SPFBO

Just give me the links, Carol. (Jump there)

(Wait—what is SPFBO?)

SPFBO stands for the “Self-Published Fantasy Blog-Off.” It’s a contest for self-published fantasy novels begun by SFF author Mark Lawrence in 2015. From his website:

“The SPFBO exists to shine a light on self-published fantasy. It exists to find excellent books that might otherwise have gone unnoticed. It exists to help readers select, from the enormous range of options, books that have a better chance of entertaining them than a random choice, thereby increasing reader faith in finding a quality self-published read.”

(Great, I can email you all my SPFBO questions?)

No. I’m not an expert or involved in the administration of the contest in any way. I have no official answers about anything. DO NOT EMAIL ME ABOUT SPFBO.

Unless it’s on how to pronounce “SPFBO.” In that case, the answer is Spiffbo. Don’t listen to anyone who tells you otherwise. I have spoken.

(So…why do you have a page on it, then?)

I’ve submitted books to three separate SPFBOs, and it was a key part of how I built a community early on. I think it’s a great contest, and I follow and support it every year. As the contest has increased in longevity and visibility, I run into more and more people looking for a single place to find information on not just that year’s but previous year’s contests. Right now, no page (to my knowledge) exists that gathers all this information in one place. So, as my small contribution, I’ve done that here on my tiny slice of the internet.

[Insert shameless self-promo, ‘cause this is my website and that’s literally its raison d'être: Sweetblade was a semi-finalist!]

(Why aren’t there pretty charts? Pictures? Can you list all the books by name and give me Amazon/Goodreads links and also make it so I can sort by subgenre, semi-finalist status, author’s favorite color, [insert filter here]?)

Ya’ll are demanding! That would be fantastic, wouldn’t it? Fellow author (and SPFBO 6 finalist) Zack Argyle has some pretty pictures on his website for SPFBO 6, SPFBO 7, and SPFBO 8.

But as to the rest, that’s an enormous amount of work; there’s a reason no one has done it yet. Perhaps over time I’ll get a little fancier as I have time, or perhaps someone else will beat me to it (anyone?). For now, this is what I have the bandwidth for. Here, have a button as a measure of my goodwill: