Lead Story | Self-Publishing Review

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|

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|

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|

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|

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|

An Interview with Brad Grochowski of Authors Bookshop

On the heels of the story about Indie Reader, which led to some controversy, here’s an interview with Brad Grochowski, the man behind the site Authors Bookshop – a site that allows authors to list and sell books. Authors Bookshop is one of the best indie-friendly places online. Check out the site and visit Brad’s blog, Indie Bookman.

Self-Publishing Review: What is AuthorsBookshop and why did you start it up?

Brad Grochowski: AuthorsBookshop is an online bookstore that specializes in independently published books. It is also a community of authors and publishers who have chosen the indie […]

Henry Baum2011-10-08T19:07:39+02:00May 18th, 2009|Categories: Interviews, Lead Story|