I’ve been thinking about something for the last few days, and I’ve reached the point where I would like some feedback.

At the end of last year, I posted two essays.  The first was an explanation of my growing frustration with ebooks from major publishers, in  regards to both quality and pricing, concluding with the statement that I would be reading many more indie published books in 2012. The second contained my recommendations for which publishers had the lines I thought would be the most interesting in 2012 based on my reading in 2011. In both posts I put lists of what I intended to read over the next few months.  In the post on publishers I listed titles, although not all the titles I have on hand from every publisher.  The other list only contained authors, in part because in some cases I hadn’t decided which books from particular authors I would read first.

Since then, something interesting has occurred.

Since those posts, I’ve gotten several requests to review indie published books, all of which I’ve agreed to.  In one case, I already had that book on my list.  Another of these books is a YA novel.  Now I’ve never reviewed any novels marketed as YA here.  Not because I’m not interested in what’s being published in the YA market, but because there were so many other things I wanted to read first.

But I’ve got a son who will be reading in middle grade and YA soon, and I want to encourage him to read.  At the moment he doesn’t share his father’s interest in reading, in part because of the way reading was taught in the town where we lived before moving to where we are now.  I need to know what’s out there that he might be interested in so I can direct him to those books.

Here’s where my question, or questions rather, enter the picture.

First, how much YA would you being interested in seeing me review?  I’m going to be reading some, but I’d like to kill two birds with one stone and review some of it here.  How many of you would be open to that?  How many opposed?

Second, I’ve been thinking about how to handle reviewing requests by indie authors.  One of the requests I’ve gotten for a review is a little outside the scope of the blog but not so much that it would be totally out of place.  How far afield would you those of you who read this blog tolerate my reviews going?  I’m not going to review urban fantasy much, and while I have no objection to romance being a major part of the story, I’m not interested in reading anything where that’s the entire story.  I’ve been wanting to increase the amount of historical adventure I include here.  A lot of the indie published stuff I’ve seen has been historical, but mostly historical romance rather than adventure.  On the other hand, some of it has been historical mystery, and it’s been hard to tell just how much adventure as opposed to classical deduction the story contains.

I’ll review indie science fiction over at Futures Past and Present.  What about the occasional detective or noir novel?  Any objections there?

So, to recap:  How much YA should I review?  How wide a range of indie novels should I consider for review?  What genres or subgenres are you (not) interested in seeing reviewed?

Yes, I know this is my blog and I’m free to review whatever I feel like.  But on the other hand, I’m trying to develop a community and a brand.  I want people who visit for the first or second time to have a good idea of what they’re going to find.  And I don’t want to alienate anyone who’s a regular or even an occasional reader. So I would really appreciate some feedback.

Thank you.