What I Tell Myself FIRST | Self-Publishing Review

An Interview with Hugh McGuire of Book Oven on Cloud Publishing

When I read the blog entry about the launch of Book Oven, I saw this as a significant development in the changing landscape of publishing. As I tweeted then, “Sometimes I feel like I’m fooling myself that POD’s losing stigma, but things really are changing.” It was so refreshing to see a well-designed and maintained site talk about print on demand and other tools for publishers with no cynicism or apology. As the site says,

There has been a revolution bubbling in the book world, and digital has arrived: ebooks, print-on-demand, and online sales mean you don’t need

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Henry Baum2011-10-08T18:56:42+02:00August 10th, 2009|Categories: Interviews, Lead Story|

A Kindle Success Story: How to Promote a Kindle Ebook

This week brings news of Boyd Morrison who got a book deal based on his Kindle book sales. This book deal did not happen in a vacuum: Morrison had a literary agent already in place – i.e. publishers didn’t just suddenly notice his level of sales and offer him a book deal. The story is that the book was sent out by his literary agent and it wasn’t picked up. After Morrison’s book, The Ark, started become a Kindle phenomenon, his agent thought about trying to sell the book again, and on the strength of his Kindle sales […]

Henry Baum2011-10-08T18:59:46+02:00July 14th, 2009|Categories: Lead Story, Resources|

Six-Hundred Hours of a Life by Craig Lancaster

I don’t like books written in first person, present tense. I don’t like stories told from the point of view of a mentally ill person. So I don’t know why I offered to review Craig Lancaster’s debut novel, Six-Hundred Hours of a Life.

I’m very glad I did, though, because 600 Hours is a very good book. It just goes to show that even a reviewer can work through a prejudice, and a good read can conquer a pre-conceived notion of what we like or dislike.

600 Hours is witty, heart-warming, and satisfying.

The main character, Edward Stanton, is […]

Carol Buchanan2011-10-08T20:41:14+02:00July 1st, 2009|Categories: Book Reviews|

Finishing the Hat: A Writer's Pursuit of Loneliness

In 2005, the Naples-born sculptor, Giancarlo Neri, created a work entitled The Writer – a 30 foot tall table and chair made of wood and steel. Exhibited in the middle of a grassy field in London’s Hampstead Heath – as homage to the famed park’s associations with Keats and Coleridge – spectators interacted with the sculpture in a variety of ways. Some viewed it from a distance; others circled its perimeter. Some lay beneath it; others looped the massive legs on bicycle. Its grand scale and curious posturing dwarfed both viewer and nature. At length, the sculpture produced an unsettling […]

Bonnie Kozek2011-10-08T19:00:41+02:00June 17th, 2009|Categories: Features|

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|

Successful Self-Publishing: Asking the Right Questions

Editor’s note: This is the first in a series and welcomes Carol Buchanan, PhD, to the Self-Publishing Review.

Successful self-publishing, whether or not you write an award-winning book, depends on asking the right questions about each of the six publishing phases. And I have to confess that I began to think about publishing my novel, God’s Thunderbolt, without knowing any of the right questions, because it’s my first self-published book. So in these articles I’m sharing my experience and what I’ve learned from going through the process.

Why Self-Publish At All?

Prior to writing the novel, I had published […]

Carol Buchanan2011-10-08T20:42:58+02:00May 19th, 2009|Categories: Resources|

To Write, To Publish, To Commit a Felony: That is the Question

Late 1990s. December. After three years, I write “The End” on the last page of my tough-guy, hard-boiled, noir crime thriller. All I need now is a great agent – someone who will believe in me – someone who will champion my talent – get my book published. Hope springs eternal . . .

And not in vain! A couple of weeks later, I luck out! Thomas Ganer, a hip, young, celebrated literary agent with a now-defunct agency in the DeNiro building in downtown NYC, takes me on! Wow! He takes me to lunch. He cautions that the book will […]

Bonnie Kozek2011-10-08T19:10:27+02:00May 13th, 2009|Categories: Features|

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|

Marketing: Your Title Defines Your Book and Your Brand

The issue of branding is critical to a self-published author; It defines your book and it also defines you in the public mind. The obvious problem here is to find a title that stands out from the rest, attracts the attention of potential buyers and actually tells them what the book is about. It is the first step in answering the question in every reader’s mind; why should I read this book? Why should I care?