Cate Baum | Self-Publishing Review

BookVenture Rips off SPR Products Without Permission – Charging $1700 More To Their Authors

We’re disappointed to announce that BookVenture, a book service run out of Ishpeming MI, is illegally marking up Self-Publishing Review services at extortionate rates. Despite sending a cease and desist letter, this company has not removed our products from their website or answered within the timeframe we requested. We said if they did not we would publicly reveal this misconduct.

The worst part of self-publishing is that companies like Book Venture scrape every last penny from authors by hiking up prices. What Book Venture have done here is not only hike up our prices, but they have renamed them and […]

Cate Baum2016-03-05T04:47:25+02:00January 29th, 2016|Categories: News|

Eight Ways To Start Research For Your Historical Novel

As an editor I see books that are ruined by the lack of research for their content all the time. Here are the top ways that you can ensure you’ve done your homework for your next bestseller.

1. Etymology

Etymology tells us about the birth of a word into common use. If you use a word that did not exist in the time period you are writing about, your book is going to sound pretty silly to the hardcore historical fans. You can check when a word came into usage with this handy online etymology dictionary.

2. Timelines

Here’s […]

Cate Baum2016-01-27T07:47:03+02:00January 27th, 2016|Categories: Features|

Review: The Busy Executive Diet by Gabriella Kindert

The Busy Executive Diet by Gabriella Kindert is a conveniently-planned and well-researched guide book to eating healthily while maintaining a hectic professional lifestyle including how to eat on the go while traveling and how to lose weight and stay hydrated. While a lot of offices now provide buffet breakfast with unhealthy cake and loads of strong coffee, it’s interesting to see how exactly it might be possible to cope with a modern lifestyle without resorting to that all-important sugar/caffeine combo we all have become dependent upon.

Gabriella herself lives by these rules. You only have to take a glimpse at […]

Cate Baum2020-02-21T06:37:12+02:00January 25th, 2016|Categories: Book Reviews, Lead Story|Tags: Health Book Reviews|

The One Obvious Reason Authors Get Rejected By BookBub

After a bit of research with BookBub, it seems one really, really obvious point for submission often gets overlooked when authors send their book to BookBub. It’s so simple that maybe in these days of e-books and percentages instead of page numbers we forget that page count is one of the main points of BookBub’s requirements.

All types books have different criteria, too, but the way this information is laid out, it’s easy to gloss over it (It’s in the paragraph “A full-length book”).

So in case you have been rejected, maybe it was as simple as not meeting […]

Cate Baum2020-02-21T04:35:00+02:00January 12th, 2016|Categories: Features|Tags: Newsletter Campaign|

New BISAC Headings Released for Jan 2016 Implementation

The Book Industry Study Group has announced the 2015 edition of BISAC codes that can be used for listing your book. BISAC is an acronym for Book Industry Standards and Communications, and is the descriptor used for high-level categories in libraries, bookstores, as well as being used on Amazon.

The BISG maintains this list.

“This year’s edition focuses on the addition of the Young Adult Fiction (YAF) and Young Adult Nonfiction (YAN) sections for the young adult audience (ages 12-18), and an adjustment on the age group that the Juvenile Fiction (JUV) and Juvenile Nonfiction (JNF) sections cover, now preschool […]

Cate Baum2016-01-07T14:01:20+02:00January 7th, 2016|Categories: News|

How Not To Ask For A Free Review – From A Top 1000 Amazon Reviewer

As well as being a professional reviewer at SPR, I am also one of Amazon’s Top 1000 reviewers (no, you can’t have my moniker, sorry!) and I sometimes review books for free, depending on how I am approached. I am not one of the Vine or Top 100, so bear this in mind while I give you my perspective on how it feels to receive a request from an author to review – and imagine how in demand they must be if I am getting so many requests in the Top 1000.

Why so many review request suddenly? It’s because […]

Cate Baum2019-02-03T09:30:40+02:00January 6th, 2016|Categories: Features|Tags: Book Promotion Articles|

Review: The Healthy Habit Revolution by Derek Doepker

We all have habitual behaviors we wish we could jettison: biting fingernails, interrupting spouses, eating candy bars while watching reality shows. And of course there are many behaviors we don’t have that we wish we did: regular exercise, healthy meals, daily writing, perhaps? Wouldn’t it be wonderful if you could make those desired behaviors as habitual—as easy to do and as hard to avoid—as the troublesome ones?

Well, it’s not exactly easy, but if you follow the program Doepker sets out in this slim but thoroughly packed volume, you’ll almost certainly see changes. Everyone has something they’d like to do […]

Cate Baum2019-02-11T09:28:20+02:00January 6th, 2016|Categories: Book Reviews|Tags: Health Book Reviews, Non-Fiction Book Reviews, Self-Help Book Reviews|

Self-Publishing Review Names Favorite Indie Books of 2015

A list of our team’s favorites books published and reviewed in 2015

Workman’s Complication by Rich Leder

Off-off-off-off Broadway actress Kate McCall inherits her father’s New York private investigation business after he’s a whole lot of murdered in a life insurance company elevator. Henry Baum, owner of SPR wrote of this book, “In the seven years I’ve been reading and reviewing books for SPR, I’d put Workman’s Complication in the top five.”

What’s it like: Fletch meets Sympathy For The Devil