At the beginning of this year, I decided to track all the books I read by self-published (indie) authors and new-to-me authors on Goodreads.

Assuming I’m tracking properly, I’ve read (or attempted to read) books by 38 new-to-me authors so far this year (out of a target of 50).

Some of these are new because they’re debut authors. Some are new because they’re general market romance authors. Some are Christian fiction authors I’ve recently discovered, or only now gotten around to reading. Some are nonfiction authors, so I’ll ignore them for the purposes of this blog post!

I won’t embarrass anyone with the too-long list of new-to-me authors I’m not interested in reading more from. These include self-published authors with indifferent editing, established authors with meh plots or characters, and general market authors with an interesting hook, but which left me feeling the whole story would have been better if the hero and heroine had gotten themselves to a church and experienced a come-to-Jesus moment.

Here are five novels by new-to-me which impressed me (and links to my reviews, where I’ve reviewed them):

West of Famous by Joni M Fisher
The Hope of Azure Springs by Rachel Fordham
Lead Me Home by Amy K Sorrells
The Baggage Handler by David Rawlings
Love and Other Mistakes by Jessica Kate

What about you? What new-to-you authors have you read and loved in the last year?

One of my reading resolutions this year was to try to read more books from new-to-me authors.

Why? Well, I want to support new authors by recommending them to my readers.

And I want to understand trends in Christian fiction, especially when it comes to debut authors from the major publishers. What are they buying? Is there a new direction in terms of genre or location or time setting? Are there trends in writing or editing standards? This helps me give my freelance editing clients better advice.

But how do I find these new-to-me authors?

I often find new authors from traditional publishers through NetGalley. I follow all the major Christian publishers, and am always on the lookout for new names.

Many authors approach me for reviews. If the book is Christian fiction and appears well-written and well-edited, then I’m usually keen to read it.

I also find new-to-me authors through other book blogs, especially through the weekly First Line Friday meme. That usually gives me plenty of ideas for my weekend reading …

The one thing that holds me back from reading more new-to-me authors is that an author can only be a new-to-me author once 🙂

And I love many of the stories I read by new-to-me authors, and want to either read their entire backlist, or (if they’re a debut author) read all their new releases. And I can’t—not unless my existing must-read authors stop writing books (and that would be a tragedy).

What about you? Do you read books from new-to-you authors? What makes you buy or read a title from a new-to-you author?