Interview with Henry Baum

Henry Baum and the
Self-Publishing Review

"I really do want to improve the attitude towards self-publishing – it’s not just a delusion to justify not getting published traditionally. I have been published traditionally. So I understand the difference between traditional publishing and not. I think the new wave of self-publishing opens up incredible doors that weren’t possible before and I’m fine with being an advocate for what that offers, rather than hitting it big immediately with a mainstream publisher." - HB

It's been said that those who can, do, and those who can't, teach/review/edit/agent/find other ways to dump on those who can.

I didn't say it's true; I said it's been said. Usually by people who get bad reviews or can't find an agent.

It certainly isn't true in 36-year-old Henry Baum's case. Not only does he not dump on anyone, but Baum--indie rock musician, songwriter, professional blogger and web content writer, novelist, and creator of the relatively new website Self-Publishing Review (SPR)--certainly can.

His recent novel, North of Sunset, was listed in Entertainment Weekly as the #1 self-published novel. He's had agents. He's had publishers (Canongate and Hachette Litteratures, The Golden Calf's Another Sky Press).

So, clearly, this L.A. native is doing something right with his writing, but the sad truth is that it often takes more than good writing for most to find, and keep, a publisher. When it doesn't work out, for whatever reason, many authors with something good to sell will very likely, at some point, turn to self-publishing.

Unfortunately, there's a seemingly indestructible stigma attached to self-published work. All self-published work. However well-written or however strong the story, if the author self-published, having that work taken seriously is a not-so-pretty challenge, and making money off of it is --

[laughing...]

Baum, however, doesn't think the stigma is indestructible, necessarily, and will do what he can to erode it with the help of SPR.

The Self-Publishing Review has a growing list of contributors who, along with Baum, conduct author interviews, submit insightful --and sometimes painfully honest--commentary, and review self-published work (the good and the bad). The site also provides a wealth of advice, resources, links, and marketing tools for the self-published author.

And people are reading it.

"I've been happy," Baum says of traffic to the new site, whose biggest day thus far saw around 400 hits. He adds that an average day's traffic hovers around 100 - 150 unique hits per day, with anywhere from 300-400 page views.

"People are sticking around and reading. It's been growing steadily and people have been linking to different posts around the blogosphere, so things are happening quickly," he says.

The attention the site is receiving may have something to do with a changing trend in publishing, one even the New York Times sees happening. Motoko Rich, in an article for Books section, writes, "Louise Burke, publisher of Pocket Books, said publishers now trawl for new material by looking at reader comments about self-published books sold online. Self-publishing, she said, is 'no longer a dirty word.'”

Says Baum, "I think the Self-Publishing Review’s come at a good time, because a fair amount of the stigma is fading."

Visit his website and you'll discover his reason for being so unbelievably positive. One article written by Baum links to a piece from The Atlantic, in which political blogger Andrew Sullivan writes, "The future is obviously print-on-demand, and writers in the future will make their names first on the web. With e-distribution and e-books, writers will soon be able to put this incompetent and often philistine racket behind us."

Another SPR article, also written by Baum, praises the distribution and readership possibilities open to self-published work with the advent of the Espresso Book Machine:

"[T]he Espresso Book Machine could revolutionize how people buy books and how people regard print on demand, so it is a significant development for publishing on the whole."

While self-publishing may be on its way to being taken seriously, it's not fully there yet. Baum, in the following interview, discusses his decision to self-publish and how he plans to help revolutionize the perception of self-published writing.

_____

Tuesday Shorts: Do you think authors who self-publish should first try the traditional agent-query route?

Henry Baum: It depends on the book and depends on the patience of the writer. If you’re releasing a non-fiction book that’s very topical then you should think about self-publishing. If you’ve written something that deserves to be published but would have a hard time finding a publisher – I’m thinking of a book I reviewed recently called Broken Bulbs, which would have a hard time aside from a chapbook house – then self-publishing makes sense.

But if you’re looking to start a career and want the furthest reach possible, you’re going to want to find an agent and go the traditional route. As Frank Daniels has written on the SPR site, the paradigm is shifting where self-publishing is becoming legit, but having a book in every Barnes and Noble, Borders, etc. is the best way to sell a book – especially if you’re combining it with all the online marketing stuff that self-publishers do.


TS: Did you try to get The Golden Calf published through traditional methods?

HB: Yeah, I did. I’ve had many agents in my life. An agent took on a novel I wrote before TGC called “Dishwasher” – which she wanted to title “Dishboy,” because it was “funkier,” which signifies my relationship with agents. That book was a sort of slacker/Bukowski novel. It didn’t sell and I wrote The Golden Calf, which was a better book, but the agent hated it. She sent it out begrudgingly and it got rejected. I remember one rejection clearly: “I cannot see a market for a novel that is slight and lacking in any meaningful message.” I started submitting the book myself to small publishers and Soft Skull took it on. It was their first full-color, perfect-bound book. They’d been printing up at Kinko’s at that point.

TS: What did you find most frustrating when trying to deal with the
mainstream publishing industry?

HB: That they wouldn’t take me on seeing that I was a writer of possible promise and that maybe my best work would be three books down the line. You know, nurture a career, rather than try to make an immediate profit on one book. Which is unfair pressure and not how art evolves. Ever, in any medium.

TS: Why do you think mainstream publishers aren't picking up the truly good work that ultimately gets self-published?

HB: Well, I’ll give publishers a little benefit of the doubt. Of course, they worry about marketability and that’s a shame, but also there are more people writing than ever before – along with fewer people reading. That’s a tough combination, so someone’s going to have to be left out. To be honest, I don’t work in an editor’s office, so maybe there are people who are championing more-challenging work but they’re getting talked down by “the suits.” And then publishing gets blamed on the whole, sort of like self-publishing gets blamed for the worst writers, not the exceptions.

That, or people are just very bad at recognizing good writing – which is very possible.

TS: Did you hear from any publishers or agents after the publication of the EW article listing North of Sunset at #1?

HB: I actually got the dream letter based on that Entertainment Weekly article. A very high-profile agent sent me a request to represent the novel sight unseen. Which was amazing. Then again, I didn’t have the greatest contact with him. Literally never talked to him on the phone, so the book was totally treated as a product. He sent it to 10 or 15 places and it didn’t find a taker. I’ve come right up to the edge of getting a book deal and I’ve been lucky in some regards, but I’ve never gotten a major break.

TS: What was it that finally prompted you to create the Self Publishing
Review? There must have been a "that's it" moment.

HB: My “that’s it” moment was, “Fuck it, I have to do everything myself.” I’m working on a novel and I just don’t have the heart or will to go through the query process again. Perhaps I don’t have the same ambition of “making it” anymore. And this novel has some of the issues of North of Sunset – it’s not in any one genre. NoS was partly crime, partly literary. The new novel is partly science fiction, but I’m not a science fiction writer, and it’s not a traditional science fiction novel. So I foresee a lot of the same rejection notes that I’ve gotten for other books.

There’s a whole new world for book marketing than there was when I first self-published only two years ago. So I wanted to start the site that I wished existed when I self-published years ago. Taking self-publishing seriously as a legitimate way to get the word out.

I’d become so jaded to publishing that I wanted a way to start thinking about the topic again. I’d lost some serious faith in publishing, even in writing itself, as it had been unfaithful to me. But I think self-publishing is a great development because a writer like me, a writer who doesn’t suck, can have an outlet even if no one decides to take the book on.

TS: Are you still working on being published in the traditional way?

HB: No. It would be great if my next novel got picked up by a publisher after it was self-published – because I want the traditional distribution. But I’m not going to submit the book to agents or editors. Querying is boring, frustrating, and often a waste of time. And if somehow the novel did get picked up after being self-published that’s an extra story to tell about the book.

TS: How much time do you spend on the website, and what are you doing when you're not tending to it? (What's your day job? How do you find time to review books and work and take care of the website and make music?)

HB: I try to get in five or so posts a week. And I’ve tried to find new writers to write posts as well. I’ve had some great people involved with the site so far. Normally, I write web content and blog professionally for sites all over the web. That was another impetus for starting a professional site. Instead of having to hustle for freelance work, I could create a site of my own – a topic I care about and I think is fulfilling a need online. Of course, I probably won’t make much money from the site, but at least it’s a possibility.

TS: Who else writes for SPR?

HB: A number of different self-published writers. Frank Daniels has a great, but brutal, piece about going from Lulu to Harper Perennial. Chris Meeks, who I’d met online because his book was also in Entertainment Weekly. I’d built up great relationships with other writers by self-publishing, which was proof enough to me that it’s a valid enterprise. He knew some other writers who’ve also contributed. Francis Hamit, a historical fiction writer, is writing pieces he’s going to collect in a book on book marketing in the future.

