Here are some of the best book production websites that I have found if you would like to self publish your media. As a service to you, I have taken the time to look up each service on the Better Business Bureau and I have provided links to the results. There are a lot of scams out there and you have to be careful when you are self publishing.
Publishing your own book is a difficult proposition because you are responsible for all of the marketing, graphic design, and layout of the book. I had a teacher who said that all that time marketing would be better spent writing. However, I think that self publishing can be a fun way to get your name out there and practice your marketing and publishing skills. And I also think that it self publishing is an especially cool option if you want to publish your own E-Books.
I am working on my first E-Book as we speak. I am not sure if I will be able to charge for the book but I hope that I can turn a small profit from the resource. If not I will just make it a free item and use it to bring more traffic to the Production Blog (hopefully). Providing freebies can be a valuable marketing ploy to bring readers to your website.
1. Lulu
Lulu: I am going to try out Lulu for my first E-Book and I will definitely let you know how the results go. I am using Lulu because I have used their service privately and I was satisfied. I have never self published a book for mass consumption but I have used their service. The process of creating your book is fairly simple in the grand scheme of things.
As I get closer to publishing my first E-Book through Lulu, I will share with you the results and my thoughts. For now, I just want to say that I was satisfied with the product I received through their service. I created a book of short stories to give to my friends and family one year and the book was as nice as anything I would find at the bookstore (pretty much).
Lulu Features
- Better Business Bureau Accreditation
- Straightforward costs
2. Book Surge
Book Surge is a service from Amazon. I think that it is probably a very good service but I shied away from it because you have to talk to a publishing consultant. Now this is probably a good thing but I am shy and impatient. So I went to Lulu where I could jump right into publishing rather than wait to talk to a consultant.
I am not sure if my method is the best one, so you might have a look at Book Surge. It is potentially a lot more expensive than Lulu but then again you get what you pay for. The publicity options look really good on Book Surge. I really like the idea of having your book paired for purchase with a top selling book on Amazon.
Book Surge Features
I am only going to recommend two self publishing sites at this time because I don’t have any experience with the others whatsoever. As I delve more deeply into my book production experiment, I will share with you all the results. I don’t want to endorse a service that is this important so I decided it was better to keep this a list short.
A Word on Self Publishing Scams:
Good self publishing sites take a commission off the books that are sold. They do not take an upfront fee. Book Surge charges for some things but realize that they are providing you a service whether it is marketing, graphic design, editing, etc. Lulu only charges you for the first copy of the book (last time I checked) so that you can receive a copy and make sure that it is printed to your satisfaction and edited correctly.
You have to be real careful with publishing on demand there are a lot of scams out there. There are several warning signs that a Self Publishing Vendor is either a scam vendor or just purely not worth it.
Things to Watch out For
1. Highly inflated prices
2. You have to pay a large price to purchase books in Lots that you have to then distribute and sell yourself which is impossible. Lulu prints and ships the book after it is purchased off the website and subtracts the cost plus commission. BookSurge lists you on Amazon so books are processed from there.
3. Right after this post was created someone made a comment promoting Author House I am not going to denounce their service; but personally, I would avoid them like the plague. Author House recently changed their name from 1st books which was a total scam vendor.
Even if 1st Books has changed their tune since they turned to Authorhouse, it is obvious by their prices that their service is still not worth it. You are better off submitting your work to a small press or publishing it for cheap on Lulu than wasting a few g's with Authorhouse. You don't get any bang for your buck.
For a fraction of their price, you can pay Lulu to have your book listed on Amazon and Barnes and Noble if you are so inclined and then you can spend some extra money marketing the book with an Adwords campaign or something. Its too easy to market products on the internet than to throw away $600 + printing books you might never be able to sell.
Wrapup:
Its extremely important to do a lot of research when exploring self publishing. And don't just take my word on Lulu or Booksurge. Its very important to find your own opinion. Here are a couple of tips that can help you:
1. Look up the company's url on the BBB
2. Google the company name and add "fraud" or "scam" to the search query.
3. Make sure the person giving the recommendation isn't a member of an affiliate program. Its fine to purchase a DVD that someone has recommended but quite another thing to waste hundreds of dollars on something you aren't 100% on. In full disclosure: I am not a member of either companies affiliate program (if they have one).
Most importantly: Look around their sites and see if what I say matches up. If I am wrong on something, please come back and tell me that way we can make things better for everybody. Thanks for reading everyone, I really appreciate it. Has this post been helpful to you? I would really like to know.
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