Someone’s Read it Already

Ben and I (Stephanie) are getting married on Tuesday at noon; we left town Thursday evening, so no one’s available to approve comments. The reviewing will be on a hiatus, except for Wednesday, when DP so generously donated a guest review for us.

We’ll see you in November!

I don’t know all the reasons that people choose to self-publish, and I won’t pretend to. Some people do because New York won’t pay attention to them; some people do because they’re writing something that’s got a limited audience; some people do because they don’t like the publishing industry. I don’t even know that I’ve got a good example of each.

What I do know is that somehow I managed to collect enough self-published books to make an entire week’s worth of reviews (actually, more than that), and I’m doing that this week.

If you have anything to mention about self-published books regarding motivation or a great one you read recently, please feel free to comment.

A couple months ago, we had the first installment of Small Press Week. I’ve managed to collect another five publishers, so we’re having our second installment of Small Press Week (Small Press Week — the Sequel!) already. I’m very happy to be doing this; there is a wealth of small publishers out there, for every kind of book you can imagine.

As I said last time, there are many reasons to publish with a small press; there are also many reasons to start a small publishing company. In some cases, the publishers decided that they could do better in some way, shape, or fashion. In other cases, the publishers saw a hole in the market and wanted to fill it. In all cases, though, the publishers (at least the ones I’ve selected) are dedicated to providing the best product possible for their readers.

Some of the publishers I’ve selected specialize in classics; some specialize in women’s fiction; some specialize in short-story collections. Some are British (actually, 3 of them are); some are American. (I haven’t tempted an Australian, New Zealander, or Canadian publisher yet, and I can only read in English. Unfortunately.) Some have been around for quite a few years; one is barely two. Some we’ve seen before in Small Press Week — the Original; most of them are brand-new to me as well as to Small Press Week.

As always, if you are a small publisher and you’d like to be included in Small Press Week III, please send me an email (see the ‘Contact’ button above).

Recently, we at Someone’s Read it Already had a Small Press Week. Some of you may remember it, although it was a whole month and a half ago. In any case, we’ve got books lined up for a second Small Press Week — except we don’t actually have a week’s worth. We’ve got three, and we need five for it to be a whole week. If any small/independent publishers would like to have us review their books and discuss their press a little bit, I’ve got two slots open.

Secondarily, we’ve got perhaps three solid examples of self-publishing (people who have opted out of the traditional publishing structure, for whatever reason) and we need two more in order to have a full week. If you happen to be an author who has self-published any work (whether you’ve also published stuff through a traditional press is irrelevant to us) and you think that we’d like to read it, feel free to tell us about it.

Publishers, authors, publicists, and interested members of the public can contact us either by leaving a comment, or by clicking the “Contact” button up to your right. (If you’re reading this via RSS, you’ll have to go to the actual page.) There’s more information up there.

We of course accept e-copies of books for review; unfortunately, our book-buying budget is limited at the moment (got a wedding coming up!) so dropping $20 on a book by an author we’ve never heard of that no one else has ever reviewed isn’t exactly going to happen (not with Tamora Pierce publishing a new book that is STILL not in our possession, it isn’t). However, we will consider any and all suggestions, even if they don’t come with a free book attached.

(Also, um, if you’re a publicist or author waiting for us to review your book and you’re a small press or self-pubbed, well, that’s what’s going on — they’re being saved for a big feature week. No, really. And if you’re none of the above but Stephanie is still holding one of your books hostage, then she would like to mention that she’s very much enjoying it, but at five books a week, she is having trouble budgeting time to finish an awesome epic very long novel, and she’d like to apologize.)

It should of course be mentioned that primarily over here we review SF and fantasy, both YA and adult. Stephanie doesn’t particularly love super-hard or military SF, but she has guest/occasional reviewers who do; some of them don’t like romance novels disguised as SF/fantasy, but Stephanie does.

Again, we hope you’d like to send us something!

We here at Someone’s Read it Already have experienced a power outage; those who watched the Sunday Evening Browns vs. Steelers game will be unsurprised by this. (As are all Ohio residents.)

We do promise that we’ll post today’s review this evening (after Stephanie gets off work) and tomorrow’s review at its regularly scheduled time.

Rules: Link to the person that tagged you (that would be the Ink Mage), post the rules somewhere in your meme, answer the questions, tag six people in your post, let the tagees know they’ve been chosen by leaving a comment on their blog, let the tagger know your entry is posted. (I, uh, might not do the last things.)

Who’s you all-time favorite author and why?

I usually answer “Jane Austen” here; while that’s a true answer, I think “Charles de Lint” might be equally true. I love Jane Austen because she’s an amazing writer and she still wrote some of the best love stories ever. That, and I’d marry Henry Tilney in a heartbeat. (What? You thought I was going to say Mr. Darcy?) Charles de Lint, though, has written more books, and I love Newford so much.

Who was your first favorite author and why? Do you still consider him/her among your favorites?

Carolyn Keene. I don’t remember loving any books prior to Nancy Drew nearly as much as I loved Nancy Drews. No, I wouldn’t consider them as among my favorites anymore (how many Carolyn Keenes were there?).

Who’s the most recent addition to your list of favorite authors, and why?

Shannon Hale, I think. She writes beautifully, and I love everything she’s written so far.

If someone asked you who your favorite authors were right now, which authors would first pop out of your mouth? Are there any you’d add on a moment of further reflection?

Charles de Lint, Shannon Hale, Terry Pratchett — that would be the first list. After that, I’d probably add Tamora Pierce, Neil Gaiman, and Sherwood Smith. I might mention Jane Austen, but she’s so cliché as a ‘favorite author’ that it almost isn’t worth it. It depends on who asks.

Some of you may be wondering what my commenting and comment approval policy is.

Well, you need one comment approved. That’s all. Every other comment after that will show up on the website immediately.

Sometimes it takes me a day or two to moderate comments, but I’ve been checking more frequently recently. So if your last comment got stuck in moderation, it should appear now. Feel free to comment more!

I do, of course, reserve the right to delete any comment that I don’t like. I don’t like comments that attack either me personally or the author of the book I’ve reviewed personally. I don’t like comments with racial/ethnic/gender/etc. slurs in them. I don’t like comments that are needlessly profane. I also don’t like spam, but I have Akismet for that.

I do like critical comments, as long as they’re critical of the book, or my review, and on topic. I’ll even take critiques of the website.

If I have deleted your comment and you think that I shouldn’t have, feel free to email me personally. Contact information is under the “Contact” tag at the top.

Thank you. Back to your regularly scheduled book reviews . . . well, tomorrow at 7:30 A.M., at least.

We’ve just got this site up and running. Hopefully in the not-too-distant future I’ll start doing things with it.

Oh, we’re doing book reviews over here, by the way.