The site is looking for contributors so please contact the site if you’re interested.

TS: What do you ultimately hope to do with the website? The dream goal.

HB: Well, I’d love to be able to sell some copies of my next novel through the site, as well as other writers’ books. And I’d love for the site to make some money. If I can’t make a living writing fiction, I can make some money off of writing about the industry Yes, I have a profit motive. I’d love to devote my time to something I care about, rather than some of the mind-numbing web content I have to write day to day (If any of my employers read this, I’m not talking about your project, I’m talking about the other ones).

Eventually, I’d like to have a network of these sites – a music review site as well. I play and record music by myself and I’m active in communities online where people do the same, so I’d like to start a site for people who home record. Maybe indie film as well because the technology’s coming along where people can make professional quality movies for cheap. But I’d need some serious help writing sites like that because I’m not much of a gear head.

Aside from my self-serving goals, the main manifesto of the Self-Publishing Review is sincere: to help get self-publishing taken seriously as a totally legitimate route, not a place for the pathetic and under-talented. There’s great writing being self-published and crappy books as well – same with traditional publishing. Only for some reason with self-publishing the crap represents self-publishing on the whole. But with Youtube, Wikipedia, blogs – all self-publishing platforms to some degree - people are much more amenable to the process. I think the Self-Publishing Review’s come at a good time, because a fair amount of the stigma is fading.

TS: While there are certainly a number of worthwhile self-published books, there are probably ten times more not quite ready for public consumption. It's for this reason that most big-name reviewers won't even look at self-published work, which leads to that work not being introduced to the public except in the small circles a self-published writer can afford to market to, which then leads to the writer not making enough money with her or his self-published work to be able to afford to not work and sit home and write another book... Do you see any end this seemingly hopeless cycle?

HB: I don’t think it’s snobbery at all to not review self-published books. There are already too many traditionally-published books and reviewers have to draw the line somewhere. But I think as the stigma fades about self-publishers, reviewers will start reviewing those books that get good reviews other places – litblogs and the like. And there’s an increasing number of places that are amenable to reviewing self-published works. When North of Sunset came out, there were around five blogs devoted to self-publishing, now there are 50 and counting.

The real problem I see is not reviews, because even the worst book can get a good review, but the fact that self-published books can’t be found in bookstores. People really do need to pick up a book, flip through it, feel it, to decide to buy a book – even if they might buy the book later online. I’ve got high hopes for the Kindle and ebook readers becoming more commonplace – not just as a publishing issue, but an environmental issue. It’s stupid that so much printed paper goes to waste. And that could be a major thing to help promote ebooks.

TS: What are you doing to promote your website?

HB: Like I’ve said, I have contacts with other self-published writers, so they’re helping to spread the word. I’ve emailed every site owner affiliated with self-publishing. I’ve submitted the site to a mind-numbing number of directories. I add posts to social networks. This stuff is my normal job - writing and promoting content – so I’m just doing it for my own site. The site is relatively new and it’s already getting a good amount of traffic.

TS: What genres of self-published work does the site review? Is it limited to novels, or will you also look at poetry, plays, etc.?

HB: Ideally, I’d like to review everything. Including get rich quick ebooks people are hocking all over the place. Which is why I’d like to bring new writers and reviewers on board. To be honest, my window into fiction is limited. For instance, I just reviewed a romance-based novel. It wasn’t a full-fledged romance novel, but it had some qualities. And I’ve never read a romance novel before, so I couldn’t quite review the novel as it related to the history of romance writing. So I’d like to find some authorities of different genres.

TS: What should authors expect when they send their work to SPR for review?

HB: That reviews are going to be tough, but I’ll never rip into a book mercilessly. I don’t see the point in that. Also, my taste in fiction is a bit darker and I don’t have a great interest in mainstream writing. That said, I can appreciate something when it’s page-turning, when it does what it sets out to do very well. So I don’t judge stuff on whether or not it’s literary, which is a kind of genre in itself, but if it succeeds at what it’s trying to do. We have a growing stable of reviewers so I’ll farm something out if it’s really not my boat.

TS: What three things should every self-published author know?

HB: 1) Don’t expect to sell a lot of books. 2) That doesn’t matter because connecting with new readers – however many – is the goal.
3) There’s no shame or defeat in self-publishing if you satisfy #2.


Many thanks to Henry for taking the time to answer so many questions, which were followed by follow-ups which were then followed by follow-up follow-ups. - KT