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.

Wrap Up from Book Expo America

Book Expo America has come and gone and the mood you come away with is that publishing in a state of limbo. A lot of talk of how publishing is changing, but no clear answer about where it’s going to go. In fact, the panels about publishing’s future were not as well attended as the panels lamenting publishing’s problems. In other words, people are still sifting through the problems of the old paradigm without necessarily embracing the future. The L.A. Times Jacket Copy had this report:

Starting at 2:30 p.m., two visionaries shared their ideas of a new kind of

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Henry Baum2011-10-08T19:06:47+02:00June 1st, 2009|Categories: News|

An Interview with Matty Byloos, author of Don't Smell the Floss on Write Bloody Press

This is the first interview on the site about a book that has crossed the line from self-publishing to micro publishing: there is a difference. However, the founder of Write Bloody puts out his own books on the press/the press uses print on demand/writers are responsible for editing and submitting the ISBN/writers retain rights to their books/and the press lays the marketing on the writers. So there is an element of self-publishing to the press – and SPR’s definitely a supporter of this type of hybrid publishing.

Generally, I think there’s a little too much of an us vs. them […]

Henry Baum2011-10-08T19:07:00+02:00June 1st, 2009|Categories: Interviews, Lead Story|

A Public Service: The Predator Next Door by Darlene Ellison

This is an incredibly hard review to write. Not only because of the subject of the book but because I want to do the book justice. I am the father of a six-year-old so while I know that this topic is vitally important, it is also deeply unpleasant. The author of The Predator Next Door, Darlene Ellison, has been to hell and back. A short description of the book: Darlene Ellison married a successful Dallas-area dentist. One day in 2005 she came home to find FBI agents ransacking her home. It turned out that her husband – who had […]

Henry Baum2011-10-08T19:55:03+02:00May 28th, 2009|Categories: Book Reviews|

Checking Your Amazon Sales Rank by Shannon Yarbrough

A great primer on how to check your Amazon sales rank by Shannon Yarbrough, author of Stealing Wishes, originally published at the LL Book Review. Try not to get obsessed with checking your sales rank, but it’s certainly gratifying to see a book climb the ranks.

Today, like almost every day, I checked my Amazon.com sales rank and discovered it had bumped up quite a bit. I’m now at 101,491. Now as I’ve discussed in the past, this might very well mean I’ve sold just one copy over the weekend, or even up to 5 copies. And chances […]

Henry Baum2011-10-08T19:55:20+02:00May 27th, 2009|Categories: Resources|

Smashwords Offers Two New Services for Epublishers

Smashwords is quickly becoming one of the central portals in the e-revolution. This week Smashwords.com unveiled an affiliate marketing program, available to anyone who signs up with the site (check the sponsors button in the upper right). Mark Coker describes the affiliate program on the Smashwords blog:

[Affiliate revenue] comes out of the author’s percentage. As we mention in the documentation at https://www.smashwords.com/about/smashwords_affiliate_documentation this service offering was designed in careful consultation with Smashwords authors and publishers. We surveyed all our publishers a couple months back and asked them to provide input on the proposed program. We asked: 1. Are

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Henry Baum2011-10-08T19:55:42+02:00May 27th, 2009|Categories: News|

From Self-Published to Simon and Schuster: An Interview with Lori Culwell, Author of Hollywood Car Wash

Lori Culwell is the author of the novel Hollywood Car Wash, a novel that won first prize in Project Publish:

Via Project Publish, Touchstone Books was the first major publisher to put our market-based method for evaluating media content to the test…a team of editors, including Touchstone publisher Mark Gompertz, evaluated the 50 top scoring book proposals on Media Predict. They selected five book proposals as Project Publish finalists, and eventually one grand prize winner.

The novel – originally published through iUniverse – was put out by Touchstone, an imprint of Simon & Schuster, in May 2009. Publisher’s […]

Henry Baum2011-10-08T19:56:36+02:00May 26th, 2009|Categories: Interviews, Lead Story|

The Lulu Book Review Gets a Redesign

The self-publishing blogosphere just got a lot more slick and professional. The Lulu Book Review is now the LL Book Review – offering reviews of books on CreateSpace and Wordclay, as well as Lulu, with a totally revamped design. This is great news as self-publishing becomes more legitimized and a part of the overall dialogue.

In editor Shannon Yarbrough’s own words:

For over a year, the Lulu Book Review has been offering Lulu authors a chance to shine. With some exciting new changes, the site will now reach out to more indie authors and do it in style. In March

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Henry Baum2011-10-08T19:56:51+02:00May 22nd, 2009|Categories: News|

Self-Published Literary Fiction: Sea Changes by Gail Graham

Finally. In the past on this site, there’s been discussion about the overall direction of self-publishing, with some seeing it mainly as an avenue for mainstream writers who weren’t able to make the cut in the traditional system. I’ve seen self-publishing as a route for more-unique writing that wasn’t able to find a home in a publishing industry that doesn’t exactly reward innovation. For the new paradigm in publishing to take effect, not only will niche writers have a platform with self-publishing, but everybody: including literary fiction.

But sometimes I think I’m fooling myself because the majority of the books […]

Henry Baum2011-10-08T19:57:05+02:00May 22nd, 2009|Categories: Book Reviews, Lead Story|