My Choice of a Self-Publishing Company

If you start to self-publish, you will be swamped with decisions. Sometimes I think I’m going to scream if one more choice pops up. Does that sound incredibly whiny? Probably. I know this is the path I chose, and I know that options are one of the benefits of self-publishing. We all know traditional publishing doesn’t let us authors have much say on the final product. My dream becomes my reality through my efforts. The flip side of it all is that it’s a lot of work, and it’s a bit scary when you think these decisions can have a long-term effect or may hinder or help your books sales.

One of the biggest choices is which company to use to print my book. When you get to this point, you are selecting a company. In fact, when I made my choice, I had three different companies on the line, telling me why theirs is best. I felt courted by their seductive emails, aimed at bringing me into their company. How much better is that from begging a publishing house just to look at my manuscript? The flip side? There are a lot of companies out there that want my money…I mean, my business.

I just made up a word count that I thought my manuscript would end up to be and then choose a random trim size. I can change this down the line, but this lets me compare apples to apples. I was now able to compare each company to the other fairly. I chose a 100,000 word count, approximately 300 pages, and a 5×8 trim size. The prices below run off of these numbers. Here are the companies I looked at…

***NOTE: Remember this is dated material! I did this research during the summer of 2011. Prices, packages, rules, etc may have changed, so take the time to research for yourself!***

1. Lulu, Xulon, and AuthorHouse. Great websites and probably great companies. However, I felt like the packages are really expensive, and the royalties are way too low. I read through their free e-books and publishing guides and then quickly moved on. 

2. Xlibris. I’ve heard good things about this company, so I researched them well. And then I fled as quickly as I could. Why? Four main reasons.

First, they require a certain retail price. When I told them that my book was 100,000 words, they said that the lowest price that I could sell it at was $20.00. I’m a firm believer that cheap sells the best. There’s no way I’m selling my book for $20.00. Then they said that the lowest for an eBook was $11.99. Really? But get this – If you want to sell your books cheaper, you can buy a “Set Your Own Price” package for $250. That makes me laugh even now. So, I pay $250, but there’s still a limit. The lowest is $16.00 for a 300 page book, and the eBook goes to $10.00. Oh, yeah, PLEASE sign me up for this. (Note the sarcasm pouring through the words.)

Next, royalties are set at 25% if someone buys from their web page. If someone goes to Amazon and buys it, it’s down to 10%. Yikes. That’s down with traditional publishers. And just where do most people buy their books? Let me give you a hint…It’s usually not at Xlibris’ web page.

Third, reordering costs. If I bought 1-9 for me to sell, they charge $13.99 per book. If I order 500 copies, it’s down to $8.00. So, to get the cheapest price, I must have $4,000 lying around. And I must have the space to hold 500 books. I have neither of those.

Finally, my experience with their customer service was not good. After I emailed them, they replied… eventually …and had my name wrong. They called me Ms. Luca instead of Lucas. I can be gracious. Mistakes happen. I replied and corrected it. They continued to email me back with the wrong name. I continued to reply back with firmer comments about my name. It never changed. Also, the lady who called me on the phone obviously was reading script from the computer and would take about a minute to answer any question. Most often, she didn’t know and would have to call me back with answers. I got called back. But it was never with the answers. It was just another push to buy their package.

Result? Xlibris may have been great a few years ago, but they haven’t updated to the glories of self-publishing today. An author should be able to set their own price, the royalties should be at least in the 30-40% range at the lowest, and you should be able to reorder as many as you want for cheap. In the words of Tom Petty, “It’s time to move on.”

3. Innovo.This company caused me a world of headaches because I liked them. A lot. I really wanted to work with them. The customer service was amazing in that it was both quick and informative. I enjoyed talking to them and liked what they had to offer. I didn’t choose them because of one reason. Printing costs. They charge $7.00 for me to reorder a book. However, after investigating for quite a while, I found that they charge $15.00 for any order under 50 books. That would cost about $350 or pay extra, which means my customers will have to pay more. Hold on to this for a moment while I explain the last company.

4. Createspace. At first, I wasn’t interested in them. I don’t really know why. Then they offered free books when you buy a package, and I took a look. I have since made the decision to partner with them. Here’s why. For $800, I got front and back cover design, interior design, barcode and ISBN, and a few other goodies. They offer a 100% refund within 60 days of delivery. So that means when I got my first box of books, I have 60 days to say that I don’t like them. I’m sure there would be some negotiation of a refund, but that eliminates some risk. But the things that really got me are that…

I set the retail. Period. The cost for printing is around $5.00. That gives me plenty of room to sell the book cheap and yet make a bit of a profit.


Great customer service. I have enjoyed the talks I have had with various people.


Royalties are great. It depends on where the book sells, but they take 20%-60%. That means I’m getting royalties from 40-80%. You can’t beat that.


The final and biggest reason. I can re-order books for roughly $5.00, and there is no limit to how many I have to order. I noticed that shipping costs reduce if you order more. For example, if I bought one, I would be charged $4.45 for the book and $3.59 for shipping. If I order 20, it comes to about $1.53 per book for shipping.

One final word of why Createspace won out over Innovo. Remember how I said that Innovo charges $7.00 for printing a book and Createspace charges $5.00? (It’s actually cheaper than that, but I’m a firm believer in easy math.) Not a big difference, right? But watch for those small details. If you order 10,000 books over a long period of time, at Innovo, you will pay at least $70,000. At Createspace, you pay $50,000.  $20,000 is a big difference. And don’t sit there and say “Well, I’m not going to sell 10,000 copies.” With that attitude, you won’t. Plan for success.

What’s holding you back from selecting a self-publishing company?