This is a continuation of Reviewing the Reviewers: A Dialogue about Book Reviewing with Steven Reynolds and Carol Buchanan, which led to a very lively discussion. Self-Publishing Review: When a self-published novel is awful, do you think the reviewer has any responsibility to spare the writer’s feelings? Steven Reynolds: A writer will always be somewhat [...]

The more self-published books I read, the more despondent I get over the state of what now appears to pass for “writing” in general. With some (OK, most) of these books, you are sometimes forced to wonder if it isn’t a case of reader bias brought about by shoddy packaging. It seems that it would [...]

Big news from Smashwords with great implications for self-publishers.  Earlier, we reported on the deal between Smashwords and Barnes & Noble, which means that books published via Smashwords will also be distributed to B&N and other B&N properties like Fictionwise and the ereader application.  Now Smashwords expands its reach by teaming up with Sony to [...]

The concept that “Writers should show, not tell,” may be a bit  overused. The basic premise of show don’t tell is that you can better inspire empathy for a character if you shows what a particular moment feels like, rather than just saying: He was sad.  That sentence will convey nothing if there’s no context [...]

Two very interesting posts came out last week signifying major shifts in publishing and how self-publishing may be regarded.  This article is a must read: Adding to the Bottom Line With Self-Published Titles.  Thie gist of the article is this: self-published titles are not the money-drain they used to be and now can be seen [...]

In response to the controversy over the SPR review of the novel, Winter GamesReviewing the Reviewers. – further explored in the post, I was recently made aware of the controversy that followed Carol Buchanan’s review of my novel Winter Games. I have been following the string of comments below Ms. Buchanan’s review with mixed emotions. [...]

We did another little book tour in August. It was time. The economy was creating a stagnant sales profile, and we know that doing a few book signings primes the pump. We made our arrangements with four Hastings Entertainment stores, two of which we were at last year. (This makes a total of sixteen book [...]

The idea for this dialogue came after the controversy regarding the review of John Lacombe’s Winter Games.  If you haven’t seen that thread, check it out, it’s a long one – it has a lot of interesting commentary about how writers and/or their fans should respond to reviews, including examples of how not to respond [...]

There is nothing that separates this book from a book on a small independent press. Nothing. The cover is exquisite, the writing is crisp, well-edited, and moving. It’s not perfect, but none of my criticisms have anything to do with the professionalism of the book. When this book was sent to me, I wrote to [...]

I’m normally somewhat reticent to post too much about Backword Books here because I don’t want SPR to become too much of a site for my own self-promotion – Backword Books is a self-publishing collective I belong to.  But I think this contest could be interesting: write a blog post about self-publishing to win 7 [...]