Balboa Press is the paid-publishing division of self-help book publisher Hay House Publishing. All their packages and services are administered and powered by Author Solutions (ASI), a global provider of self-publishing services and solutions. ASI has similar partnerships in place with other mainstream publishers and these types of self-publishing service divisions look set to become more commonplace in the publishing industry.

Today is the day for you to pursue your dreams and discover the author within you. At Balboa Press, a division of Hay House, we’re committed to helping you start your journey in book publishing.

This is part of the headline on the main webpage of Balboa Press—not a great start—and evidence Balboa Press are inviting new and potentially inexperienced authors into a dream world rather than introducing them to the down-to-earth practicalities and realities of self-publishing a book. I really do wish paid-publishing divisions like Balboa Press would refrain from indulging in this sort of rose-tinted marketing of their services. They are not the first to do it and they will not be the last. It is clear ASI has had a very strong hand in how Balboa Press is marketed for Hay House Publishing. We have become pretty familiar with the ‘pursue your dream’ market tool with ASI’s own stable of author solutions services like AuthorHouse, iUniverse, Trafford and Xlibris.

At Balboa Press, a division of Hay House, we help authors self-publish books that empower and improve the lives of others. Specializing in the mind, body and spirit genre, Balboa Press is your gateway into the world of publishing. By relying on our publishing, design and marketing services, you can achieve your goals and explore the new opportunities that await you as a published author.

As a division of Hay House, Balboa Press titles are monitored regularly by the parent company. Hay House is one of the fastest-growing self-help and transformational publishers in the world and hopes to find through Balboa Press new inspiring authors that display their potential to add to their catalog.

Our books are printed using print-on-demand technology so we print each book to order. Not only is this method of printing mindful of our planet because no books go to waste, but it is mindful of our authors too. As an author, you are never required to shoulder the cost and hassle of printing, storing and transporting large quantities of your book. When a book is ordered by a reader, a retailer or the author, it is printed and shipped in a matter of days.

The inference here is that Balboa Press wants to be consistent with the types of books published by parent company Hay House Publishing and they would seem to suggest they do not envisage Balboa Press as an all-out self-publishing service. But to achieve this, Balboa Press would have to employ a submission filter that tells Aunt Maple that her submitted book of great American recipes will not find a home at Balboa Press, and nor for that matter will any author submitting the next great American novel. I do not see ASI putting any filters in place. If they did, it would be the first for this kind of partnership.
A quick look at the Editorial Standards for Balboa Press reveals that Aunt Maple, her recipes and the great American novel can all rest assured that they will live on, even under the Balboa Press imprint.

Balboa Press is committed to helping authors publish books with a positive slant that help people improve their lives and are conducive to healing planet Earth. Based on this mission, we have established these editorial standards for our titles.

We publish books that are related to the mind-body-spirit subject matter and that are in line with our core values: to help people improve their lives and the Earth. While we do specialize in self-help books, we publish a wide range of genres that adhere to these standards, including children’s, photography, fiction, poetry, cookbooks and more.

‘”Photography, fiction, poetry, cookbooks, including children’s—(children’s what?)—add this to a list of ‘astrology, alternative health, angels, pet care, finance, nutrition, parenting, psychology, sociology, meditation, spirituality, numerology, color therapy, feng shui, business, autobiographies, social commentary, memoirs and more.” What an absolute cop-out! This is no mission statement or core value. Throw in sport and politics and we are ready to open a Barnes & Noble store! This is pretty much as open-ended an editorial/genre policy as you can get. It would have been quicker for Balboa Press to tell us they don’t accept, like horror, crime or pornography.

While Balboa Press seem to want to express a caring attitude to their potential authors, it will be interesting to take a close look at their publishing packages and actually see if ‘you are never required to shoulder the cost and hassle of printing, storing and transporting large quantities of your book.’ The new and inexperienced authors Balboa Press are appealing to could perhaps be forgiven for assuming they won’t have to pay for any printing costs regardless of how small an amount of books are printed. Balboa Press is of course referring to the fact that all books will be printed on demand. Nothing is coming free here.

Balboa Press divides their publishing packages into two areas, Core Packages and Color Packages.

BALBOA PRESS PUBLISHING PACKAGES

Your journey begins here with one of our nine versatile and affordable publishing packages. Each package offers a wide suite of services designed to help you fulfill your destiny and give you the book you deserve. Your book is destined to go forth and touch the lives of people and our planet Earth, but you don’t need to walk that journey alone. Explore our various publishing packages and find the one that helps you meet your destiny.

