Cate Baum | Self-Publishing Review

Interview with SPR Awards Shorts Winner Gerard Marconi

Gerard Marconi, the winner of the Shorts category in the SPR Awards 2014, talks about his winning entry, ” Searching For Paradise and Other Stories”.

Tell us about your winning entry to the SPR Awards.
“Searching for Paradise” is a collection of short stories which I wrote over a period of six or seven years. Several of them were first published in literary journals or magazines. Because of my background in the arts, many are about famous artists or works of art. I tried to make some of them comic or edgy while others are more serious. I think there’s […]

Cate Baum2014-04-17T10:35:46+02:00April 16th, 2014|Categories: Interviews|

Ten things to do to win a writing contest

With so many entries to judge, what is it about your book that will win you a prize? Cate Baum, co-founder of the SPR Awards spills the beans on the best tips to get that award.

1. Enter properly. This year, we had around 5% of entries that entered the wrong category, didn’t pay the entry fee or didn’t send in their book! This immediately disqualifies you from nearly all contests out there, and you won’t get a refund. (We’re nice, we tracked everyone down bar one who remains elusive…)

2. Edit your book. If your book has spelling […]

Cate Baum2014-04-15T17:22:35+02:00April 15th, 2014|Categories: Features|Tags: Competitions|

Interview with SPR Awards Best Fiction Winner Martin Kee

SPR Awards Fiction Prize Winner Martin Kee talks about his winning book BLOOM

Tell us about your winning entry to the SPR Awards.
BLOOM is a book about two people living in two equally dangerous worlds. Tennyson’s world is overcome by plague, Lil’it’s world is a menagerie of mutations and draconian information laws. Both stories parallel each other in ways the characters survive and try to find some meaning in their worlds. For Tennyson, it’s finding his childhood friend before the world ends, for Lil’it it is about self-preservation. I tell people that it’s a sort of Grimm’s Fairy Tale […]

Cate Baum2014-04-29T14:39:02+02:00April 15th, 2014|Categories: Interviews|

SPR Launches New Service, The Bookshelf

SPR Bookshelf

The Bookshelf ($25) * FREE* when you purchase a SPR Lead Story Book Review

The Bookshelf is a new service that lists your book on a permanent webpage so you don’t have to build one, with as many online retailer links as you want including Nook, Barnes and Noble, Kindle, Amazon, Alibris, Joe’s Books etc. as well as feeding your reviews from GoodReads into the page.

SPR Bookshelf
You will get a permalink (URL) based at Self-Publishing Review and will be listed by author and genre. You can use your webpage as your author hub across the internet so no need to […]

Cate Baum2014-04-15T12:18:03+02:00April 15th, 2014|Categories: News|

Announcing the Winners of the SPR Awards 2014!

We are happy to announce the winners of the SPR Awards 2014. Winners will receive the SPR red rosette in both digital and sticker format to use on their books, as well as a Lead Story Review package and an interview with the author. Commended winners will receive the Commended blue rosette in both digital and sticker format. All entrants’ books are available in the SPR Book Store, our collection of self-published works.

Here are the top finalists:

FICTION

Bloom: Or, the unwritten memoir of Tennyson Middlebrook
by Martin Kee – Winner
Tennyson Middlebrook never considered himself a storyteller.

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Cate Baum2019-04-12T14:12:35+02:00April 14th, 2014|Categories: News|Tags: SPR Book Awards|

The Guardian Announces Self-Publishing Award

The Guardian is set to become the first national newspaper to champion self-publishing on a regular basis with the launch of a new monthly prize that aims to find the best DIY novels.

The paper is teaming up with publisher Legend Times to support and showcase what it said was “the fantastic quality of writing that can be found from independent authors”, as the sector continues to boom. New figures from Nielsen’s Books & Consumers survey show that self-published books accounted for one in five of the 80m ebooks purchased in 2013. “No longer can the mainstream industry ignore

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Cate Baum2014-04-08T10:05:02+02:00April 8th, 2014|Categories: News|

Review: The Fo’c’sle Door By Les Cribb

The Fo’c’sle Door by Les Cribb is a time-traveling mystery saga set in seafaring 18th Century/21st century Cornwall England.

The forecastle, a superstructure in the bow of a merchant ship where the crew is housed; – the spelling is intended to reflect the common pronunciation among seamen.

When unsavory character Whitt arrives from Canada for a friend’s wedding in the Cornish fishing village of Ryeport, he is met off the plane by the mysterious Sexton, a man intent on talking about voodoo and reincarnation. As Whitt struggles to understand why everything is so familiar to him, events intensify, and […]

Cate Baum2019-01-22T17:14:35+02:00February 22nd, 2014|Categories: Book Reviews|Tags: Detective Fiction Book Reviews, Mystery Book Reviews|

Jabujicaba by Rosa da Silva

Here’s a book that will save the rainforest!

A young journalist Carmen Macedo finds herself on an assignment to uncover corrupt land deals in the Brazilian Amazon. The investigation takes her back to her roots, forcing her to confront painful memories from her childhood and inspiring her to make an emotional connection with the jungle and the legendary fruit of the Jabujicaba tree. The e-book, Jabujicaba, paints a sensuous picture of a living, breathing rainforest, a place filled with life, colour and the potential to save lives, but one that is at the mercy of those who would exploit it.The

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