renkeeling's reviews
144 reviews

Would You Rather by Stephanie Alves

funny hopeful lighthearted relaxing medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

AMAZING romance book, easily some of the best 🌶️ scenes I’ve ever read. Definitely going to be checking out the other books in the series! 

Published by Chandler Bolt

informative inspiring

3.5

Overall, I think published is objectively one of the best self-publishing nonfiction books out there. Whether you’re a newbie or well versed in author business and marketing, you’ll probably take something away from this book. Writing has been my passion since I was eight, so I’ve spent the past decade researching writing, publishing, and marketing. It’s pretty rare that I read a book about self publishing that teaches me a lot I didn’t know, and while I knew a lot of information in this book, I still learned a TON. I found the sections about an author platform, the psychology of marketing, and the launch chapters to be the most helpful and I learned the most from those parts of the book. My only critique about this book is the obvious bias to self publishing (the author makes it sound like traditional publishing sucks while self publishing is the obvious choice which isn’t the case for everyone) and the focus on rapid release/write to market tactics like $0.99 sales. I went into the book expecting this since I’ve read some of the authors other books, and it’s pretty obvious what his preferred business models are. I also found myself skimming through a decent amount of the book, as I feel like a decent amount of this book falls into the category of nonfiction where it’s like “you can do it!” and imo if people are reading the book we KNOW we can, we’re here trying to figure out the how. 

All in all, I would recommend this book to anyone interested in self publishing, especially if you don’t know anything about the business or marketing side of being an author (indie or trad) 

The Self-Publishing Planner by J. Sharpe

informative

2.5

All in all I think what this boils down to is I wasn’t the target audience for this book. If you’re looking for a beginner friendly guide to marketing and publishing with a rapid release/write to market focus, you’d probably enjoy this book and find a lot more use out of it than I did. For someone like me who already knows a LOT about marketing and publishing this book didn’t offer much that I didn’t already know, although I will say all the information in this book (to my knowledge) is accurate and easy to digest. The section about book promo sites was the only section I didn’t know the topic, so I still learned something new from this book. It wasn’t a total waste of my time, I just wish the author had focused less on information that was obviously geared to rapid release/write to market authors without making that clear in the cover or blurb. 

Prisoner of the Witch Queen: A sapphic dark fantasy romance by Edie Marr, Edie Marr

dark tense medium-paced

1.0

I’m so disappointed because I LOVED the premise of this book but it really fell through in the execution. From the cover and blurb I was expecting a lot of spicy scenes and there were only two scenes and both of them were pretty poorly written and very short. The characters were one dimensional and the “romance” made no sense to me. There’s virtually no chemistry between the leads and were made to believe that they’re in love but the princess has no reason to be in love with the Queen, and other than the queens obvious lust for the princess it made no sense why she was “in love”. I will say I loved the worldbuilding in this book, and honestly this book would’ve been better served as a fantasy standalone with a romantic subplot. 

The Contract by Hildred Billings, Cynthia Dane

dark relaxing fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Kidnapping and Violence

Grow Your Author Platform: Generating Book Sales with Your Website, Email Marketing, Blogging, YouTube and Pinterest Using Content Marketing by Bethany Atazadeh, Mandi Lynn

informative fast-paced

4.0

How Your Book Sells Itself: 10 Ways Your Book Is Your Ultimate Marketing Tool by Bethany Atazadeh, Mandi Lynn

informative medium-paced

2.0

Shut Up and Write the Book by Jenna Moreci

informative inspiring fast-paced

4.0

The Self-Publishing Blueprint: A complete guide to help you self-publish your book by Daniel Willcocks

informative fast-paced

2.0

while i definitely learned stuff in this book, I think it focuses way too much on pre-writing and writing versus the actual marketing and publishing process, and I don’t think there’s enough details provided about the marketing and publishing process. overall i think this book is pretty overhyped tbh 

Boys Run the Riot, Volume 1 by Keito Gaku

hopeful lighthearted fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0