Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly feature/meme now hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl. The meme was originally the brainchild of The Broke and the Bookish. This week’s topic is Top Ten Indie/Self-Published Books.
My favorite self-published books and series
In alphabetical order by author:
Title links go to Goodreads, or to my review.
- A Stitch in Time, by Kelley Armstrong
- Legends and Lattes, by Travis Baldree (see note below)
- the Harwood Spellbook series, by Stephanie Burgis (beginning with my favorite, Snowspelled)
- Scales and Sensibility, by Stephanie Burgis (can’t wait for book #2!)
- Saving Verity by Alleyne Dickens
- the Albion novels by Celia Lake (particular favorites are Eclipse, Goblin Fruit, Wards of the Roses, On the Bias)
- A Little Too Familiar, by Lish McBride
- A Holiday by Gaslight and The Matrimonial Advertisement by Mimi Matthews (the only two of her self-published books I have read so far, but I love her traditionally-published Belles of London series, so I’ll be reading the rest of her self-published works too.)
- The Duchess War and A Kiss for Midwinter by Courtney Milan (I would include the rest of the series, but I haven’t read them yet!
- books 6, 7, and 8 in the SPI files series by Lisa Shearin (especially The Solstice Countdown, which was my introduction to the author and series even though it is book #7, and The Gorgon Agenda. Note that books 1-6 were published by Ace; the author self-published the subsequent books in the series.)
- An Uncivilized Yankee, by V. V. Wedding
NOTE: I didn’t include books which were originally released by traditional publishers, and then re-released by the author after the rights reverted. This would include, for example, Mary Jo Putney’s Fallen Angels historical romance series, or Mercedes Lackey’s Tales of the Five Hundred Kingdoms fantasy series. And I didn’t include books that were picked up by traditional publishers after being self-published, unless I knew there were basically no changes to the book. That’s why The Martian, which I read (and loved) after it was picked up and published by Crown, isn’t on this list; according to Wikipedia, there were significant textual changes for the Crown edition. However, Travis Baldree’s Legends and Lattes is essentially unchanged in the Tor edition, so I included it on the list.
Self-published authors I intend to try, or to read more of:
- Olivia Atwater (she has now been picked up by a publisher)
- Charlotte English
- A.J. Lancaster
- Tansy Raynor Roberts (I enjoyed her first novella, and will probably read more)
Louise @ Foxes and Fairy Tales
I loved Legends and Lattes and all the Stephanie Burgis books I’ve read.
Nicole @ BookWyrmKnits
Great list! Several of the books you’ve included are on my TBR list, though I’ve read a few others. I remember that one of the big selling points for the Baldree re-print under Tor was that one of the handful of changes was a blurb from Seanan McGuire on the cover… 😉 (Sadly another change was the addition of a short story to the end of the book… since I had the original copy, I didn’t get the story until I found it available online.)
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Leslie @ Books Are The New Black
A Stitch in Time looks like something I would enjoy! I’ve only read Legend and Latttes on this list but many look great!!
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Anne – Books of My Heart
Well I love the Kelley Armstrong, Stephanie Burgis and Courtney Milan books as those are the ones I have read.
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Lydia
I’m slowly edging closing to the top of the waitlist for Legends & Lattes at my local library. I’m glad you liked it so much! It sounds super fun.
https://lydiaschoch.com/top-ten-tuesday-self-published-books-i-plan-to-review/
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La La in the Library
I loved Legends and Lattes! I wasn’t expecting to love it because people were comparing A Psalm for the Wild-Built to it and I didn’t care for that one. I’m excited to read the next one. I wish they would make it into a video game.☕
Lark_Bookwyrm
The only real comparison between the two books is that they both fall in the “cozy fantasy” genre: fantasy that gives a warm and comforting feel. (Although I think APFTWB is technically SF, not fantasy.) I loved both books, but I wouldn’t necessarily recommend one of them to someone who had enjoyed the other, unless they were just looking for cozy fantasy.