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.

The Grueling Critique Process

An invaluable post about online critique groups, reprinted from Robin Mizell’s blog, Treated and Released. Robin Mizell is a self-publishing friendly literary agent (!) She says, “It sometimes confuses aspiring authors when I refer to DIY resources….I try to give people the information they need to make good decisions, even when it seems counterproductive for my enterprise.”

To all poseurs, Marsha Durham announced yesterday on her blog, Writing Companion, “Don’t Even Think About Joining My Writing Group.” With glib humor, she then described the traits exhibited by annoying critique group members.

I can’t imagine how a legitimate […]

Henry Baum2011-10-08T19:18:44+02:00April 15th, 2009|Categories: Resources|

This is Why Self-Publishing isn’t Taken Seriously

Via Pod Peep comes news of Lulu buying out Poetry.com and replacing it with their own brand and self-publishing service. Here’s a screenshot.

Let me count the ways this is problematic. I can understand if Lulu.com central is more of a generic, corporate brand, as they want to attract more business-minded people who are interested in creating brochures and other promotional materials, or non-fiction manuals. But this is Poetry.com – something that is only an expression of a person’s artistic vision, so having such a cold and sterile environment just seems antithetical to a place where people are going to […]

Henry Baum2011-10-08T19:59:07+02:00April 15th, 2009|Categories: Features, Lead Story|

Spam & Eggs by Andrew Kent

I don’t know why the private eye genre is not more used more often – not in crime novels, but in general fiction. Most any book is an investigation – with the writer acting as a sort of investigator into the lives of his or her characters. The private dick novel merely makes this more blatant by making it a literal investigation. There are endless possibilities.

I’m a huge fan of noir fiction – particularly of Jim Thompson, more than Raymond Chandler, as Thompson’s characters are weirder and more damaged. Philip Marlowe usually wins his fights, Thompson’s characters usually lose […]

Henry Baum2011-10-08T19:59:22+02:00April 14th, 2009|Categories: Book Reviews|

I Judge Books by Their Cover – A Lot

Running this website has been eye-opening, in that I now have some sense of what it’s like to be a literary agent being inundated with queries from eager writers. If you want some sense of what it’s like, check out Nathan Bransford’s blog for his recent query contest, in which he posted 50 different queries from readers of his blog.

I can imagine at some point turning into the Query Shark (Janet Reid) and wanting to rip apart queries because it can be frustrating to see the same problems again and again. As time goes on and I become […]

Henry Baum2011-10-08T19:59:43+02:00April 14th, 2009|Categories: Features|

Self-Publishing in the Blogosphere

There’s a lot of interesting discussion about self-publishing going on in the blogosphere, beginning with Victoria Strauss who writes for the Writer Beware blog. She calls out a recent article on CNN that paints too rosy a picture of self-publishing. Not revealing, for instance, that a successful self-publisher also had a high-powered PR firm working for her. I would argue this is the case with a lot of journalism in general – it errs on the side of being overly positive. That’s the nature of the puff piece.

But she’s right, in a way. Self-publishing is not yet a replacement […]

Henry Baum2011-10-08T20:00:16+02:00April 10th, 2009|Categories: Features|

Author Solutions Buys Trafford Publishing

In an age where the collapse of one financial giant can bring down the entire financial system, it may seem odd that one self-publishing conglomerate is able to buy up the competition. This is what is happening with Author Solutions, which has bought Trafford Publishing on the heels of buying Xlibris a few months earlier. Author Solutions is now in control of some of the major self-publishing players: iUniverse, AuthorHouse, Xlibris, Wordclay, and now Trafford.

The main subsidy publishers that offer competition to Author Solutions remain Lulu and the Amazon services: CreateSpace and BookSurge. The trouble with one company owning […]

Henry Baum2011-10-08T20:00:49+02:00April 6th, 2009|Categories: News|

The Internet vs. Newspapers – And Bookstores

Crossposted from Christopher Meeks’ blog at Red Room. Read Self Publishing Review’s interview with Chris Meeks and a review of his novel, The Brightest Moon of the Century.

Advertising Age wrote last week, “Amid 23% population growth in the past two decades, U.S. newspaper circulation has dropped 20% –one reason your morning paper, downsized every which way, is no match for a stiff breeze. Craigslist, siphoning off $7 billion worth of classifieds, is another.”

I then read in the New York Times on Friday that the Times, which owns the Boston Globe, has threatened to close the […]

Henry Baum2011-10-08T20:01:42+02:00April 6th, 2009|Categories: Features|

Poddy Mouth Speaks! An Interview with the Original POD Reviewer

Poddy Mouth was an anonymous author who began reviewing print on demand books in 2005, back when self-publishing was more frowned upon than it is today. She still remains the most prominent and successful POD reviewer – in part because she came from the world of traditional publishing. As she says on her blog:

I am an author and instructor, in that order (for now.) My debut novel (which debuted in the midlist) was released by Penguin Putnam in 2004 and my second novel was released early 2006. As for this blog, it has been profiled in many online magazines,

[…]

Henry Baum2011-10-08T20:29:00+02:00April 3rd, 2009|Categories: Interviews, Lead Story|