Author: arkwatson

Catholic Reads is Hiring!

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Want to join a company where your duties are reading Catholic books you love, writing reviews and networking with quality authors? Are you perhaps a new or aspiring author who wants to get a chance to start building your online reputation in the Catholic community and among readers interested in the genres you are writing in? Catholic Reads is hiring! The response from the Catholic community has been invigorating and we need more editors to help market Catholic Fiction. If you are interested please review the list of duties outlined below and email us your resume. In particular we are...

What Are Bridge Books?

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Bridge books are books that build ecumenical bridges with people of other worldviews and faiths. Bridge books are books that explore themes and symbols in common with Catholicism, or who feature authentic Catholic characters but are written from a different world view. This is also a place for Catholic authors who fear to reveal their religion to their secular audience to have a place where the authentic Catholicism of their book can be tested and given an audience. This is even a place where some author converts to Catholicism can bring their earlier works to their new Catholic audience. While...

Reviews will Appear on July 1st 2017

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Hello! If you are reading this, thanks for exploring our website! Starting on July 1st we will start publishing reviews and sending a mailing list to our subscribers letting them know about great sales on Catholic books. For now though you can subscribe ahead of time and follow our progress and updates on our Home page or social media accounts on Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest!
Who We Are

Who We Are

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We are four readers who got fed up with how hard is to find good Catholic fiction that features authentic  Church teaching, themes and characters. When we did manage to find a good story it was usually something written fifty years ago or in a genre that wasn’t always our favorite.
But we love books and we love reading. So we kept searching.
And we found dozens of hidden worlds, indie authors, small presses and magazines. Despite the lack of advertising, imagination and art are alive and well in our parishes. We started Catholic Reads with the aim of putting authentic Catholic fiction into people’s hands. We want our nation and our world to have the chance to see what the Church’s imagination has to offer.

Four of us, M.S. Ocampo, T.S. Sloan, Lori Wilson, and A.R.K. Watson, decided we could do more to change things than just write and advertise our own stories. We started this company because we loved reading and we wanted to put some of the amazing books we found into the hands of hungry readers. Together we started Catholic Reads.

We will help both Catholic authors and readers through 2 ways:

1. Our Library of Reviews
Each week we will publish a review of a book written by a Catholic or that explores themes in common with Catholicism.

  • We will clearly list the themes explored and whether or not the author is openly Catholic. This way readers looking for books exploring specific themes will be able to find them using our tag cloud in the right hand side bar.
  • Because we are independent we will be able to review books from multiple Catholic presses.
  • Indie Authors can gain credibility with readers who know we will vet everybook for quality and an accurate portrayal of the Catholic faith.
  • You can find new books under the Reviews tab, sorted according to genre.

2. Our Email Blast of Books on Sale
Subscribers will receive a weekly email alerting them to sales on the books we review.

  • Readers on a budget can grow their own Catholic library
  • Catholic authors get a chance to find new readers.
  • 1st round of sales starts on our official launch day, July 1st 2017

We are providing these services for free so please be sure to share, subscribe and follow, as our only form of advertising at this time is word of mouth. Anyone interested in helping fund us can contact us through our Contact Us page.

If you are a reader with a book recommendation for us please send it to us through our “Contact Us” page.
Authors interested in finding out how to get their books reviewed or on the email list can find our submission guidelines on the “Submit a Book” page.

I cannot wait to help you find your next adventure and see where Catholic Reads will take us all. I hope that together, authors and readers can turn the page on the current state of religious publishing, and usher in a new Golden Age of Catholic fiction.

Your Editor in Chief,
A.R.K. Watson