Cate Baum | Self-Publishing Review

How To Sell Your Book In Person – A Step-by-Step System For Book Fairs and Signings

“Handselling books”, as it is known, is aggressive. Don’t tell yourself tales like “I just want to get ten signups to my mailing list today.” No, you don’t. You want to sell your book. You just can’t be bothered. You’d rather send an email and see if someone buys your book after they left.

So here’s how to handle the front line, the trenches, the living marketplace of book ownership. Author Elizabeth Sims says at Writer’s Digest, “Building a readership one person at a time, face to face, is incredibly valuable. And because unlike a juicy rack of […]

Cate Baum2020-02-21T05:52:03+02:00December 22nd, 2015|Categories: Features|Tags: Book Marketing Advice and Tips|

How Paid Reviews Sell Books – Facts and Figures

As one of the most trusted professional review services, and one of the first self-publishing sites around, it’s SPR’s job to make sure we are bringing books to readers with our paid review service, and we’d like to put the “don’t pay for reviews” myth being spread around by certain self-publishing pundits to bed with some hard, analytical, independent facts. The plain truth is, paid reviews do sell more books in the majority of cases.

Distinguishing Experts From Pundits

There are many independent studies available from trustworthy sources that have nothing to gain from approving of paid review services, and […]

Cate Baum2019-02-03T09:30:03+02:00December 15th, 2015|Categories: Features|Tags: Book Promotion Articles|

Ten Easy Steps To Get your E-Book Ready For Editing

As an independent author, there’s no getting away from the fact you will need to get your e-book edited professionally by the sort of editor who knows the differences between e-book and print book. However, these quick ten steps will help you prepare your book for the edit and final publication early on in the process. This is a ragbag of formatting and grammar tips, but trust me, your e-book editor will love you forever if you prep your book this way!

1. Strip out styles and fancy formatting

E-books don’t need styles manually applied in Word. The first thing […]

Cate Baum2015-12-08T06:28:48+02:00December 8th, 2015|Categories: Features|Tags: Book Editing Tips|

An Interview With Author Cindy Irish

Cindy Irish is from Michigan. She used to write radio commercials. She still voices commercials, but now writes fiction, which she says, “is the same as making up stuff about businesses—except romance is sexier.”

Tell us something about your book. The basics: what’s it about?

The Song That Seduced Paris is about a famous singer from France who joins an international pop opera singing group called Bel Homme. That’s French for “beautiful man,” which he certainly is. At the first meeting between all four men, he also meets the heroine, an American ex-music teacher who’s been hired to manage the […]

Cate Baum2022-10-21T11:53:39+02:00December 7th, 2015|Categories: Interviews|

Review: Cnut: Rise of a Viking Warrior by Kyle Miller ★★★★

Cnut: Rise of a Viking Warrior by Kyle Miller follows Cnut as he grows into a young man and trains to be a warrior in the British Isles after his mother Astrid, a shield maiden and the daughter of a jarl, leaves the Norselands to come to Wessex after falling pregnant. The storytelling is something like the style of Ken Follet – a lighter historical read that does not focus so much on true history and fact as the character’s journey. Detail of Cnut’s warrior training by his friend Rolf, and his foray into romance with Hild — and into […]

Cate Baum2015-11-02T05:46:43+02:00October 30th, 2015|Categories: Book Reviews, Lead Story|Tags: Historical Fiction Book Reviews|

Review: Everybody Cheats by Nina Mancuso

From “Othello” to Jackie Collins literature both great and not-so-great has always offered insights into the ups and downs and ins and outs of romantic relationships. This is not exactly a new fascination. But in the wake of the Ashley Madison hack, the popular conversation has turned to the subject in a more prosaic way, focusing as much on why we do what we do when relationships don’t suit our needs as how to find the perfect relationship — presumably the one that will keep us at home and in love rather than off giving personal data to dodgy web […]

Cate Baum2019-02-11T09:42:38+02:00October 23rd, 2015|Categories: Book Reviews|Tags: Non-Fiction Book Reviews, Relationships Book Reviews|

An Interview With Author Helen Harper

Tell us something about your book. The basics: what’s it about?

Night Shade is the first book in the Dreamweaver trilogy. Essentially, it follows a young woman called Zoe who suffers from agoraphobia and is terrified from both going outside and having strangers visit her home. When a tragedy happens right on her very doorstep, however, something inside her is unlocked and she realises she doesn’t need to leave her home – simply by falling asleep she can enter the Dream Lands, a strange place where it seems almost anything can happen. The first person she encounters there is a […]

Cate Baum2017-03-24T06:28:36+02:00October 22nd, 2015|Categories: Interviews|Tags: Fantasy Book Reviews|

Review: Do You Solemnly Swear? by Lin Wilder ★★★★

Gabe McAllister, former Marine and Texas State Trooper is accused of raping a six-year-old Annie Bridges – the daughter of his ex-partner. With the DEA, Border Control, and the police coming down on him with an investigation seemingly watertight, with his supposed victim’s testimony taken on its word, Gabe is faced with the unimaginable: life in prison at Huntsville.

But not everyone can stand by and watch an innocent man go to jail, and now it’s up to Houston Tribune’s Kate Townsend and the foreman of the jury that convicted McAllister to come forward and do some investigating of their […]

Cate Baum2015-10-02T08:00:48+02:00September 28th, 2015|Categories: Book Reviews, Lead Story|Tags: Legal Thriller Book Reviews, Thriller Book Reviews|