The hardest bane of self publishing, I think, is getting discovered. There are millions of books out there, and without a publisher to promote you, it’s easy to get lost in the crowd.

But this same problem exists for readers of self-published books as well. We might want to read more indie books, but where do we find them, and how do we know they’re good before buying them? They’re not at the library. They’re not on the bestseller lists. Your friends probably aren’t talking about them. And yet, there are gems in there that might be exactly what you want to read.

There are a lot of solutions people have found for this, but most of them don’t actually discern quality. That is, you can buy an ad, a blog tour, or a social media blitz, but all that does is tell people your book exists. It doesn’t tell them if it’s any good, because you paid for that attention. It’s up to them to either take a chance on you, or read the sample pages and reviews (if you have any) to guess whether it’s the kind of thing they like.

This was the inspiration for self-published book contests. You enter (for free) and teams of judges read your book and pick finalists and ultimately a winner. These contests rely, of course, on tons of volunteer labor, but at the end you can know that the books that went far in the contest must have been pretty good.

I recently entered Bisection in the Self-Published Science Fiction Competition (SPSFC) and it’s been great fun so far. Although I have no idea if the judges have more than glanced at my book yet, the entrants have all been looking at each other’s books. Amazing to see 188 books in my favorite genre, most of which I’d never even heard of before. And yet, from the blurbs and covers, this isn’t amateur work at all.

Here are a few that have interested me so far. I’ve read the first two and added a bunch to my TBR for later.

Navvy Dreams

In this universe, pilots are able to navigate hyperspace thanks to a “navvy,” which is a navigational AI attached to one of their arms. After a terrible accident, the pilot Polla is being fixed up by some very strange people who want her to do a mysterious job. But her navvy isn’t working right, and also these might be the bad guys.

What I like about this is having no clue what is going on. There are readers who like everything spelled out and clear, and I am the opposite of that. My favorite book I’ve read recently is Harrow the Ninth. So when I say I loved this, be clear that what I liked was being dumped into a complicated universe with no idea what was going on.

Ancient as the Stars

This is a space opera that deals with the issue of meeting your younger (or older) self. A ship is displaced in time, so that the generally messed-up younger version of the main character gets shoved into contact with her older, more confident, happily married self. As you might expect, there’s a lot of bad blood between the two of them from the second they meet.

Warped State

I saw the author of this book at a panel, and I assumed based on the gorgeous, professional-looking book that it was traditionally published. But no! This one is all-indie. I looked up the sample pages while the author was talking (rude! I know) and the style was zippy in just the way I like. Plus, the premise is anti-corporate espionage and that’s very much my bag.

Devil to Pay

I bet you can guess why I liked this one:

In a world of pirates and murderous ghosts, one naval cadet must choose between loyalty and survival.

In the Level’s Naval Academy, officer candidate Silas Hunt stumbles across a secret that could get him hanged for treason. The only hope he has to save his own life and to find justice is to join up with a ruthless pirate captain, a woman known as Mad Dog—even if it means sacrificing everything he’s spent his life working for.

I could freak out that somebody else wrote almost the exact same concept as Black Sails to Sunward—except that I am a firm believer in the More Cake theory of art.

Another book just like my book means something I can read and enjoy without having to write it myself!

Beyond Luna

Another one that jives well with what I write: this book is about solar sailing! It seems the author has though through the science, and it also promises to be funny.

I’ll probably post more about the contest as it continues. This has been a lot of fun so far, and win or lose, all of us get the chance to find out about a lot of fascinating books in our genre. Most of these, I’d never heard of before, despite networking all I can with sci-fi authors. So I’m pretty much set for reading for the next year.