Support for Indie Authors discussion

Looking for positive or negative feedback and suggestions on POD publishers. Doing a google search has only added to my confusion. If any of you have thoughts or feedback, it would be greatly appreciated! Thanks in advance for your help.

Negative:

Do NOT go with or believe anything about America Star Books(formally PublishAmerica). Aside for the fact that everything about them is awful they even state they aren't a "POD "or "vanity press" but from a simple analysis one can clearly see that they are. Nothing good about them, huge scam publisher.

Positive:

Sites such as Createspace, Lulu and Lightning Source are highly recommended and come with great views by indie authors. I myself use Createspace and have never had an issue with them. I've heard Lulu and Lightning Source have similar type of styles and services. Definitely worth looking into.

What she said. You should never pay anything to have your book published, even in self publishing. You pay for editing, cover art, even formatting, but never, never to publish itself.

I use create space. It's easy and there's no charge to you. You do have to pay to get copies for yourself, but you get a discount. I usually pay around $4 to $4.50 per book. You may also have to pay if you want a print copy for proofing.

I used BookBaby, and so far have more praise than complaints. They were one of the least expensive for what I was looking for and the process was pretty easy. Some of the post-publication issues were/are frustrating, but it may be partially my own fault.

I signed up for America Star Books email list. I'm slowly beginning to agree with Justin, they kinda just want money. But should I completely forget them and unsubscribe from their mailing list? Is there anything worth letting them stick around for?

Tyler wrote: "I used BookBaby, and so far have more praise than complaints. They were one of the least expensive for what I was looking for and the process was pretty easy. Some of the post-publication issues we..."

Yes! absolutely unsubscribe from them. All they want is $$$. They will offer or entice you with a offer that sounds too good to be true because it is..with them there's always a price. You can follow plenty of other blogs or publishers that'll be more informative and supportive.

I've used Lulu for an anthology of work by our local writers' group, and CreateSpace for my own novels. No problems with either.

I had an issue with Createspace regarding colored illustrations. the book is B&W except for a fee drawings. the price was just outrageous, and I only found out at the end of the process.

used Ingram Spark next. though they charge 49$ for the process, their print price is fair and they give you several marketing options.

For editing and other services they may be okay, but if a company wants to publish your book for payment, run away. They'll usually take all of your rights, pay you a small royalty, and then do no better at selling it than you would have. You can do better publishing it yourself.

I dislike Createspace. I had too many issues with them right out of the gate. Their printers were printing too dark, they messed up the binding of pages in a few copies, and in one copy someone's whole short story was inserted into the dead center of my book.

CS was a good starter for understanding how things work, how things need to be formatted, and what non-returnable means (a very important point for any indie author using a POD).

I switched to IngramSpark and their quality has been amazing. The downfall of IS, is that there is a little upfront cost and the copies you purchase for you are a little higher priced than CS. My personal belief is that it's worth it because they have better quality.

R. wrote: "I've used Lulu for an anthology of work by our local writers' group, and CreateSpace for my own novels. No problems with either."

I used Lulu for my novel and am delighted by how professional the end product looks. Everyone comments on the eye-catching cover. You do pay for the basic package (about $1000) and can elect marketing, editing, other services or do them yourself.

There are a few threads on here regarding this. You find them valuable as well.

We use Createspace (for 3 years now) and they have been great for us: excellent quality, as well as easier to deal with and less costly than Lulu or IngramSpark. They do not do hardcover, but those are of no interest to us.

Lulu is free. I've published all of my books in ebook, paperback, and hardcover on Lulu, and it's cost me nothing except to buy copies of my own hard copy books when I wanted them.

I had been researching for years self publishing options, back in the day XLibris was a good option but you had to buy a thousand books and then what? I looked at Hulu, attended many webinars on the subject and did an indegogo campaign to raise money for the costs. I did not raise as much as I had wanted, so I went to the internet and up popped a consumer report article rating different self publishing companies. The top rated one was Outskirts Press. For exactly the amount I raised, I was able to get a package that included an ebook, marketing on Amazon, B&N and Kindle. For an extra modest fee, $150, I could have them format on Espresso Book Machine, which is through Books on Demand, the ultimate print on demand book service available in many but not all major cities. I really liked the experience, I have all the rights, I make a decent royalty and they did all the formatting and such. The next time I may spend the money for a copy editor because I did that myself and it was the only part of the process that took for ever, I mean FOREVER to make sure every single spelling, grammar mistake was corrected. I have been pleased with the result, it looks very professional and they understand the whole on line marketing thing in terms of working with both Amazon and Barnes and Nobel. I also have found the post publishing support to be quite good, they send out regular emails with excellent suggestions. They of course are willing to carry out those suggestions for a fee, but I always learn from the emails and have actually taken up a few of the tips and done them successfully myself. I have used acx the audible program from Amazon, and that was also a pretty good experience. I simply used my mac book to record, no fancy equipment, though next time I may invest in a microphone, but the quality is good and it is nice to offer that as an option to your readers.

For my second novel in production, I chose Infinity Publishing, and thus far, the initial stages of the process have gone well.