Lead Story | Self-Publishing Review

The Two Wings of Self-Publishing

Self-publishing seems to fall into two separate camps:

1. Those who want to use self-publishing as a stepping stone to being traditionally published.

2. Those who don’t care about the traditional system whatsoever and want to sidestep it.

The vehement reaction in the Publishing Renaissance debate against traditional publishing makes me want to write about the second. And this post might just get me into trouble. I wrote a comment on that post that I enjoyed the debate, but it’s been kind of weighing on me. It’s weird to be on the side against self-publishers, as I’m such a staunch […]

Henry Baum2011-10-08T19:08:49+02:00May 17th, 2009|Categories: Features, Lead Story|

An Author Creates a Website for Consumers: IndieReader

IndieReader—which will go live in June—promotes, markets, and sells self-published/POD books. Authors set the retail price for their books and receive 75% of the transaction. IndieReader also provides authors with their own Web page with their own URL (no unintelligible code!). What Sundance has done for indie films—making what’s outside the mainstream “cool”—IR will do for indie books and authors. Amy Edelman, who started the site, has published with Crown and Simon & Schuster. Her interview at Editor Unleashed goes into further detail about the site.

Where did the idea for IndieReader come from? It was primarily my […]

amyedelman2011-10-08T19:10:44+02:00May 13th, 2009|Categories: Interviews, Lead Story|

Pay to Play: Should Writers Pay for Reviews?

Spurred by a post (that was taken down) on the New Podler, there has been a debate about whether or not it’s ethical for self-publishing review sites to charge authors for reviews. I come down on the side of it being not that big a deal: so long as the reviews are honest and thorough and writers understand that payment is no guarantee of a good review, it doesn’t seem like the worst practice.

That said, I’ve made a point of not charging for reviews because it just feels wrong. I do charge though – for going up in […]

Henry Baum2011-10-08T19:14:48+02:00April 27th, 2009|Categories: Features, Lead Story|

A Few (Thousand) Words with Carol Buchanan

Introduction: Carol Buchanan is the author of the self-published novel God’s Thunderbolt: The Vigilantes of Montana, winner of the 2009 Spur Award for Best First Novel. I met Carol Buchanan online, when we were both posting to the boards of the Amazon Shorts program. Both of us were frustrated by the barriers currently erected by the mainstream publishing industry to new fiction, and both of us decided to do it ourselves. She gave my book a great review and I read hers and was honestly able to reciprocate. When her book won the 2009 Spur Award, given by […]

Francis Hamit2011-10-08T19:16:23+02:00April 20th, 2009|Categories: Interviews, Lead Story|

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|

Chionophobia and Other Sticky Problems: The Darryl Sloan Interview

Guest interview by Michael Reed. Originally commissioned by Strange Horizons, but it was not posted on that site. Strange Horizons replied, “Although some sections, notably on the author’s local inspirations and self-publishing, stand out as offering a fresh perspective, it’s a problem for our purposes that the interviewee doesn’t seem to be particularly active in new fiction projects right now.”

Read Self-Publishing Review’s review of Darryl Sloan’s Chion.

Chionophobia n. A fear of snow

Chion is Northern Ireland based Darryl Sloan’s second self-published novel. As he did with his first novel, the 2002 release Ulterior, Darryl has […]

Guest Post2011-10-08T19:59:58+02:00April 10th, 2009|Categories: Interviews, Lead Story|

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|

Interview with Penny Sansevieri and Paula Krapf from Author Marketing Experts

At Self-Publishing Review we receive a lot of books for review. By far the greatest number of books that come directly from a publicist come from Author Marketing Experts. Here CEO Penny Sansevieri and COO Paula Krapf talk about what self-published writers can expect from hiring a publicist.

Self-Publishing Review: How long has Author Marketing Experts been at work?

Penny Sansevieri: We’ve been doing this for over ten years.

SPR: How many books do you normally promote a year?

Penny: That’s a tough question to answer but suffice it to say: a lot. Since we also offer one-on-one coaching […]

Henry Baum2011-10-08T19:20:04+02:00March 30th, 2009|Categories: Interviews, Lead Story|