27 Author Recommendations for Holiday Gift-Giving …
No, wait! I didn’t mean you should wrap up an Author and give THEM to your friends, although I’m sure any of us mentioned below are flattered for having been considered gift-worthy … Let’s start over.
What could be better than giving or receiving A BOOK (or several) – at any time of the year and for any occasion? If you’re stumped as to what to give people on your list, or if you’re looking for something new for your own reading pleasure, please allow me to make a few suggestions …
I highly recommend the writing and books published by the following six Authors who have previously been featured on my other blog, Reading Recommendations:
Tim Baker and another book (featuring contributions from 6 Reading Recommendations Authors, including ME!)
Kevin Brennan and another book
Seumas Gallacher
Dylan Hearn and another book
Rebecca Heishman
S.K. Nicholls
But wait! There’s more … I asked each of the Authors listed above to also give me their recommendations of other Authors whose writing they enjoy, and here’s what they each had to say:
Tim Baker: Steve Boone, Robert Chazz Chute (and another book) and Linton Robinson (Steve and Robert have been featured on Reading Recommendations)
Kevin Brennan:
Zero, by J.S. Collyer — I’m no sci-fi nut, but this was a ripping story set in a strangely familiar future.
Memoirs of a Dilettante – Volume 1, by Helena Hann-Basquiat — An unclassifiable collection of anecdotes. Fact or fiction? Who knows? Who cares?
Dolls Behaving Badly, by Cinthia Ritchie — This novel was beat up pretty badly by the Amazon/Hachette conflict, and it’d be great if Cinthia could get a second wind now.
Shaping Destiny, by Destiny Allison — A poignant memoir of a woman’s evolution as an artist.
Seumas Gallacher: Chaos is Come Again by John Dolan and Fiona Quinn, Outsourced by Eric J. Gates, Subtraction by Andrew Peters (Andrew has previously been featured on Reading Recommendations)
Dylan Hearn:
The Me You See by Shay Ray Stevens – a fantastic mystery, cleverly written, which has a brilliant ending that I just didn’t see coming.
Othella by Therin Knite – a hard-edged and uncompromising dystopian thriller, as if Raymond Chandler decided to have a go at re-imagining Hunger Games. (Therin was previously featured on Reading Recommendations)
Duck by Stephen Parolini – a wonderfully warm coming-of-age novella about a boy and a bomb.
Rebecca Heishman:
Haven Kimmel: A Girl Named Zippy: Growing Up Small in Mooreland Indiana
This author is one of Indiana’s hidden gems. I have been a fan of her writing for many years. Her intimate and tender style of writing has influenced my own. This gal has never gotten the credit that her lovely writing deserves.
Silas House: Eli the Good
Silas House is an award-winning Kentucky author whose beautifully-crafted prose touches many hearts. Eli the Good is a novel written for young adults, but the message is so strong and so beautiful that it resonates with me and many other adult readers. It would make a lovely Christmas gift for young or old.
Bill Bryson: A Walk in the Woods: Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail
Part travelogue, part memoir, and full of humor, this book takes you along on Bryson’s trudge through one of America’s most rustic, brutal, beautiful, and storied trails. The book is filled with colorful characters that he meets along the way, giving us a portrait of what makes us proud to be American, despite our steady force-fed diet of negative media.
S.K. Nicholls:
Misha Burnett has a sci-fi/urban fantasy series that is absolute genius. Here is his author page and he also has a blog.
Carrie Rubin has a great medical thriller, The Seneca Scourge. She also has a blog.
Patrick O’Bryon is one of my most favorite authors. His historical spy thrillers set in Germany and France during WWII are based on his own father’s life as a journalist/spy during that time. He is a self-proclaimed Europhile and has lived and visited abroad frequently. His two books have done very well and a third, Fulcrum of Malice is due out next year. Corridor of Darkness is the first, and Beacon of Vengeance is the second. He is one of the most successful indie authors I know and his work is impeccable. He’s one of my beta readers. He also has a blog.
Luccia Gray has an awesome sequel to Jane Eyre. All Hallows at Eyre Hall: The Breathtaking Sequel to Jane Eyre (The Eyre Hall Trilogy Book 1) new on the market, and I loved it. She lives in Spain and has a blog.
