300 books           10 Judges            1 winner

The 1st of June marked the start of the sixth Self Published Fantasy Blog Off.  The brainchild of Mark Lawrence this is a competition for self published authors, it’s mission statement :

‘The SPFBO exists to shine a light on self-published fantasy. It exists to find excellent books that might otherwise have gone unnoticed. It exists to help readers select, from the enormous range of options, books that have a better chance of entertaining them than a random choice, thereby increasing reader faith in finding a quality self-published read.’

For further information check out Mark Lawrence’s post here.  To check out this year’s entries, judges and allocations check here. (My allocated books are cut and paste below for ease of info).

Now, a quick introduction.

I usually aim to read at least 30% (or 100 pages) of all the books I’ve been allocated, often more than 30% depending on how I’m getting along with the book in question.  I will review all the books that I complete, the other books I will provide mini reviews for.  I usually aim to choose between 4 or 5 semi finalists over the course of the first five months and then choose my finalist.  My batch of books will be randomly split into five groups with six books in each and I aim to read one batch per month (more if I get ahead of schedule – although, this doesn’t usually happen).

In terms of my reading I have a very wide range of ‘likes’ and very few ‘dislikes’ and I will give every book a fair shot.  This blog is a hobby as is reading and so I tend to focus on the positives of the books I review rather than the negatives.

I think the best advice I can give to all the authors taking part is to enjoy the competition, make friends, become part of the community, enjoy yourself as much as possible and take part in any events being offered.  There can be only one winner but that doesn’t mean that everyone can’t take something good away from the competition.

There is also the cover competition, each blog chooses 3 covers from their selection of books and these are then voted on by both the judges and the public.  Go ahead and take a look at all the lovely covers and make sure to vote on your favourites – the link is here.

Finally, as with previous years, I would like to extend an invitation to all the authors taking part to visit my blog.  This year I was hoping to include some excerpts from as many of the books in the competition as possible. If you’d like to throw your book into the ring and choose an excerpt for me to post then please don’t be shy, get in touch in the comments and let me know, let’s get some tasty teasers out there.  I’m also going to be focusing on some of the covers and also some of the books that really stand out to me.  Also, for those authors who have books in audio – even if you’re not in my group, I’d love to hear from you and listen to your book.

That’s it for now.  Feel free to reach out and leave a comment.

Thanks

Lynn 😀

The other judges:

Fantasy-Faction; Fantasy Book Critic; Booknest; Kitty G; Weatherwax Report; The Fantasy Hive; Rockstarlit Book Asylum; The Critiquing Chemist; The Fantasy Inn

My three cover contestants:

Follow the competition on Twitter using #SPFBO or join the Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/122875124938545/