Unless you are lucky enough to live in a city which has good bookshops, or even better, specialist science fiction and fantasy bookshops, your browsing of new SFF titles may be limited. My little local bookshop sadly closed last year, but the owner only had one shelf of SFF, and played it safe with Terry Pratchett and George R.R. Martin. I can’t blame him, but neither could I go and browse there and buy the books I wanted to read. (Of course if I knew what I wanted, he could order books for me, but how do I find new books by new authors unless I spot them on bookshop shelves?)
So I’m left ‘browsing’ via the big shop named after a South American river, and as we all know, what comes up when you do a search largely depends on algorithms.
Or I can find out about books by word of mouth.
Never underestimate what word of mouth can do.
If you love a book, blog about it, review it on Amazon, or review it on Goodreads. Tweet about it. Put something on Facebook or Instagram. Or simply tell your friends.
Not just my books, of course, though I’ll be eternally grateful if you do.
I’ve been book blogging since 2009, here on my Dreamwidth blog: https://jacey.dreamwidth.org/
I don’t always like everything I read, but I try to blog about good points as well as bad. My book blog is an instant reminder of everything I’ve read in the last decade, and oh how I wish I’d started earlier. Books recently read and enjoyed include Stephanie Burgis’ Thornbound, Suzanne Palmer’s Finder, Gaie Sebold’s Shanghai Sparrow, and T Kingfisher’s Swordheart. As I’m writing this I’m in the middle of reading Jaine Fenn’s upcoming book Broken Shadow and by the time you go and look at by blog, I’ll probably have reviewed it.
So what are you waiting for? If you’ve read my books, please shout about them. If you haven’t, read them and shout about them. They are all published by DAW, in print, and available on both sides of the Atlantic. (Though not on Kindle in the UK, only as paper books.)
Or read and shout out about any books you love. Go on. You know you want to. Authors often work in a vacuum, they love hearing that you’ve enjoyed their books.
Awards Season
As a reminder I have two novels eligible for awards this season, that’s Nimbus, the third in the Psi-Tech trilogy, and Rowankind, the third in the Rowankind trilogy. Both were published in 2018. And since both trilogies completed in 2018, the trilogies are eligible in the new Hugo category for series. I also have a short story eligible and that’s ‘Make Me Immortal With a Kiss’ in the anthology SECOND ROUND, edited by Joshua Palmatier and Patricia Bray, and published by Zombies Need Brains press. I happen to think it’s one of the best short stories I’ve written. If you do, please give it a plug.
I’m not begging or anything, just saying…
Jacey Bedford 