And please indulge my being so bold as to recommend myself, Susan M. Toy, and my books for giving as gifts. While I have never been featured on Reading Recommendations, I did create the blog in the first place and continue to present you with great Authors to discover. Besides, this is my blog post, so I may recommend whomever I want to … to paraphrase a song. 🙂
So, there you go! 27 Authors recommended and umpteen possibilities for books to give to anyone who is on your list. Plus, books are much easier to wrap than an Author, and – Bonus! – eBooks and audio books don’t have to be wrapped at all!
Here, let me help you with that promotion …
“Get someone else to blow your horn and the sound will carry twice as far.” — Will Rogers
There is nothing worse – and I mean NOTHING!! – than an author who over-self-promotes!
Now I didn’t say just “self-promotes” but qualified it with “over”, because we all need to do a little bit of promoting, within reason, to get the word out about what we’ve written. Even traditionally published authors need to promote themselves, because many publishers just don’t have the financial wherewithall to deal individually with each author on their list. And you authors already know who your personal and professional contacts are, anyway, so you have a better chance of attracting attention by approaching those people personally.
But what happens when you run out of those initial contacts and begin preaching to the converted, so to speak? How do you attract new readers to yourself and your work without becoming the kind of self-promoting author we all love to hate – the one who constantly blows their own horn? Why, you seek out other people in the book business who will toot that horn for you – people like me, fer instance. I publish a promotion blog called Reading Recommendations precisely because I want to offer other authors free promotion and help them get the word out about themselves and their books.
And because I know that by doing so – by promoting my fellow authors – I also promote myself and my own work. That way I don’t run the risk of sounding off about ONLY ME AND ME ALONE. I know I am not the first author to have published and I know I won’t be the last to publish, either. Why not promote as many other authors as I can? That way I provide my audience with different reading choices when they’ve exhausted everything I’ve written – and before they become exhausted with me!
And since I set up this blog and changed my approach to how I promote my own work – guess what? I’ve discovered that I’m finding more readers for my own published novel and novella, as well as for those other authors I promote. I’m receiving more reviews, I’m selling more copies, and I’m being invited to promote myself and my work on other blog sites.
But the best part is – I’m not pissing off my loyal family, friends, and current readers by constantly singing the same tune. I’m offering information about new authors whose work they might like to read. So I’m providing a service to readers as well as to my fellow authors – and I’m not pissing off anyone in the process.
(This “not pissing off anyone” part cannot be stressed enough! I’m sure you are, as am I, tired of authors who tweet and share endlessly about themselves and their latest, but never say a word about anything else. It all seems so desperate, don’t you think? Those who tick me off the most are the authors I’ve followed on Twitter who don’t then give me the courtesy of following me back, but instead send me a direct message telling me where I can buy their books or asking me to like their Facebook page. I unfollow them in a nanosecond! We all want to receive recognition for what we’ve written and published. But we’d be more inclined to become readers and fans ourselves, if those self-promoters just took a wee bit of interest in something other than themselves. Ya know what I’m saying??)
So I challenge all you authors reading this out there who have been guilty of over-self-promoting to change your ways! You don’t have to stop promoting yourself altogether, but figure out ways to promote your fellow authors. Or band together as a group and promote each other. This works very well if you are all writing within the same genre, but I’ve also known it to work for groups of writers who only have writing itself in common. You could begin by tweeting/sharing something about 4 other authors for every 1 tweet/share you post about yourself. That would work! Or you could set up a promotion blog like mine that is dedicated to singing the praises of everyone else in the business. When you do find blogs or sites like mine, share the information with your fellow authors. Here’s another great blog you should be aware of: Chris The Story Reading Ape (If you know of others, please add a link in the comments section.)
Read promotions about other authors on these blogs; share, tweet, like, and reblog your favourites. Discover some new authors, read and review their books, and help them to get ahead. Do all the things listed in the box up above.
I can’t promise you overnight success for your own books, but I do guarantee that – aside from the warm-fuzzies you’ll experience from having done a good deed – you will eventually reach a new group of readers, and your work will be exposed to people you never dreamed might want to read what you write.
So, please, for all our sakes, STOP THAT ENDLESS SELF-PROMOTION!!! Start discovering and promoting other authors. Believe me, your family, friends and fellow-Facebook-and-Twitter users will thank you! And you can stop feeling so desperate and enjoy your writing and publishing, once again.