The Best Places, and Methods, to Find Good Books

Readers use many metrics to gauge how they find and select books. Some select books based on verbal recommendations. Some look at the number of reviews, or the ratio of favorable reviews. There are those who lean on pulling from best-seller lists, or selecting books published by major publishing houses. And then there are those readers like me, who must dig deeper.

Discussion-boards are one of the best methods to find Good Books, and this includes Indie Books primarily. I made the discovery a while back after visiting an Amazon discussion board; so make this my number one resource for finding good books. And not only on Amazon, but this goes for many social media boards; Goodreads, SheWrites, Blogs, or anywhere writers, write.

More so than reading into commodities like writing style; grammar, syntax, and typos, I’m foremost digging into the thought behind the words, coupled with the style. In that long ago discussion where I was first hipped onto this, the topic was on memoirs and how many memoirists do not properly research their memoirs. And I know… everyone, please say it with me… “Whatdt!?!”

Without going through the hairy comments I read in that sitting, humored by those drawing out how they strive to make sure their story is accurate and truthful, there was one commenter whose response led me to read his book. A phenomenal self-published book it turned out to be; one of my best reads that year. And this wasn’t a lone experience.

Brick and Mortar bookstores and physical libraries are great resources… slightly better than online for its lack of distractions. Attending conferences is another haven, too. Here you get to not only browse a sea of books, but you get to meet and speak with the authors as well. It’s majorly hard to go wrong here.

Another approach that has helped tremendously is by reviewing books. Some may question, “why all the five-star reviews?” Well, this is the answer. My prominently Five-Star book review ratings pay handsome dividends to letting authors and their publicists know what books I read and enjoy.  So yes, add RYCJ’s Book Reviews as a great resource to not only 'find' AND 'attract' Good Books, but to read Good Books too. Note: I’m trying to find an easy way to respond to all of the requests I receive, but haven’t gotten there yet.  

And this one; IAN! I am very impressed with the repository on The Independent Author Network. It’s easy to surf the online bookstores for the top promoted books, but very difficult to find rare voices stashed beneath, or in the blitz. IAN just makes it a little bit easier.

“If you can write, that’s great. And if you can tell a story, that’s even greater. But if you can work a resilient premise into both... you’re worth digging to find!”