Cate Baum | Self-Publishing Review

5 Summer Writing Contests With Decent Prizes

Summertime for a lot of us means time to write! So here are five decently-prized contests to enter this season.

Micro Story Contest – Museo de la Palabra

The Museo de la Palabra (Museum of Word) is a heritage site of the Fundación César Egido Serrano, it is located in Quero, Toledo (Spain), on the first route of Don Quixote. The César Egido Serrano Foundation is a non-profit Foundation, whose objective is to use words and dialogue as a tool for understanding between different cultures and religions. The competition first prize is $20,000 for the best short story. All entries […]

Cate Baum2018-06-05T12:12:52+02:00July 27th, 2017|Categories: Features|

How To Get The Best Paperback Cover You Can With CreateSpace

Many authors have bemoaned their CreateSpace paperback quality, i.e. print cover results in forums. But there are certain tricks of the trade that are right in front of your nose that would have given you a perfect result. Here’s a quick rundown of some easy to grasp techniques when choosing your print options with CreateSpace.

Do your interior first

Remember that you need your page count before you do your cover, because you need to know how wide your spine is! When you download your template, you will need to input the exact number of pages. Remember the interior is […]

Cate Baum2020-02-21T05:43:40+02:00June 22nd, 2017|Categories: Features, Resources|Tags: Amazon News and Tips, Book Cover Design Tips|

Seven Steps To Maximum Exposure For Your Self-Published Book

It’s a very competitive market out there. Here are some more direct tips from SPR’s marketing team to get your book sold and seen.

Good cover design

The one greatest tool for your book marketing is a professional book cover. Without it, you will fail online, you will fail on a book stand. People do judge a book by its cover. A professional cover won’t break the bank, but it will cost a few hundred dollars. It’s essential you budget for this expense in your marketing costs. This expense, plus editing, should be the absolute essentials when self-publishing. Frankly, people

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Cate Baum2020-02-21T05:53:07+02:00June 13th, 2017|Categories: Features, Resources|Tags: Amazon News and Tips, Book Marketing Advice and Tips|

Review: Nannion by Andreas Androutsellis-Theotokis

Everyone loves a cat story, and Nannion by Andreas Androutsellis-Theotokis features the eponymous off-white street cat in a surprising science fiction tale of earth sciences and Greek history. Although not a story for children (Nannion, the cat’s namesake, was in fact a prostitute in Ancient Greece) there is a childlike quality to the narration that makes the cat’s relationship with Claire, a lonely and dying marine biologist working in the Aegean Sea around Athens and the island of Dioptra, cozy reading.

As the book goes on, other characters working in marine sciences come into the story. The team learns about […]

Cate Baum2019-02-11T08:52:05+02:00June 6th, 2017|Categories: Book Reviews, Lead Story|Tags: International Fiction Book Reviews, Science Fiction Book Reviews|

Review: In Search of A Little Piece of Sunshine by Carlos Jimenez

★★★★★

In Search of A Little Piece of Sunshine by Nicaraguan writer Carlos Jimenez is a beautiful and original middle grade novel for readers who enjoy fantasy and nature. Jimenez is a new talent ready to burst onto the US market with this, his first English language release.

As a band of brave children search for “a little piece of sunshine” to save the freezing cities in North America, namely NYC, they must travel into the forests and face many strange and mythical creatures in their environmental quest. An allegory set in the time of Obama, this book is really […]

Cate Baum2019-01-22T11:03:39+02:00April 27th, 2017|Categories: Book Reviews, Lead Story|Tags: Middle Grade Fiction Book Reviews|

The Brontë Sisters – Self-Publishing Pioneers

Did you know the Brontë sisters were pioneers in self-publishing? In this look at their lives, vanity presses, underhand dealings, and ripoff merchants play in their rise to literary legend.

Patrick Brunty was an Irish clergyman from humble beginnings. Subtly changing his name over time to “Brontë,” meaning “the sound of thunder” in Greek, to suit his loftier academic leanings, he had married and had six children, with Charlotte (1816–1855), Patrick Branwell (1817–1848), Emily (1818–1848) and Anne (1820–1849) surviving the deaths of their mother from cancer and their two older sisters Elizabeth and Maria from suspected consumption.

Patrick had […]

Cate Baum2017-04-24T08:54:40+02:00April 24th, 2017|Categories: Features, Success Story|

From George Eliot to JT LeRoy – The Female Author Problem

It’s Post#MeToo. And woman writers are still a niche.

Amazingly, we still seem to be using the term “female author” or “woman writer.” Amazon has a category, “Women’s Fiction.” There are a lot of niche prizes out there for “Women Authors.” None for “Men Authors.”

Being a woman still “poses issues” for those marketing fiction, and it seems to be not going away. Instead, women seem to have accept their Etsy, craftsy, whimsical lot, we’re buying knitting needles, pastel-colored cake mixing machines, and romance novels like it’s 1952, and we’re facing what can only be called a backpedaling down into […]

Cate Baum2018-10-28T07:33:20+02:00April 4th, 2017|Categories: Features|Tags: Women's Fiction Book Reviews|

Peach: An Exceptional Teen’s Inspiring Journey for Universal Acceptance by Jenevieve (Peach) Woods

Peach is a lively and normal teenager, except for the fact she has mitochondrial disease, called MITO, a genetic disorder that means movement and speech are somewhat affected by her condition. Her friend and publisher, Pete Geissler, has presented this book to offer inspiration and hope to others.

The book was written by Peach herself along with Pete Geissler, as she carries on journaling her path through teen events through going to college away from home, and how she deals day to day with her life and faces tasks with her mother, who she clearly has a very strong […]

Cate Baum2018-05-09T10:18:50+02:00March 31st, 2017|Categories: New Releases|Tags: Memoir Book Reviews, Non-Fiction Book Reviews|