Welcome to the 2025 Indie Author & Small Press Reading Challenge! For this challenge read (and review!) at least 6 indie, self-published, and/or small press books of your choosing. Help support small presses and authors who don't have the resources of large publishers by reading or listening to their books and then leaving a review. 

 

Note: I originally started this challenge because I wanted to work through the indie and self-published authors on my shelves. However, with multiple of the Big Five publishers or their imprints behaving poorly in the past few years (*cough cough* HarperCollins *cough cough* Macmillan’s St. Martin’s Press *cough cough* HarperCollins AGAIN, just to name a few), I feel it’s more important than ever to ensure alternatives to traditional publishing remain options. 

 

While you can still complete this challenge with only 6 titles, I’ve expanded the bonus prompts to accommodate up to 12 with an additional 12 bonus prompts to help inspire your reading. Aim for as many (or as few) as you’d like and feel free to customize prompts as needed, as long as the title did not use any Big Five resources to get published. 

 

View prior challenges for book suggestions and additional reading inspiration: 2024, 2023, 2022, 2021.