We’ve had a lot of fun during A Month of Rain and Reads, and hope you’ve had more reads than rain. But sadly, the month has come to an end. This is our first time hosting a large event like this, and we’ve been blown away by how many of you came along to take part! We had too many submissions to handle, which meant plenty of content on the blog, averaging three a day most days! We’ve also given away so many books that were generously donated by indie authors. So many of you took part in our daily challenges and won some awesome indie books.
Thank you to everyone that took part in the month and shared our posts! We love the indie community โค๏ธ
Here are just a few stats from the month…
- In total, we’ve published 85 posts, including this one!
- That included 13 reviews, 9 guest posts, as well as recommendations, spotlights, and author interviews.
- We also interviewed 13 authors as part of The Book Bazaar 2025 crowdfunding campaign that took place this month.
- The most content we had on a single day was 5 posts!
- Many of our reviews and recommendations featured lesser known indie authors and books with less than 50 ratings on Goodreads.
- We also hosted spotlights for 3 books that launched this month.
- Our most popular posts in terms of views were the following guest posts: Complex PTSD and the Creative Life by Sarah Chorn and Ken Scholes, We Live Here by Zig Zag Claybourne, and Finding My Indie Family by Beba Andriฤ.
- We chose our giveaway winners using the random Wheel of Names.
- Most of our daily giveaways had a unique winner, with only three people winning more than once.
- Our most popular challenge with the most entries was for day 20: Trans Joy – Share your favorite book by a trans author or featuring a trans protagonist.
- We accidentally interviewed the same author twice. Whoops!
- Our wonderful banner and the coloured variants was designed by Arden Powell!
A Month of Rain and Reads has been organised by the hosts of Read Indie Fantasy.com, Nils รdlund and Trudie Skies, so be sure to show us some love! With thanks also to Tessa Hastjarjanto for organising the daily challenge and helping out where needed.
Want to learn more about us and our mission statement? View our About page.
How did we think the month went? Here are our thoughts on A Month of Rain and Reads…
Nils’s Thoughts
What did you enjoy most about A Month of Rain and Reads?
Reading the interviews while preparing them for publishing on the website. We had so many cool people taking the time to answer our questions, and it was great to see them put time and effort into sharing their thoughts.
What were your favourite posts?
- We Live Here, by Zig Zag Claybourne
- CPTSD and Creativity, by Sarah Chorn and Ken Scholes
- All the interviews (I refuse to pick just one)
Which was your favourite challenge?
Trans Joy, because it really took off and brought in a lot of suggestions.
What would you do differently if we hosted the event again?
I would enlist the aid of someone in a time-zone far removed from where the rest of us are so that we have someone who can conveniently post and reply while it’s night here in the Netherlands and UK.
Tru’s Thoughts
What did you enjoy most about A Month of Rain and Reads?
I loved the wide range of indie books that authors and readers recommended and suggested, whether on social media, the discord, or through the guest reviews and recommendations. Instead of going for popular favourites, most people chose to highlight lesser known books, and I love that! I also loved that some of our guest posts and interviews encouraged people to go out and buy these books.
Plus, the pets. Everyone was sharing pet pics in their interviews!
What were your favourite posts?
It’s difficult to chose, but I really enjoyed all the reviews and recommendations that people submitted, especially Read the Rainbow, which recommended queer books. My favourite guest post was How Reading More Helped Cure My Indie-Author Burnout by Angela Boord.
Which was your favourite challenge?
They were all so brilliant! The Trans Joy challenge had such an amazing response, but as Nils’s has picked that one, I’m going to go for Menty B – Share a book with mental health rep, because mental health is important and I loved that some authors found this particular challenge helpful.
What would you do differently if we hosted the event again?
I’d remember to use the #AMoRaR hashtag more.
Tessa’s Thoughts
What did you enjoy most about A Month of Rain and Reads?
The enthusiasm of the community! When we announced, so many of you reached out to contribute with your time and books/merch for the giveaways. I love books, talking about books, recommending books, looking at books, so this month has been a delight.
What were your favourite posts?
Tough question! Choosing Jamedi’s review for A Dress To Save Me would be too easy, right? Sarah Chorn’s post left a deep impression on me, and Frasier Armitage’s post about food made me think about the food I feature in my own stories and why it matters so much to me.
Which was your favourite challenge?
I made them, don’t make me pick. Ok, fine. I’ll pick Blood โ Love because it got so many recommendations I haven’t read yet but added to my TBR.
What would you do differently if we hosted the event again?
I’d love to get the bookstagram community involved. There are so many readers there who might not have heard of us yet. It’d be a great opportunity to get more people into our community.
A THANK YOU from us
Planning and hosting all of these posts took time and work, but we couldn’t have done it at all without authors, bloggers, and reading fans within the indie community taking time out of their day to write up a guest post, review, recommendation or interview. We also couldn’t have run the daily challenges and giveaways without generous donations from indie authors.
So here is a big THANK YOU to all those who contributed to A Month of Rain and Reads:
A.E. Zeigler, Aimee Cozza, Andrew Hindle, Angela Boord, Arden Powell, B.S.H. Garcia, Beba Andriฤ, Belinda Crawford, Ben Moxon, Ben Schenkman, Cat Rector, Celia Lake, D Hale Rambo, D. C. Hart, Daniel Meyer, Dave Dobson, David Green, Douglas Lumsden, E.A. Bard, Elliott Dunstan, Emily Barlow, Frasier Armitage, Helen Whistberry, J.S. Living, J. Tomala, JD Rivers, Jamedi, Jane Gilheaney, Jessica A. McMinn, Joel Flanagan-Grannemann, Josie Jaffrey, Julian Miles, Kai Zeal, Karen Lykkebo, Karen Lucia, Ken Scholes, L. L. MacRae, Lilly Lockwood, Machelle Berglund, Madeleine Marie-Rose, Mary McKenna, Marie Sinadjan, Matthew Siadak, Masterpiece of Turkey Cleverness, Melissa Stone, Millie Abecassis, Mitch Miller, NS Ford, Nicole Evans, Nick Snape, Nikki McCormak, Niranjan, Oleander Craw, Phil Parker, Ruth Miranda, Ryan Kirk, S. C Gowland. Sarah Chorn, Stephanie Caye, Susanne Schmidt, TienSwitch, Tim Hardie, Valiant Evermech, William C. Tracy, Zig Zag Claybourne.
Over to You
And now the month is over, we’d like your feedback! What did you like most about A Month of Rain and Reads? What could we improve on? What would you like to see if we run this event again? Share your thoughts with us in this quick anonymous survey! Your opinions can help make next year even better.
Thank you all again for taking part in A Month of Rain and Reads! Let’s do this again sometime.
