Discover a Self Published Author discussion

I was wondering if anyone had any thoughts on how much time we should allot for the group reading. The novel with the most votes will be revealed Aug. 4th. Only a third of the group has voted.
Brigitta

Two weeks sounds reasonable, but it depends on the length of the book.

(But if only a third of the members have voted, how many will read?)

:/

I was thinking the same. The vote status hasn't changed, still only a third. My hope is that most members will participate. It's a great way to discover other self published authors' work as well as to have your own read. Maybe reviews will even be generated.
Brigitta

I hope so too. It would be disappointing if two thirds of the members who joined did so only to "advertise" their own book(s). But there is still time and we can keep our fingers crossed...

I agree. Let's hope we get more votes in if not perhaps we can vote again :)

If the vote remains the same, tomorrow I will show our first reading. There are two books tied. I'm thinking it would be nice to have a choice, so I will put up the first two with the most votes. If neither book interest a member, you could always read one of your choosing and start a conversation about it to interest other members in the book. The goal is enjoyment in discovering self published authors.
Brigitta

The better our participation and discussions, the more attractive the group will be to potential members who also want to read, enjoy and talk about self-published works, so hopefully we can start some engaging discussions.

I find discussing books to be the most interesting part after reading a good book. The thing is when you read a self published book the chances of going out and striking up a conversation with someone who has also read the book is not likely. For instance, I started reading 50 shades of Gray because everyone at work was talking about it. People everywhere talked about those books, so I read because I love discussing books and I thought it was a romance novel. It was my first romance erotica novel. So, to discuss a self published book I needed to belong to group where I would find readers of self published books. Another plus a group like this may offer is constructive criticism. My input, your input may help improve our stories and story telling.
Brigitta

It's very beneficiary to get another author's clear perspective on our work without being judgemental but that depends if both reader and author share the same genere preference. I also find reviews to be very helpful in deciding which book to read. As you mentioned Brigitta, everywhere I looked, I heard people talk about Fifty shades of gray and so I decided to run my own search and after reading a good amount of reviews I decided that it was not my kind of book. It's a personal preference I get it but again if it wasn't for all the reviews that were objective to that specific genere I would have bought the book and hated it too.

Good point about it being difficult to find a place to talk about lesser-known books. Sometimes I've read something and have been eager to discuss it, only to discover that nobody else has read it... and instead of discussing it, all I can do is recommend it, which isn't bad either—but it's not exactly a discussion, more of a sales pitch.

The books we vote on and read are for enjoyment. So please participate only if you think you will enjoy the book and only leave a review if you want to review the book. Please don't feel forced to do anything in the group. I didn't enter my books because of the content. For the next vote I will put a note showing the explicit content. Enjoy.
Brigitta