Arima Publishing Review

Amazon.com Titles – 103

Amazon .co.uk Titles – 338

Arima Publishing services are based in Suffolk, England and are very much a UK self publishing service provider. They offer authors ‘global publishing services’. Arima follow the business strategy which most UK based companies take; call it as it is. Arima, to be fair, make no pretensions about being a grandiose publishing company.

“However, whilst print-on-demand has many advantages it does not necessarily suit all types of book. Currently, the process available does not allow for internal colour; pictures and diagrams are limited to black and grey scale. Also, because all book pages are printed on the same non-glossy paper, black and white photographs may have a slightly grainy appearance. Technology continues to progress though, and improvements are coming on-stream all the time.”

At heart, they are a printer who offers ‘global distribution’ services. Big deep breath, Arima, nothing ‘Global about printing digitally, one by one, and making them ‘available’. Putting 20 pallets of refrigerators on a boat or plane from Liverpool to Eindhoven or Shipol is, maybe, just about global, nothing less.

Arima, like all publishing services make their money on their author fees, but Arima’s homepage displays up to 35 adverts for books they publish. You’d be amazed how this sales presence of books on a publishers main homepage makes an impact on authors.

This is Arima’s basic package for publishing which has fluctuated from this price £575 to £795 over the past 12 months. The £575 is now the cost of the basic package, Please download the detailed publishing file link at the top of this page.

Details like this on a website worry me.

“Imprints

In addition to the arima imprint, arima also publishes under a number of specialist imprints. For more information please contact us.”

Why? Is it so secret that you cannot tell us, or is it another series of self publishing plans which you don’t want to tell us about for fear we might say they are ridiculously expensive,. Perhaps Arima are trying to tell us that they have hidden a traditional publishing company behind a self publisher’ printers!

The very basics of publishing a book go with Arima’s package, basic cover and internal layout, ISBN, online availability, proofs and author copies, but little else. On royalties, we are looking at some shenanigans.

Their brochure claims 30% to the author of a book selling for £11.00. through Arima without having to take a third party into account. £3.30 sounds pretty out the window. With third party sales – it reduces to 20%. Yet, it costs Arima about £3.50 to print the book leaving £7.50 . The author might make £3.30, but the publisher is making £4.20 out of all this. There is a similar anomaly in the third party figures as well.

For author royalty copies; we see a similar discrepancy which sees the author paying far away above what the books cost to print as against the price they can buy them from their publishers.

Arima provides no marketing or promotion of titles barring providing the author with some moderate feedback through a booklet. Arima do have an online bookshop, but it is poorly visited.

Arima are far from the cheapest self publishers. You will need to have a fully prepared book file in MS word or ideally a finished PDF. And regarding your cover file:

“Whilst Arima employs professional graphic designers to produce all our book cover work, we understand that some authors would like the opportunity to work closely with the designers to develop a more detailed and personal design brief. A full design commission service is available for both cover and interior work, at £250.”

Arima are inherently offer a production and printer service for self-publishing authors. Their services seem mismatched and are neither printer nor a full author solution service. They are seriously lacking in any area beyond the basic printing of a book. Arima say much of the marketing is up to the author. That’s fine and they are honest about that, but it is hard to see Arima as anymore beyond the nuts and bolts of self-publishing and that is with considerable input before as well as after the book is completed.