Published this week – my fiction picks to 20th June 2021

As mentioned last week I’m taking a break and doubted whether I’d have time to put my usual weekly post together. Well in short the answer is no I didn’t, but don’t despair I found a short fix which means you can still have a list of what’s forthcoming. It isn’t split between formats and is in no order, but it’s a list!

I thought it might help if I explained how I put these posts together so you can see how I generate the list below.

My first port of call is my weekly edition of The Bookseller. It lists in advance, by month, new fiction titles and paperback releases over 2 editions. So for example, towards the end of this month I’ll go through the listings for July and tick off the titles that interest me. I then create an Amazon wish list per week for July and add these titles to the relevant list. That at least gives me something to start with.

The example above is part of a 6 page listing of Paperback releases for August. As that edition was dated 28th May you can also see that there’s plenty of scope for release dates to be put back (or occasionally brought forward) so each date also has to be checked before I add it the list.

Each week, normally on a Friday if I’ve got the day off, otherwise Saturday, I turn to Fantastic Fiction. FF has a coming soon feature that I can out into date order so I ask for the next 30 days and only look at the titles that fall into my week. Essentially I scroll down the list initially looking at authors, genres and covers (yes it’s that simplistic) and I add any titles I’m interested in onto my Fantastic Fiction wishlist. Once I’m done, I go back to the list I’ve just created and read through the blurbs so I can weed out the ones that don’t appeal. Once that’s done I add the titles I’m left with to my Amazon wishlist. FF is a bit hit and miss as it doesn’t include all titles. For example this week it didn’t include 5 of the titles I picked up via The Bookseller.

I’d like to be able to use Amazon as a source of new titles but it isn’t helpful. Their coming soon feature is a 90 day listing and when put in date order lists the later dates first. With a maximum 75 page listing it never includes the dates I need. The only way around this is to go through each genre, and format, individually to try and reduce the number to approx 1000. I will do this sometimes, but to be honest I really don’t have the time or the inclination.

There are many more titles released than are picked up by my two main listings. Some I pick up via Twitter, some via keeping an eye on blogger ARC reviews or blog tours and some I pick up purely by chance. So you can see how I might miss titles, but then if there was one go to place for new titles I guess I wouldn’t be doing this.

Anyway, after all that, what I’m able to give you is access to my Amazon wish list for the coming week. You’ll need to click through to get the blurb and also check formats as it might be available in more than the one entered on the list.