If you’re a fiction lover — especially one with an affinity for literary and independent fiction — these are tough times.

There is so much great literature out there, but much of it hides in the shadows of Amazon’s and NYT’s bestsellers lists. Sadly, the cream doesn’t always rise. A lot of truly great literature struggles to reach a mass audience without proper advertising and PR budgets, which many new authors and independent presses simply don’t have.

But if you know where to look, the great fiction you crave can be found.

For those of you who don’t have the time to pour through all the minutiae, I’m happy to offer some notes from my off-the-radar literary travels. As we’ve now reached the half-way point in the year, allow me to offer up what I judge to be the 3 Best New Fiction Novels of 2010.

Without further ado…

3. THE NAME OF THE NEAREST RIVER
by Alex Taylor

Alex Taylor’s debut comprises a series of heart-wrenching stories set in rural Kentucky. In both the way his characters are drawn — with an almost impossible empathy for the often hopeless, desperate, and/or cruel — and the way he describes the dreary Kentucky environs in which the stories are set, the author evokes a sense of despair that lingers with you. Shades of Raymond Carver, William Faulkner and Cormac McCarthy here; but make no mistake, Taylor’s voice is his own. These stories will hang on you, disturb you. And yes, you’ll be much better off for reading them.

2. BROKEN GLASS PARK
by Alina Bronsky

Sascha Naimann is a 17-year-old Russian girl living in Germany when her mother is killed by a brutal stepfather. While she and her younger siblings are being smothered by distant relatives and social workers, all Sascha can think about is exacting vengeance. When a story runs in the local paper about her stepfather’s lauded in-prison reformation, Sascha goes ape-shit – spinning the narrative in another direction. At its conclusion, Sascha ends up in “broken glass park” — the most seedy and dangerous area in her neighborhood — where the varied, complicated layers of her struggle are laid bare.

1. free download here.

Liz Babineaux is an avid reader with a knack for sniffing out fantastic-but-obscure literary voices. She runs the blog BNF: Best New Fiction.

A book is your golden ticket into the speaking business. If you had a book published by a “real” publisher within the last 12 months in your hands, you have the calling card you need to get those speaking engagements now.

Some authors-to-be and new authors have trouble figuring out precisely how to leverage that book into speaking. First, when the book is printed, ask the publisher for a few hundred copies of the cover, as “overrun.” Usually you can have them free or at cost. They make large-sized, noticeable postcards to send to meeting planners to attract their attention.

Next, you want to get media. Radio, print, television appearances based on your book are all critical. Capture the name of the show, the host and the date you appeared and put it on your website, in your speaker’s package, and in your file. Eventually, you will collect all of your TV clips and ask a professional video editor to combine it into an excellent montage. These will impress the heck out of a meeting planner and should be used liberally.

Now that you’ve got some ammo, and assuming you have a website touting your brilliance and your book, it’s time to petition all those hapless meeting planners out there. Write letters, make phone calls, send post cards, follow up and be persistent.

You can buy a book of meeting planners in any industry online. Then, you make them your new friends. Go to their meetings. Hang out. Cold call them and be friendly.

I personally love cold calling. I also don’t even notice rejection. I suggest you adopt my personality for a little while each day. In the speaker trainings I do, I make them all recite a mantra that will help their business. “The most important thing that I can do is make 12 calls between 10 and 2.” That refers to the minimum I expect from a speaker-to-be. Make 12 calls each day to meeting planners, offer them you, a free copy of your book, send them a postcard thanking them for their time on the phone written on your book jacket cover, and make at least three follow up calls (or fewer if they tell you to quit calling.)

Make those 12 calls five days a week. Give them what they ask you for. If you do this, you will make 3,120 calls in a year. You will have gotten speaking engagements simply by the law of averages. Your investment of time will be small, but results can be huge.

Good luck!

(c) 2007, Keller Media, Inc. Want to use this article in your publication? Reprints welcome so long as the article and by-line are reprinted intact and all links made live.

Wendy Keller is a professional speaker, published author and book agent. Her company Fame Finders delivers a proven marketing, training and promotion system to help successful people become famous authors and professional speakers. Her system provides a clear competitive advantage for successful individuals who are now ready to lead the field. If you’re ready to become a thought leader and famous speaker visit Fame Finders today.