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.

AuthorHouse Review

AuthorHouse is one of the best known, and most widely-used, print on demand self-publishers, but it did not begin so auspiciously. It was started in 1997 as 1st Books by an author who was fed up with rejections. Unfortunately, 1st Books was met with a barrage of complaints about the service – including print quality and being overly-charged at an hourly rate for services. In 2001, 1st Books got a facelift and changed its name to AuthorHouse. Since that point, it has grown steadily and hasn’t been targeted with the same type of complaints as 1st Books – which some […]

Henry Baum2014-01-08T20:51:39+02:00February 25th, 2009|Categories: Publisher Reviews|

Mr. Bukowski's Wild Ride by Rodger Jacobs

You might think that writing a book with Charles Bukowski is redundant. Bukowski’s own fiction is basically autobiography, in which his alter-ego Henry Chinaski works at the post office, sleeps with groupies, makes a movie, has a childhood, and so on. You might think that, but you’d be wrong about Mr. Bukowski’s Wild Ride because of two things:

1. It’s written in the third person, not the first person.
2. This is like no book Bukowski ever wrote.

The book puts Bukowski in touch with people from his lifetime, both fictional and not, and how he’d […]

Henry Baum2011-10-08T19:29:16+02:00February 23rd, 2009|Categories: Book Reviews|

Interview: Rudy Rucker on the Present and Future of Self-Publishing

On the heels of the interview with Tessa Dick, last wife of Philip K. Dick, comes an interview with Rudy Rucker, often called the heir apparent to Philip K. Dick. Winner of two Philip K. Dick Awards, Rudy Rucker is the author of the novels Frek and the Elixer, Spaceland, and many others. He also has a interest in self-publishing: putting out a book of paintings through Lulu, allowing a free download of his novel Postsingular, and publishing ebooks with e-reads. Here the visionary writer talks about mixing traditional publishing with the new publishing technology.[…]

Henry Baum2011-10-08T20:05:28+02:00February 19th, 2009|Categories: Interviews, Lead Story|

Notes on Self-Publishing from the Tools of Change Conference

I haven’t yet written about the Tools of Change Conference (because I wasn’t there), but there is a lot of great information being posted online by people who did attend. The basic mood you see online is that self-publishing is gaining increasing legitimacy. Obviously, the conference is devoted to publishing innovation, but the way that people talk of self-publishing these days is that it is integral to the future of publishing.

For instance, the Publishing Trends blog has a great piece on how some of the participants view self-publishing:

All the participants argued for greater interplay between author, reader, and

[…]

Henry Baum2011-10-08T20:05:51+02:00February 18th, 2009|Categories: News|

Stratagem by Jacques Vallee

I have a deep interest in UFO’s. Gearing up to write the book I’m currently working on (which I’m going to self-publish) I read a lot about the UFO phenomenon. It amazed me that something with such profound implications is not taken seriously. “What if” is enough of a reason to pay attention to the phenomenon, regardless of the amount of physical evidence. And there are a lot of credible witnesses – many more than are given mainstream attention.

In a way, the UFO phenomenon is similar to self-publishing. Because there is such a drastic amount of less-than-credible material being […]

Henry Baum2011-10-08T20:06:25+02:00February 18th, 2009|Categories: Book Reviews|

Using Twitter for Book Marketing

Twitter is the new Myspace. Back when I first started using Myspace, around 2-3 years ago, it was still a place where people connected with each other. When you added a friend, people would actually take the time to see how you were. This meant connecting with some very interesting people. I traded Myspace emails with Peter Bagge, author of Hate comics, which was a highlight.

Now Myspace is overrun with spam and people who indiscriminately add to build up their friend count. Twitter, on the other hand, is what Myspace used to be. It could too get corrupted […]

Henry Baum2011-10-08T20:06:42+02:00February 17th, 2009|Categories: Resources|

Wil Wheaton Releases Book on Lulu: Sunken Treasure

Wil Wheaton, popular blogger, best known for his roles in “Stand by Me” and as Wesley Crusher on “Star Trek: The Next Generation,” has released his next collection of work on Lulu.com. Wheaton’s already published books before via Subterranean Press and O’Reilly Media, but he chose to self-publish the collection himself. As he says on his blog,

Sunken Treasure is doing great, and if the last two days are any indication, my Operation Crazy Idea to release more original material using this kind of POD technology and distribution is going to quickly become Operation Awesome Idea that

[…]

Henry Baum2011-10-08T20:06:58+02:00February 16th, 2009|Categories: News|

The Simplest of Acts and Other Stories by Melanie Haney

Melanie Haney is a great writer and she masterful at the what makes short stories strongest: the last sentence. In Melanie Haney’s collection, The Simplest of Acts and Other Stories, you’re often left at the end of the story wishing it would go on, but knowing that it ended perfectly: concise and alive, as if you know the characters will go on living even if you’re not reading. These stories are quiet, deep, and powerful.

In a way, the book is not well-advertised on the back. The back copy says these are “carefully wrought tales of loss and love […]

Henry Baum2011-10-08T20:39:35+02:00February 14th, 2009|Categories: Book Reviews|