Self-Publishing Review: An Important Resource

I just uncovered an online magazine and community that will be of special interest to anyone considering self-publishing.  Self Publishing Review presents itself as a gathering place and membership site for such folks, offering news and reviews, as well as a forum for member interaction.

Self-Publishing Review  is the brainchild of Los Angeles novelist Harry Baum.  It’s been around for awhile, but it’s just recently gotten a significant overhaul.  While anyone can visit and browse, writers should consider “joining” the community to gain full access to the site.  Members can post to the blog, though posts are held for approval before they appear online.  They can also participate in group discussions.   These features open up the site to lots of different inputs and points of view.

A major feature of the site are detailed reviews of self-published books.  Most are traditional reviews of a book’s literary qualities.  More helpful to authors aiming at self-publication are more recent reviews of the design of individual self-published books, written by book designer Joel Friedlander.  Joel is very specific in his observations, pointing out exactly what he likes and what he thinks could have been improved.  By reading these reviews, potential self-publishers can pick up a lot of tips about how to approach book and cover design.  I find these reviews fascinating.  Joel also maintains an exceptionally useful blog at The Book Designer.  When you visit his blog, consider downloading the free booklet about prepping one’s files for uploading to Lightning Source — and subscribe to his free newsletter.  He has a Facebook Fan Page too.

Speaking of design, Self-Publishing Review identifies on its Resources page a useful book cover design tool.  I’ve never come across it before.

  • Book Cover Pro — a program dedicated to turning out reasonably good covers.  I’ll be trying it out myself.

Following through a series of links, I eventually found another website with a number of tools that may be of interest to self-publishers:  Self-Pub Net.

AND ANOTHER SELF-PUBLISHING REVIEW

Actually, there’s yet another website with similar title, but it’s located as a blog at Blogspot:  The Self-Publishing Review.  This blog is maintained by Jane Smith out of the United Kingdom.  She has been active as a writer, researcher and editor for 20 years.  This blog does serious reviews of self-published books.  If you’ve got a book out already, look into this blog for a potential review.

Jane also maintains How Publishing Really Works, which gets more into the nuts and bolts of publishing.  This site is open to guest bloggers.

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    Comment by
    Claudia
    17 Mar 2010

    Thanks so much for sharing the link, among other wonderful resources, for Self-Publishing Review. I really appreciate it!

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