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Ten Things I’ve Learned from Evaluating Self-Published Books for a Year

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Photo by Flickr's Fabio Hofnik
Photo by Flickr’s Fabio Hofnik

Today’s guest post is by Jessica Bennett. She and Leslie Ramey created Compulsion Reads, a website that seeks to shine the spotlight on quality indie books by endorsing those books that meet CR’s strict quality standards.

From Jessica:

At Compulsion Reads, we always seek to help educate and inform writers. I believe that my personal experience of reading and evaluating a large amount of self-published books over the last year could lend some important insights to authors. This is something I would have liked to read when I was first getting started out on my own road to self-publishing.

Find CompulsionReads on Twitter and Facebook, and check out the CompulsionReads blog.

Ten Things I’ve Learned from Evaluating Self-Published Books for a Year

Before I self-published my first novel in 2011, I didn’t read many self-published books. That all changed in a big way when my critique partner, Leslie Ramey, and I created a company called Compulsion Reads after growing frustrated with how challenging it was to market our self-published works. Compulsion Reads is a company that offers something we felt was desperately missing from the indie and self-published book market: a quality endorsement.

In July Compulsion Reads celebrated its first year in business, and boy has it been an incredible ride. We’ve hit many bumps along the way, but the majority of it has been an absolute pleasure. And the books, oh the books! We’ve endorsed just over 100 books in our first year, and since this shindig got started, I’ve read an average of two self-published novels a week, every week.

With experience comes what I hope is a bit of knowledge. Below are the top ten takeaways from my year of reading indie and self-published books (listed in no particular order). Please note that these are merely my personal observations and opinion.

1. There are many amazing self-published books on the market

Yeah, I know this one should be obvious to anyone who has read a lot of self-published books, but I had to start the list with this just to set the record straight. Self-published work is often perceived as low quality, and self-published authors are sometimes assumed to be too lazy or not talented enough to get a contract with a traditional publisher.

Not true. Sooooooo not true. I have read fabulous self-published and indie books this past year that could compete with anything that the big guys put out.

2. Many Self-Publishers Publish Too Early [Read more…]

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