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.

Do Self-Publishing Services Take Advantage of Writers?

One of the major criticisms of self-publishing is that self-publishing services take advantage of authors – promising them a quick route to success that is wholly unrealistic. I’ve argued that a lot of this falls on the authors themselves, not on the subsidy service. Authors have to do some research on costs and what can realistically be achieved through self-publishing. This came to light in a recent comment on SPR’s AuthorHouse review. A writer said he poured his limited savings into his AuthorHouse book and received little in return. The commenter – who goes by “Feeling Cheated” – said:[…]

Henry Baum2011-10-08T20:40:29+02:00July 2nd, 2009|Categories: Features, Lead Story|

A Question of Ethics

Regarding the review of Bonnie Kozek’s Threshold, I had this email exchange with J.M. Reep that I’m printing here.

JMR: I’m wondering why Bonnie Kozek’s book was reviewed for SPR given the following facts:

1. Ms. Kozek is a contributor to the website.
2. Ms. Kozek is also a member of Backword Books, along with Henry Baum and Kristen Tsetsi, who are also contributors to SPR.
3. While there was a hyperlink to Backword Books at the end of the review, there was no mention in the review of Ms. Kozek’s status as a contributor at SPR, nor […]

Henry Baum2011-10-08T20:41:27+02:00June 25th, 2009|Categories: Features|

Two California Author Appearances

Two authors who have previously been mentioned on the Self-Publishing Review have appearences coming up. Rosie Sorenson, author of They Had Me at Meow, will be appearing at Book Passage in Corte Madera, California. Info:

Rosie Sorenson, author of They Had Me at Meow: Tails of Love from the Homeless Cats of Buster Hollow, is giving a free benefit reading at Book Passage in Corte Madera on Saturday, June 27 at 4:00 p.m. Appearing with her are representatives from The Humane Society of the United States, Fix Our Ferals of Berkeley, the Marin Cat Connection and the Marin

[…]

Henry Baum2011-10-08T19:53:40+02:00June 23rd, 2009|Categories: News|

Introducing the Publetariat Vault

April Hamilton, of Publetariat, has a new service for self-publishers called The Publetariat Vault. Unlike other listing services, the Vault will include sales data, as well as reader reviews. The idea is to make a searchable database for publishing pros to use in order to find authors that are a lower risk to publish. Indie Reader, another for-pay listing service, is aimed primarily at readers (hence the name).

As it says on the site,

The Publetariat Vault is a searchable database of independent literary works for which the authors own all rights free and clear and are interested

[…]

Henry Baum2011-10-08T19:53:54+02:00June 23rd, 2009|Categories: Lead Story, Publisher Reviews|

Introducing: Backword Books

This will repeat some of the information mentioned in the inaugural post of Backword Books – an experiment in self-publishing. Backword Books is a compendium of self-publishers – a kind of hybrid of self-publishing and the traditional literary press. It’s not a press that uses POD technology because the difference is that each writer on Backword uses a different method to print books – iUniverse, Lulu, Lightning Source, and so on.

The idea of the site is to start small and grow from there – selecting a few strong, well-reviewed self-published writers and seeing where it takes us. Even though […]

Henry Baum2011-10-08T19:01:10+02:00June 16th, 2009|Categories: Lead Story, Publisher Reviews|

An Interview with Jexbo.com Founder, Jill Exler

Self-Publishing Review: What is jexbo and why did you start it? Are you an author yourself?

Jill Exler: Formed in 2007, jexbo™ is a website at www.jexbo.com that gives self-published authors the ability to reach new customers online for less than $1.00 per month and sell their books (jexbo receives 5% of whatever the author sells).

Readers can buy books and find unique, self-published works in various categories. And self-published authors have the ability to control the sales process, communicate directly with customers and customize a Web page for marketing purposes at no additional cost.

I started jexbo because I […]

Henry Baum2011-10-08T19:04:32+02:00June 9th, 2009|Categories: Interviews, Lead Story|

Quality Control for Self-Publishing

People say that I shouldn’t get into these debates online about self-publishing because those who are so vehemently opposed to self-publishing are never going to change their mind. But I like a good debate and I really do believe that for the stigma around self-publishing to fade it’s important to chip away at the criticism in debates like this one. The writer’s basic premise is that self-publishing is deserving of its stigma because:

There is no quality control of self-published books so book customers are led to buy inferior work.
Self-publishers are naturally bad writers who just couldn’t hack

[…]

Henry Baum2014-01-08T20:54:51+02:00June 2nd, 2009|Categories: Features|

A Slideshare Presentation: Today's Book Consumer

Here is a fascinating study about today’s book-buying habits. For fiction – mystery and detective novels comprise the greatest percentage of book purchases, and the internet is gaining as a place where people buy books exclusively, especially for older readers:

4- Making Information Pay 2009 — GALLAGHER, KELLY (Bowker)

View more presentations from bisg.

On a completely unrelated note, the Self-Publishing Review is now the fifth listing in Google for the term self-publishing, above Xlibris and below Lulu. In my other life, I’m an SEO writer so I pay attention to these things and Google just did a […]

Henry Baum2011-10-08T19:06:25+02:00June 1st, 2009|Categories: News|