ago on Werner's kind invitation.I am a Hong Kong-born Canadian writer who have self-published and been published by independent presses. My present area of focus is in writing historical fiction set in Old China. Earnshaw Books has just released my new historical novel The Green Phoenix: A Novel of the Woman Who Re-Made Asia, Empress Xiaozhuang, which is a novelized account of the life of the Qing dynasty's first matriarch, born a Mongolian princess, who became the mother of Shunzhi Emperor and grandmother of Kangxi Emperor.
I've just added the book to the group's bookshelf.
Hi All, and thanks Werner for the invite, I think it's extremely important not to lose momentum on a 400 member-strong group, and let it wither. I live in the UK, working in finance but really striving to reap some success from my debut thriller - "And the Wolf Shall Dwell"
I'll spare you the synopsis, but it's a political-spy thriller which I think would also appeal to readers who think they are not really into these kind of books, as well as to action/thriller junkies ;) I'd be thrilled if it can be considered as a group read at any stage, getting reviews is extremely hard, so i'm also introducing a way to have a character named after you in my next novel, that is if you prefer to pay for your eBook and upload a 'verified purchase' review to Amazon. If you have an interest, you can see details of this promo here
About me: I'm a Chief Sergeant (ret.) from a Western country's armed forces Intelligence Services. I work in Finance today and this is my debut novel, which is based loosely on my knowledge of the intelligence community and my background of Jihadi-terror counter-intelligence.
I'm married with two toddlers, 4 and 2 - so writing for me is reserved to the small hours of the night.
I also wanted to take the opportunity and introduce to the group 'BookGobbler', which is a service i started with a few authors. much like NetGalley allows you to get free books, if you agree to review them.
Unlike NetGalley, it is free for authors, so small publishers and indie authors get the same chance to be seen (NetGalley costs a small fortune for a week listing with zero promotions). But the extra bit is that we also raffle paperbacks, much like Goodreads.
Since we are running this for free, it would really mean the world to us if you wouldn't mind to give it a go:
https://bookgobbler.com
and you're all welcome to out goodreads group too
https://www.goodreads.com/group/show/...
I hope it wasn't too long and not tooooo self promoting - sorry if you thought it was
Thanks for the invite!
Joni
No, Joni, that wasn't too long or too self-promoting, and thanks for the BookGobbler link. Welcome to the group; we're glad to have you with us!Joni wrote: "I'd be thrilled if it can be considered as a group read at any stage...."
Actually, we've never done a group common read in this group, though several of my other groups do them (mostly annually). An obvious problem with common reads in this group is that the books would presumably be small and independent press books; and because those books tend not to be held by many libraries, usually the only way to access them is to buy them. My personal feeling is that it's too much of an imposition to set up a common read that people can't take part in unless they buy the book; it seems unfair to readers who may have limited money for books.
Werner wrote: "No, Joni, that wasn't too long or too self-promoting, and thanks for the BookGobbler link. Welcome to the group; we're glad to have you with us!Joni wrote: "I'd be thrilled if it can be considere..."
Ahhh! but what if the author is willing to giveaway e-copies? :)
Joni, that's a very generous offer (and one you might regret if all 399 members would take you up on it --though, since most of our members aren't currently very active, I suspect the demand will be less :-) ). Since you're willing to make the offer, though, I've followed it up on this thread: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/... . We'll see what the rest of the group would like to do. If the vote is to do the read, I promise that I'll be in! (For me, reading in electronic format won't interfere with my paper reading schedule; I allot that format less, and more sporadic, time than I do paper books, and don't like it as well as the latter, but it still might be the optimum approach in this case.)
Hello!I'm Emily. I'm a big consumer of indie/small press lit, and a writer of it too. I'm looking forward to lots of good book recommendations from all of you! The small press book I'm personally most excited to read in the new year is I AM A TRUCK by Michelle Winters. Has anyone here read it?
Emily, welcome to our group; it's great to have you join us! Make yourself right at home checking out our discussion board; you might be able to find some recommendations that pique your interest, depending on what you like. We're still not a very active group (long story!), but I hope that changes with time. (And, of course, the more our members post, the more active we are!) We have a thread, for instance, to keep each other up to date on small press and indie books we're reading, at this link: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/... ; I'd like to see people become more familiar with posting there.No, I haven't read I Am a Truck. I'm not very well read in Canadian literature; and on the whole, I've tended in the last 20 years to read more speculative than descriptive fiction (though I'm working on redressing that balance). But maybe some of our other members have?
