Those of you who take an interest in self-published fantasy novels might well be aware of the Self-Published Fantasy Blog-Off, a competition to find the best self-published fantasy novels. It’s now in its sixth year, and every year it highlights the cream of self-published fantasy. It’s run by author Mark Lawrence in association with ten book review blogs, and it winnows down 300 entries to 10 finalists and, eventually, one winner.

If you don’t follow self-published novels, you’re probably in the same place as I was a few years ago, knowing that there must be some great self-published novels out there, maybe even having come across a few through recommendations, but not knowing how to find the best ones from among the, honestly, crap.

Self-publishing has come on a lot in the last five or so years. It has become more professional and higher quality, and the best self-published books are every bit as good as best traditionally-published books. But the problem of finding those books has remained the same. Until I came across this competition, I had concluded that I just wasn’t going to reliably find good self-published books.

Here are some of the great books that I’ve discovered from finalists in the SPFBO competition:

• Paternus: Rise of the Gods, by Dyrk Ashton
• Never Die, by Rob Hayes
• The Sword of Kaigen, by ML Wang
• Orconomics, by J. Zachary Pike
• We Ride the Storm, by Devin Madson
• The Grey Bastards, by Jonathan French
• Fortune’s Fool, by Angela Boord
• The Thief Who Pulled on Trouble’s Braids, by Michael McClung

Check some of them out. They really are worth your time. And there are many others. Here’s the full list of finalists and winners (scroll down that page). I’ve got plenty on my TBR, just waiting for me to get them, books like Alicia Wanstall-Burke’s Blood of Heirs, Virginia McClain’s Blade’s Edge, and Barbara Kloss’s Gods of Men.

When I decided to self-publish Shadow of a Dead God, the sixth edition of this competition was just about to start, so I entered. I think the competition does a great job at finding fantastic books. I have no idea if I’ll make it to the finals — undoubtedly ever year some great books don’t even get that far. Arguably the most egregious example is the magnificent Senlin Ascends, by Josiah Bancroft which fell at the first round and which I think many people since have agreed is an exceptionally good book. But there are always more than 10 deserving books each year, and not every one of them can be a finalist. Even if my book falls by the wayside early on, I am really enjoying being part of the community of writers and judges taking part in this. Even this early on in this year’s competition, I’ve come across some really good books.

You can follow along in the competition in the Facebook group, or if you don’t like Facebook, you can keep an eye on the progress of entries on the official competition webpage.

Wish me luck!

I’m making a conscious effort to seek out good self-published fantasy. I’ve read some self-published fantasy before, of course, but only by accident, as it were. Some has been good, some has been less good. So I wanted to actually go out of my way to find the really good self-pub stuff that I might be missing.

The Thief Who Pulled on Trouble’s Braids, by Michael McClung was the winner of the Self-Published Fantasy Blog-Off competition for 2015, run by writer Mark Lawrence, so that seemed a good place to start.

The thief Amra Thetys agrees to look after a friend’s looted statuette while he bargains with a buyer. The next morning, the friend is found dead, brutally murdered. Amra is determined to find the killer and avenge her friend. What follows is an adventure full of peril, brutal magic, and fallen gods.

The best thing about The Thief Who Pulled on Trouble’s Braids were the characters of Amra, who is determined, sarcastic, and loyal, and her ally, the slightly disturbing mage Holgren. The story is told by Amra, and her voice stands out, full of energy and attitude. It’s unusual still to find fantasy where the protagonist has such a distinctive voice, and the book very much benefits from it.

I’ve given this four stars rather than five, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t read it. For me, the writing could have been tightened up in a few places, and the author’s fondness for occasional sentence fragments didn’t work for me, pulling me out of the story. The epilogue, which isn’t in Amra’s voice, seemed tacked on just to make it clear there would be further stories. But these are minor issues.

I’m very happy to have read this book, and I’ll definitely read more of the Amra Thetys series. I would judge my attempt to find really good self-published fantasy novels a success on this first hit out. Give it a try.

Four stars, edging on four and a half.

(I would add that I’m not a massive fan of this cover, but don’t let it put you off.)