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.

Self-Publishing Mistakes

Running a site devoted to self-publishing, for however short a period, I’ve gotten a quick sense into some of the mistakes self-publishers make when sending out a book. I don’t want to single anyone out here by linking to anyone, but I wanted to point these things out. It occurs to me as well that scathingly attacking a self-published writer makes little sense. After all, the writer is self-releasing the book at his or her own expense, and will struggle to find readers. Why bother attacking someone who’s already struggling to be read? That said, I wanted to point some […]

Henry Baum2009-12-31T21:25:45+02:00January 10th, 2009|Categories: Features|

Mill City Press Review

The first thing you notice about Mill City Press is the quality of the website. It has a matte-quality similar to book covers of contemporary fiction – and something that most self-publishers do not offer, as most publishers only offer glossy covers. So Mill City’s website has the appearance of a traditional publisher, not a print on demand house. Mill City Press just sounds like a traditional publisher. One of the things we point out here in publisher reviews is that the less well-known self-publishers can actually pass for a legitimate publisher, unlike the major self-publishers like Lulu, iUniverse, and […]

Henry Baum2014-04-18T17:22:01+02:00January 10th, 2009|Categories: Publisher Reviews|

Interview: Kristen Tsetsi, author of Homefront

Kristen Tsetsi’s Homefront (reviewed by the Self-Publishing Review) is one of the most moving and evocative portratits of people left back at home while their spouses fight overseas. Her own husband was stationed in Iraq. Here Kristen Tsetsi talks about the origins of the novel and her experience with self-publishing.

Self-Publishing Review: How did you come to self-publish? Did you try to get published traditionally?

Kristen Tsetsi: I did try the traditional route. I sent an initial series of queries, the first three of which were (to my great excitement) met with requests for first chapters. Once the first […]

Henry Baum2018-05-15T16:06:12+02:00January 9th, 2009|Categories: Interviews, Lead Story|

Homefront by Kristen Tsetsi

There’s something about discovering a great self-published novel that’s different than discovering a novel that’s traditionally published, no matter how small the press. On the hand, you’re happy to have found something good, on the other hand you think, “Why did this have to be self-published?” For anyone who thinks that if a book is great it will find a publisher is just wrong and Kristen Tsetsi’s Homefront is the perfect example.

It may be understandable why the novel didn’t find takers – though the novel’s about the biggest thing imaginable, war, there’s no great overwhelming dramatic arc – no […]

Henry Baum2009-12-31T21:27:36+02:00January 9th, 2009|Categories: Book Reviews|

Darryl Sloan: Magician

Darryl Sloan, author of the novel, Chion – soon to be reviewed by the Self-Publishing Review – has some interesting thoughts about self-publishing. It is in line with the basic manifesto of the Self-Publishing Review: the fact that the ill-conceived books have come to represent self-publishing on the whole. And given the fact that it’s so hard to get the stamp of approval from the publishing industry that there no shame whatsoever in being self-published. The idea is to find readers and there’s great value in finding readers no matter how a book is released. I know from my own […]

Henry Baum2009-12-31T21:32:29+02:00January 8th, 2009|Categories: Features|

Print on Demand vs. Print Run Publishing

Print on demand makes sense for the vast majority of self-published writers – especially fiction writers. The average sales for a self-published book of fiction is 30 copies, and that might be generous. If you sell 100 copies or over, you’ve done very well. 500 is extraordinary and anything over 1000 is in the stratosphere. That’s the plain truth: if your book is not in bookstores, it’s much harder to unload copies of your book.

It’s a very tactile experience picking up a book, leafing through it, and finally making a decision to buy the book. A book is an […]

Henry Baum2009-12-31T21:33:37+02:00January 7th, 2009|Categories: Resources|

Marketing a Fiction Ebook

This article isn’t going to be about non-fiction ebook marketing, as these ebooks will be marketed along different channels, depending on the niche that the ebook covers. Many non-fiction ebooks are related to marketing itself: Marketing Secrets Revealed! While this is a valid way to make money online and is an extremely low cost way to distribute a book (free, short of design and hosting), it is a different process to market an ebook to fiction readers.

For one thing, many non-fiction ebooks are overloaded with affiliate links. In this way, they’re not much different from a website. So whenever […]

Henry Baum2009-12-31T21:33:55+02:00January 6th, 2009|Categories: Resources|

Selfpublishing.com Review

You have to imagine that a site with the URL Selfpublishing.com gets a lot of traffic – it comes up first in Google results for “Self-Publishing.” That’s impressive but how’s the actual service? Overall, Selfpublishing.com offers well-priced packages that include services such as marketing, which makes Selfpublishing.com a good to choice to print a book. Though SelfPublishing.com is affiliated with an online bookstore, like every self-publishing service, the recommended use of selfpublishing.com is if your interested in starting an imprint, rather than publishing a book with AuthorHouse or iUniverse, which will bear the stamp of those presses.