What the Well Read Reed - Curating Overlooked Stories -
What the Well Read Reed - Curating Overlooked Stories -
Our Purpose
Our core mission is to find and deliver great stories and ideas that you probably wouldn’t find on your own.
This is not in anyway meant as a slight on authors have more broad success and is not a critique of the system as a whole. We are not here to bash successful authors or publishing houses. But to simply find and share stories that you otherwise may have missed.
Our goal is to shed a little light on the stories that get lost in our content deluge and hopefully connect people to authors, stories, and resources they would have otherwise missed.
About D.C. Reed
I’m a father, husband, and author based out of Atlanta, Ga.
After graduating with honors in Philosophy and Music Performance I have written for sports websites, was a music reviewer, and have published philosophical and religious writings.
When I was young, I continually created narratives for everything in my life and have taken that energy to writing short stories and novels. I have always tried to bridge the gap between philosophy and our society through stories. My Lesson Not Learned short stories and published book Trial are examples of approachable literary fiction that brings philosophy to life.
I currently have two published works: Jumped (sci. fi fantasy) and Trial (Lit. Fiction). My next two novels will be The Other Side (a book exploring death and grief from the perspective of the recently deceased) and Return (the sequel to Jumped). A new Web serial: Second Draft, will debut on the Royal Road in the first quarter of 2025.
Why 50 reviews or less
At last check 4 million books a year, roughly 11,000 a day and about 7,500 kindle books are published daily.
Thats a lot of books. Inside those numbers are thousands of authors looking for a way to shine through the noise. Authors dreaming of a hundred, fifty, or even a handful of people finding their book.
So why 50 reviews or less? Because there are too many great books lost to the algorithms that run our lives. Lost because they don’t have thousands, hundreds, or even ten reviews.
Beyond that I truly believe that a good book is always new. Unlike sports, or the latest gossip if you find a book you love a year, two, or even decades after it was first published it doesn’t diminish the value and joy of that work. Publishing, like everything else has become a game of volume and speed in many respects and hopefully this site can help you find some stories you would have otherwise missed.
Our Process
The books we choose to read starts with a simple rule:
A book can have 50 reviews or less.
We start by going on kindle unlimited and searching through hundreds of books looking for ones that catch our eye and fancy.
A) I look for books that have been out at least three months, but preferably over a year.
B) I check the number of reviews during the initial search and before I start reading. I do not punish authors who gain reviews after that point which can lead to a book with more than fifty reviews being recommended.
After selecting the book we check good reads and the web at large for reviews to see if it has more than 50 reviews. If it doesn’t then it goes in the queue.
We read. Before starting the book we check number of reviews one more time.*
If we like a book it gets a spoiler free review and video.
This site is not about negativity. If a book doesn’t hook me that doesn’t mean it was a bad book, just that it wasn’t for me. I will never bash a book or an author. The process of creating, writing, editing, and publishing is to hard and life is too short for that type of negativity.
I have finished books that I do not recommend. I have started plenty and put them down for a many reasons. This is why only books I would recommend are added to my good reads account. I never want to imply that if I stop reading a book or don’t review it that it was a bad book.
My good reads books be books I recommend or books that fall outside of the parameters of the Uncovered Author.
What About AI
Books or stories that are primarily written using generative AI are not something we condone or support at the Uncovered Author.
Nothing can replace the experience of sitting in-front of a blank screen and creating something new. A voice, a perspective, are found in the process of sitting, writing, walking, thinking, struggling, and telling a story. The journey emerges as you edit your work, rework chapters, and believe you are finished before you see a major change is necessary. Using generative AI removes the journey, and isn’t an authors idea, story, or voice.
With applications like ProWritingAid, Grammarly, and others, AI has found its way into the writing and publishing industry. Just as we don’t berate an author for using a computer instead of a typewriter, nor consider a printing press cheating compared to hand copying a book, we can use AI as a tool without letting it replace the creative process or become the primary tool for creating a book.
I am only human, and if I review and recommend a book or story that was primarily created with generative AI, I not only apologies in advance, but will actively investigate how AI was used and will remove videos and reviews where appropriate.