Lead Story | Self-Publishing Review

The American Book Release

In an interview I recently did with the Creative Penn, Joanna Penn asked how I used the Self-Publishing Review to market myself. Beyond the footer which contains links to my books at the bottom of each post, I haven’t done a lot of plugging my own books in the posts. But it’s my site – I started it and do most of the writing – so here we go. My novel, The American Book of the Dead, is now out.

The reason I started this site in December 2008 was because I knew I’d be releasing a […]

Henry Baum2009-12-28T20:59:16+02:00November 27th, 2009|Categories: Book Reviews, Lead Story|

West of Mars: An Interview with Susan Helene Gottfried

Susan Helene Gottfried runs the website West of Mars, where she will tell you she does very little talking about her writing. Instead, she writes. She engages readers addicted to her Demo Tapes, described on her website as “collections of short fiction that introduce you to Trevor, Mitchell, and the rest of the fictional band, ShapeShifter — as well as the world in which they inhabit.” But West of Mars, winner of twenty blog awards, isn’t all about Susan and her own writing. She also promotes other writers who want to reach readers. In the following interview, Susan discusses […]

Kristen Tsetsi2011-10-08T20:22:06+02:00October 30th, 2009|Categories: Interviews, Lead Story|

An Interview with Anne R. Dick – Philip K. Dick's 3rd Wife

Earlier in the year, Self-Publishing Review had an interview with Tessa Dick, last wife of Philip K. Dick, who has self-published a memoir about PKD called Remembering Firebright. Strangely enough, Philip K. Dick’s third wife, Anne Dick, has also self-published a memoir about her former husband, Search for Philip K. Dick. Why should someone close to one of the most beloved and well-known science fiction writers of all time be driven to self-publish? Anne Dick’s book is superlative, it’s one of the best biographies of PKD available – read SPR’s review. From an interview on io9[…]

Henry Baum2011-10-08T20:23:29+02:00October 14th, 2009|Categories: Interviews, Lead Story|

Dorkisma: An Interview with Maria Bustillos

An interview by Erin Stropes with Maria Bustillos, author of Dorkismo: The Macho of the Dork: “Pure gold. Don’t just grab it for the [David Foster Wallace] chapter (good as it is) but for the celebration of everything that is dork.” Nick Maniatis, The Howling Fantods.

Self-Publishing Review: Hello, Maria, and welcome to the Self-Publishing Review hot seat. Your book, Dorkismo: The Macho of the Dork, is a collection of nonfiction essays celebrating the joys of dorkdom in everything from anime and “Star Wars” to Alexis de Toqueville and Jane Eyre. It’s written in a light, […]

Erin Stropes2011-10-08T18:51:38+02:00October 7th, 2009|Categories: Lead Story|

Reviewing the Reviewers Part II

This is a continuation of Reviewing the Reviewers: A Dialogue about Book Reviewing with Steven Reynolds and Carol Buchanan, which led to a very lively discussion.

Self-Publishing Review: When a self-published novel is awful, do you think the reviewer has any responsibility to spare the writer’s feelings?

Steven Reynolds: A writer will always be somewhat hurt by a negative review. You have to assume they’re reasonably happy with the book they published, otherwise why would they bother? So to have some stranger publicly detail its apparent failings is going to hurt.

When confronted with a book that doesn’t […]

Henry Baum2011-10-08T18:52:29+02:00September 30th, 2009|Categories: Interviews, Lead Story|

Reviewing the Reviewers: A Dialogue about Book Reviewing

The idea for this dialogue came after the controversy regarding the review of John Lacombe’s Winter Games. If you haven’t seen that thread, check it out, it’s a long one – it has a lot of interesting commentary about how writers and/or their fans should respond to reviews, including examples of how not to respond to a review. Carol Buchanan, who reviewed the book, didn’t like the novel. Steven Reynolds, who reviews for SPR, liked the book in a review for the now-defunct Podler. Carol and Steven got together to talk about the controversy and book reviewing in general. […]

Henry Baum2011-10-08T18:54:02+02:00September 17th, 2009|Categories: Interviews, Lead Story|

Call Out for Reviewers

An idea – wondering if writers would be interested in taking on books to review. I could send each writer an ebook and he/she could write a review while offering a place to plug a book. As it stands, this site has more books coming in than can possibly be reviewed by the current staff, with more coming in daily. With Lulu boasting on its site, “Over 1000 New Titles a Day,” it’s no surprise that this site might be overwhelmed with books.

A representative from Outskirts Press recently offered to send the site 2 books a week to review. […]

Henry Baum2009-12-31T18:47:34+02:00September 15th, 2009|Categories: Lead Story|

Should You Self-Publish?

That title sounds like a pretty rudimentary question from a site going into its tenth month, but that’s not the question that’s been asked most often here. The question has been: is self-publishing legitimate? This comes in response to people who say things like “Self-published books are crap,” which is sort of like saying, “All dogs bite,” after being bitten by two. Plainly put, they’re wrong, overgeneralizing, and aren’t worth too much more ink.