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.

Getting Listed in the Edelweiss Database

One of the biggest challenges for self-published authors is getting a book into bookstores, libraries, and in the hands of top reviewers. Traditional publishers certainly have the leg up in this area, and they’re using a service called Edelweiss. Here’s a good overview at Book Riot about what Edelweiss does. Basically, it sorts books out via buzz (reviews, professional interest), which makes it easier for booksellers and/or librarians to know which books to stock. Reviewers can request a galley. Edelweiss has a partnership with LibraryReads to get books into libraries.

Sounds great for self-publishers, doesn’t it? Alas, it’s not […]

Henry Baum2014-07-13T10:39:20+02:00April 16th, 2014|Categories: Resources|

Self-Publishing is Dumb

Are self-publishers dumb? Don’t answer that.

Recently, the debate has arisen again about genre vs. literary self-publishing (as if there’s some kind of war between the two) with Chris Meadows gloating on Teleread:

Maybe because, I dunno, nobody wants to read them? I read to get away from the real world. I don’t want to read more stories about the real world.

Anyway, I come to wonder: after all these years of sneering at genre’s low-brow nature, is literary fiction about to die off because its writers couldn’t make the same transition to self-publishing that genre’s writers could? That

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Henry Baum2014-04-11T14:38:07+02:00April 11th, 2014|Categories: Features|

AuthorEarnings.com Roundup

It’s been the week of Hugh Howey and AuthorEarnings.com, and there’s been an immense amount of coverage. Here are the main posts about the bombshell, both for and against.

BusinessWeek: Is Self-Publishing a Better Road to Wealth for Writers?

Howey’s data provide only one snapshot of a single market on a single day. Amazon may dominate the e-book world, but its sales data don’t cover the entire industry. Revenue streams that come to authors with publishing deals, such as advances, aren’t accounted for. The data are also focused on a particular corner of the market that may not move

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Henry Baum2014-02-15T13:58:32+02:00February 15th, 2014|Categories: Features|Tags: Hugh Howey, JA Konrath|

AuthorEarnings.com: Self-Publishing Has Its Advocate

I can’t really do justice to the massive posts by JA Konrath and Porter Anderson, but this is a pretty momentous development. AuthorEarnings.com is a brand new site, which culls sales info from self-publishers. Authors can contribute to the project via a simple but useful survey. This is the site’s mission statement.

Our purpose is to gather and share information so that writers can make informed decisions. Our secondary mission is to call for change within the publishing community for better pay and fairer terms in all contracts. This is a website by authors and for authors.

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Henry Baum2014-02-12T13:27:31+02:00February 12th, 2014|Categories: News|Tags: Amanda Hocking, Hugh Howey, JA Konrath|

Interview with WaveCloud Co-Founder, Bill Van Orsdel

WaveCloud is a newish self-publishing company offering a variety of book publishing packages. We sat down with CMO and co-founder Bill Van Orsdel to find out a little more about the company.

Self-Publishing Review: What is WaveCloud and how long has it been online?

Bill Van Orsdel: WaveCloud provides editing, production and marketing services to authors that want help bringing a book to market. We don’t ask for any rights, and we don’t ask for a percentage. Our services are a la carte, and as we deliver the work, we also deliver all of the files to the […]

Henry Baum2014-02-11T17:01:03+02:00February 11th, 2014|Categories: Interviews|Tags: Book Distribution|

Best WordPress Themes for Writers & Publishers

Setting up an author website is pretty much a given for all self-publishers. Given that blogging is also an important facet of author promotion, it can be easier to use a blogging platform for the overall website. It’s very possible to make a blogging template function as a commercial website.

The two biggest blogging platforms nowadays are WordPress and Blogger. Though there are very credible sites using the free WordPress.com service (see davidgaughran.wordpress.com), it can be slicker to have your own author.com (or book.com) URL using WordPress.org. With WordPress.org, you’ll have access to hundreds of different plugins, […]

Henry Baum2019-06-13T07:46:49+02:00February 10th, 2014|Categories: Lead Story, Resources|Tags: Author Blogging|

Self-Publishing with Integrity: An Interview with Dan Holloway

Dan Holloway is the author of the self-publishing manual, Self-Publish with Integrity, as well as the self-published novels, The Man Who Painted Agnieszka’s Shoes, Songs from the Other Side of the Wall, and many others.

SPR: What is “Self-Publish with Integrity”? Is it more of a manifesto about self-publishing, as opposed to nuts and bolts info on how to self-publish?

Dan Holloway: I’ve written plenty of manifestos in my time, such as the retro-sensualist manifesto, but this isn’t one of them. It’s intended as a guidebook to help people steer a course through the […]

Henry Baum2014-02-22T12:56:48+02:00February 6th, 2014|Categories: Interviews, Lead Story|

Sony Shuts Down the Reader Store (Updated)

It was fun while it lasted (the Sony Reader was my first ebook reader) – Sony is shutting down its reader store and migrating titles to Kobo. Via Publisher’s Weekly:

Sony, one of the first companies to enter the e-book market but which has fallen far behind Amazon, Apple, and Barnes & Noble, will close its e-bookstore, the Reader Store, in March and allow its American and Canadian customers to migrate their accounts to Kobo. “Our customers can be assured that they will have a seamless transition to the Kobo ecosystem and will be able to continue to access

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Henry Baum2014-02-06T18:22:49+02:00February 6th, 2014|Categories: News|