Hi, I’m Jeff DeRego and I’m a writer. In fact I am mostly a self-published writer with Fleas, and Park Place, and Team Shikaragaki Go! and Pleasant Hollow all coming out in the last few years with me as writer, editor, print layout guy, and publisher. I published Fleas after I paid for a professional edit, but for all of the other ones I’ve worked with writing groups and trusted readers to get the bulk of the subsequent draft fixes done then done the final edits myself. There’s a reason that Park Place took 8 years, I did almost all of the editing for that one myself. 

I’ve been reading some other self-published writers’ work of late and, well, to be honest, it makes me feel better about the amount of time and care I put into the work I publish. 

However, I have found a lot of fun in reading these novels and as so many of us are competing for an audience in a country (at least the USA) where the majority of the population tops out at 6th grade reading level (and a significant amount of them are functionally illiterate, like, literally haven’t read a novel in many years and can’t if they are asked to do so). Therefore, any amount of discussion outside our pocket sales group can only help spread the knowledge that our work is out and available. It’s an uphill battle not only to rise above the din but to make any headway at all among that tiny percentage of readers who’ll give our work a chance. 

Getting our stuff reviewed is even harder. Where do we send it? Can you get it on Book-Tok or Book Tube? How? How do we find a place that’ll give us an honest review when there are tens of thousands if not millions of us toiling away all hungry for the validation that we have real skills?

Well, I’m going to throw my hat into the ring here and offer myself as a reviewer. 

That brings me to what I am calling The Self on the Shelf 100 Page Challenge in which I will purchase and read your self published novel and review what I read with the goal exceeding the 100 page mark and ultimately finishing the novel. I will then publish a detailed review and critique here at Tumblr for all (of my 17 followers) to read and enjoy. 

I don’t want your book. I want your pitch. What’s your logline? What’s your elevator pitch? Why should I read your fantasy romance/science fiction epic/teen angst novel/pulp detective story, etc…? No short story collections, no true crime, no nonfiction of any kind. I don’t want it and I won’t read it.

If I like your pitch I’ll buy your book. I’ll start to read it, and I’ll review what I read. If you don’t know what my detailed reviews are like check out ANY of the Heinlein Marathon reviews on my Tumblr page. It’ll be something like that. If I fail to hit the 100 page mark the review will almost certainly be shorter and less detailed, but anything I go over 100 pages on will be very detailed and anything I finish will be very thoroughly explored.

Do you have what it takes? I’m not one to piss all over someone else’s work. However I’ll be pointing out the bad as well as the good. I want you to be a better writer. I want you to sell a shitload of books. I want an audience to find you and buy everything you write and look foward to whatever your next thing is! 

This doesn’t mean I’ll sugar coat what’s wrong with your book, but I also won’t go out of my way to point out the negatives, unless, and this is a big unless, I don’t make the 100 page mark. If I can’t get to the 100th page there are serious issues with your book and I’m going to call them out so you can fix them with a subsequent release. And, if you ask I’ll mark up the first couple of chapters and send the book back to you at my own expense. If I REALLY like your book I’ll feature it on a future episode of the Bunch of Stuffcast.

Send me your pitch and your link in Tumblr chat or email me at jrderego@gmail.com. If I buy your book I’ll post the cover here, book being held in my hand, at Tumblr and announce your future review.

Just a quick note that I am less inclined to read high fantasy because I don’t enjoy it at all, but who knows, yours might be the story that opens the door to the genre for me. I doubt it… but, stranger things have happened; it’s the same for Young Adult fiction.  I do not find YA fiction in any way compelling minus Robert Heinlein’s juvi novels, so that’ll be a hard pitch but I am still open to them. If you pitch well, I’ll buy it.

Since I’m always reading (and writing) your book will be interleaved with whatever else I am reading so I am not promising short turnarounds on these. I mean, at the moment I just finished Sinclair Lewis “It Can’t Happen Here” and have started two Destroyer novels, and have to select the next Heinlein Marathon title, AND I’ve just been given Octavia Butler’s “The Parable of the Sower” and I am reading a self published supernatural romance called “Fated Bonds”. So my read will probably be a few months after purchase, but if you read through my Heinlein Marathon reviews I’ve been doing these for like 4 years or something and I don’t plan to stop until I run out of Heinlein novels or die - whichever comes first, and that sort of insane tenacity applies here. I may not be very fast but I am SUPER thorough.

So pitch to me! Why should I read your book?