How did I not find this group before? I run a small independent publishing company, Tough Poets Press, that specializes in "rediscovered" literary fiction and non-fiction. To date, I've published five books:1. The Whole Shot: Collected Interviews with Gregory Corso
2. Sarpedon: A Play by Gregory Corso
3. A 40th-anniversary edition of Marvin Cohen's out-of-print novel, Others, Including Morstive Sternbump
4. A 50th-anniversary edition of Cohen's debut fiction, The Self-Devoted Friend
5. An expanded edition of Cohen's 1974 collection of baseball essays, Baseball as Metaphysics
A sixth book is in the works now: a collection of five previously unpublished stories and novellas by Marvin Cohen written in the mid-1960s. I have a Kickstarter going to help defray some of the book's pre-production costs. If you like fun, experimental fiction, check it out.
Rick, welcome to our group, and best wishes with your publishing venture!
Hello all, I'm actually brand new to Goodreads with a nefarious purpose in mind. You see, my father has two books of poetry published on a little tiny publisher (Phoenix Books in Dundas, Ontario, Canada), and I'm trying to actually get him a start by promoting on his behalf. I know, it's not the best of reasons to join this group (I'll admit to being rather shallow in my reading tastes) but I'm hoping to start up a little buzz or something for my dad.
So, if anyone's at all interested in his poetry, I'm putting in a link to his sonnet blog here (http://sonnetpage.blogspot.ca/), and I'll hope this doesn't come across to strong.
No, Sarah, that doesn't come across as too strong; you're explaining honestly why you joined. It's not unusual for new members to introduce themselves in terms of their work, if they're authors; you're just doing the same thing, but in terms of your dad's work.You might want to start a thread for your dad's poetry in our Poetry folder, at this link: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/group... . That can serve as a venue for both promoting and discussing his books.
Sarah wrote: "Hello all, I'm actually brand new to Goodreads with a nefarious purpose in mind. You see, my father has two books of poetry published on a little tiny publisher (Phoenix Books in Dundas, Ontario,..."
Hope you'll stay and comment, Sarah. Honesty is refreshing. Best of luck to your promotion efforts for your dad.
You have a poetry folder, I must have missed that. Then again, I was skimming in a bit of a hurry - I had a concert to get to. Anyhow, I'll head over there and see about posting something in the appropriate venue.Thank you for mentioning it.
Honesty is refreshing . . .Honesty may be refreshing, but while I have one or two obscure books I've read, they're mostly not from smaller publishers and I'd hate to skew the conversation here in unfortunate directions from the point of the group.
Still, thank you and I'll take a look around while I have a minute to do so.
Sarah wrote: "You have a poetry folder, I must have missed that. Then again, I was skimming in a bit of a hurry - I had a concert to get to. Anyhow, I'll head over there and see about posting something in the appropriate venue.Thank you for mentioning it. "
No problem, Sarah!
Hello I am new here .Thanks so much.
ImageReader, welcome to our group! Make yourself right at home here; we hope you'll feel free to join in any of our discussions, and especially to post about books by independent or small press authors that you'e reading, or have read.
Hello everyone!My name is Cendrine Marrouat. I am a photographer, poet, and the author of 13 books.
I recently co-founded of a poetry journal (Auroras & Blossoms Poetry Journal) and a photography collective (FPoint Collective), and created the Sixku, a short poetry form based on the haiku.
I am very happy to be here! I have included the links to my latest books below.
Walks: A Collection of Haiku
Walks: A Collection of Haiku
Cendrine, welcome to the group, glad you've joined us! Best wishes for success with your poetry and other ventures.
Hello Werner, thank you so much!I look forward to getting to know the group better.
You might be especially interested in this folder, Cendrine: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/group... .
Cendrine wrote: "Hello Werner, thank you so much!I look forward to getting to know the group better."
Great! I'll have a look when time permits.
Ron wrote: "Welcome, Cendrine."Thank you, Ron!
Small and Independent Press Books
Books mentioned in this topic
Walks: A Collection of Haiku (other topics)Walks: A Collection of Haiku (other topics)
I Am a Truck (other topics)
And The Wolf Shall Dwell (other topics)
The Green Phoenix: A Novel of the Woman Who Re-Made Asia, Empress Xiaozhuang (other topics)
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