Henry Baum | Self-Publishing Review

About Henry Baum

Author of three self-published novels and one traditionally published (Soft Skull Press, Canongate, and Hachette Littératures). Recipient of Best Fiction at the DIY Book Festival, the Gold IPPY Award for Visionary Fiction, and the Hollywood Book Festival Grand Prize. He lives with his wife Cate Baum in Spain. He's the founder of SPR.

Authors United May Have a Point

I’m a bit sick to death of the Amazon-Hachette dispute. Mainly because it’s a case of one corporate giant against another. Another thing that is troubling is the absolute cheerleading for Amazon that comes from the self-publishing side. While Authors United has made some egregiously overboard claims, Amazon isn’t entirely above reproach.

Today, literary heavyweights have joined the Authors United cause, including Philip Roth, Orhan Pamuk, Salman Rushdie, V. S. Naipaul and Milan Kundera.

Ursula K. Le Guin sounds a bit unhinged when she says,

“We’re talking about censorship: deliberately making a book hard or impossible to get, ‘disappearing’

[…]

Henry Baum2014-09-29T08:10:07+02:00September 29th, 2014|Categories: Features|Tags: Amazon News and Tips|

Amazon Launches KDP Kids for Self-Published Children’s Books

This could start another revolution: Amazon announced that it has launched a Kindle Direct Publishing program for children’s books: KDP Kids. From Amazon’s release:

Starting today, you can use Kindle Kids’ Book Creator to create illustrated children’s books for Kindle, taking advantage of features like text pop-ups. Here’s how to get started:

Download the tool, and you can convert individual illustrations into interactive books for both Kindle devices and free reading apps.

Once your book is ready, export the file and upload it to KDP.

Set the book category, age range, and grade range to help customers find

[…]

Henry Baum2020-02-21T04:33:08+02:00September 4th, 2014|Categories: News|Tags: Amazon News and Tips|

Self-Published Author, Patrick McLaw, Not Arrested for Books

There was always something fishy about this story, though very ominous. A Maryland teacher was fired and taken in for a psych evaluation as result (it was reported) of a pair of self-published works of science fiction he published in 2011 about school shootings. It led to breathless headlines like:

Did This Teacher’s Novel Cause Craziest Police Overreaction Ever?

and

In Maryland, a Soviet-Style Punishment for a Novelist

Granted, if true it creates a terrible precedent. But it was only part of the story. The L.A. Times reports, Mental health issues, not books, led to teacher’s suspension

Reports circulated this

[…]

Henry Baum2014-09-04T07:24:22+02:00September 4th, 2014|Categories: News|

One Size Does Not Fit All for Self-Publishing

John Steinbeck famously said “In America…the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires.”

I would substitute “The poor” with “Self-Publishers.” As if every author self-publishing is automatically a Hugh Howey in the making. Self-publishing isn’t a get rich quick scheme. For some it is, for most it isn’t.

Which means what worked for Hugh Howey will not necessarily work for every single writer. Recently on iO9 there was a post Why This Bestselling Author Decided To Start Self-Publishing. Often these kinds of posts are rallying cries for self-publishing – see, even the big […]

Henry Baum2020-02-21T06:34:33+02:00August 31st, 2014|Categories: Features|

An Interview with Steven Spatz, President of BookBaby

SPR’s CEO Henry Baum has a an exclusive conversation with the President of BookBaby, Steve Spatz, about all things self-publishing and the way forward for BookBaby, as they announce a new collaboration with Blue Ash Publishing.

Tell us a little about yourself and BookBaby.
I’ve been with AVL – the parent company for all our brands – for almost 10 years, heading up the marketing for most of our music brands like Disc Makers and Oasis. I was somewhat involved with the launch of BookBaby in 2010, but as the brand grew slowly over the next 18 months, so too […]

Henry Baum2014-08-16T06:43:38+02:00August 15th, 2014|Categories: Interviews|

KDP Enables Pre-Orders for Self-Published Titles

Finally, one of the biggest advantages for trad books on Amazon is now available to self-publishers: pre-ordering. From Amazon’s release:

We’re excited to announce that you can now make your new books available for pre-order in Kindle Stores worldwide. With a few quick and easy steps you can create a pre-order page up to 90 days in advance of your book’s release date–your pre-order product page will be created within 24 hours. When you make your book available for pre-order, customers can order the book anytime leading up to the release date you set. We will deliver it to them

[…]

Henry Baum2020-02-21T04:33:20+02:00August 15th, 2014|Categories: News|Tags: Amazon News and Tips|

Why Self-Publishing Still Has Its Stigma

I don’t want to hold my tongue any longer. There’s a vibe in self-publishing that if it makes money, it’s OK. There’s also a desire on behalf of authors for self-publishing to lose its stigma. Unfortunately, point a is detracting from point b. Just because something is making money doesn’t mean it’s well-valued.

While many want to hold up self-publishing successes and declare “self-publishing has arrived” it is not entirely heartening to see the types of books that are becoming successful – any more than it is to see yet another Kim Kardashian story on my news homepage.

I’m well […]

Henry Baum2014-08-14T16:01:39+02:00August 14th, 2014|Categories: Features|

An Interview With Author Chad Hofmann

An interview with “The Bird Room” author Chad Hofmann, featured this month on SPR’s Lead Stories.

Tell us something about your book. The basics: what’s it about?
The Bird Room is 17 short stories of horror, the paranormal, and the unknown. These stories were all written over the past five years or so with one or two that date back about seven years. I had always thought about publishing all these stories into a collection and finally the came, and here it is.

How did you come to self-publish? Did you try to get published traditionally?
I almost tried to […]

Henry Baum2014-08-05T12:18:00+02:00August 5th, 2014|Categories: Interviews|