Henry Baum

It’s odd that the recent firestorm about paid reviews and unscrupulous self-publishers has actually rekindled my love of self-publishing. Ever since Amanda Hocking, the vibe around self-publishing has been money, money, money. On the one hand, I was grateful for this because it put self-publishing on the map: money talks. On the other hand: this is the worst determination of value and pretty much what’s wrong with the world, and publishing in general. The reason that I fled traditional publishing (after having a series of agents and traditional contracts) was because of the overemphasis on marketing and past sales. Publishing […]

Full disclosure: SPR charges for reviews. People hate this, and don’t necessarily differentiate between paid good reviews and paid reviews in general, especially with the current controversy of paying for 5-star reviews. Since SPR started charging, we’ve been able to review many more books than before, and pay reviewers for their time. So I do think there’s a difference between what Kirkus, or SPR, does, and guaranteeing a block of 5-star reviews without even reading the book. Even so, people are now decrying the entire paid review model. This may seem like self-protection, but I don’t think the paid […]

“With great power comes great responsibility.”

If you are new to the Lendink story, here’s the lowdown. A website that lends out ebooks was shut down by a gaggle of indie writers who thought this was an example of piracy no different than Napster. Really, it’s totally legitimate, as lending ebooks is part of publishing on the Kindle. Books aren’t downloaded, they’re lent for a set period and the writer gets paid. In short, it has nothing in common with Napster.

It’s understandable if writers are a little twitchy about piracy. It also makes sense that people like being […]

Taleist has a nice posting asking the question: Should You Comment on Amazon Reviews?

My books’ pages on Amazon aren’t my pages, and readers don’t go there to find me. In my opinion readers should be able to browse a bookshop without bumping into authors fussing and preening next to their books; thanking kind reviewers and gently pointing out errors in less good reviews.

But sometimes, just sometimes, I wonder about my decision in the case of the factual errors. I’d hate to think someone wasn’t reading my book because they read something untrue.

Personally, I’ve come pretty close.  […]