The language is now starting to become a little tiring—‘fulfill your destiny’, ‘Your book is destined to go forth…’ and ‘find the one that helps you meet your destiny.’ If you are not already dizzy with the dream and destiny speak from Balboa Press—let me bring you crashing down to earth. The nine packages on offer range from $999 to $7999 and in case you are still in seventh heaven, you the author are paying for these services out of your pocket.

ISBN Assignment – (Balboa Press registered ISBN)Author Volume Discounts – (see chart)Channel Distribution to 25K Retailers – (standard online listing and distribution availability)Cover Design – (Author may submit customised material – otherwise Balboa will supply cover using their stock artwork)Personalized Back Cover – (Author supplies text copy which will be proof read)Interior Book Design – (Author advised to set their margins!)Image Insertions/Text Treatments (10)B&W Interior, Color CoverE-book Formatting and DistributionComplimentary Author Copy – (First production POD proof copy)Sold on Amazon.com, Barnes&Noble.comPersonalized Balboa Press Bookstore Page – (Basic page listing, author supplies text – not an author webpage as described)Included in Balboa Press CatalogU.S. Copyright RegistrationAuthor Copies (10 with Embark package)

All the above are part of the Embark Package ($999), and the following are what is added to each package.

Connect Package ($1599)20 Free Author Copies – (Why do self-publishing services insist on calling these ‘free’. They are not. They are paid for by the fee charged to an author in the package price)Hardcover edition of your book – (5 author copies provided)Library of Congress Control Number – (Free government service – 1 copy of book required to be lodged with library)Barnes & Noble See Inside Program – (Free load-up service to publishers)Amazon Search Inside – (Free load-up service to publishers)

So, let us reflect here. The author pays $600 more than the Embark Package for the Connect Package and gets a hardback edition (files already created with paperback edition, so the only additional outlay for Balboa Press is the cost of the ISBN and print set-up), an LCCN and search inside programs with two online retailers (free services). Estimated cost to publisher – $150app. Cost to author $600 (ching-ching)!

Discover Package ($2299)Book Buyers Preview – (an expanded industry database preview listing for trade – individual cost $119)Bookseller Returns Program for 1 year – (individual cost $799)100 business cards, bookmarks and postcards – (individual cost $240)

Inspire Package ($3499)30 Author paperback copies10 Hardcover copies300 business cards, bookmarks and postcardsDedicated author website – ($399)Social Media Set-up – ($799) includes:A blog using WordPress – an easy to use, popular and professional blogging platformA Facebook profile for your identity as an authorA Facebook page for your bookA MySpace page for your bookA Flickr account integrated into your social networkA FeedBurner account to help you deliver your blog to the massesA Shelfari social book accountA Goodreads account for book loversA LibraryThing account for social book-catalogingA Twitter account for micro-bloggingPress Release & Complimentary Review Copy (if requested by media outlets) – $360

All of the Media Set-up package comprises of free social media services. Cost to publisher – about two hours of their time. Cost to author – $799 (ching-ching)! Bluntly put—if you are too lazy as an author to set-up these social network sites yourself, and would rather part with $799 of your own money, quite frankly, you really have more money than sense.

Empower Package ($4999)40 Paperback copies15 Hardback copiesBook Signing Kit – ($360, includes 10 posters, 30 fliers and 100 invitation postcards) Radio/TV Interview Report Ad – ($895, a half-page ad for you are your book in RTIR, trade media publication)Editorial Review – ($349)“The Balboa Press Editorial Review examines a portion of your work (typically the first chapter or about 1,700 words) and gives you a specific sample edit. This edit includes changes you can make to improve your book as well as a general overview of your manuscript with constructive comments for improvement. To be clear, this is not a full manuscript edit and should not replace the rest of Balboa Press’ editorial services.”

Master Package ($7999)80 Paperback Copies25 Hardback CopiesIndex Service Up to 1000 words – ($480, author must select what the key words are!) Video Voice Trailer – ($4799, 60-90sec film)“Make the words and stories within your book come to life with a Video Book Trailer with Voiceover. A professional filmmaker will take the words of your book, shoot live footage that fits your book and combine creative and informative dialogue to overlay over the live footage. The result is a high-quality video book trailer readers will be drawn to as they anticipate your reading your book.”

Are we still in dream world after all that?…didn’t think so.

Balboa Press offer three color packages and pretty much offer similar features as the Core Packages.
Imagine ($1299)Emerge ($1599)Believe ($2199)

Authors receive discount off the retail price on books they order, however, these copies exclude royalty payments and cannot be included in the Book Returns Program. An author’s first book order qualifies for a 50% discount, but only if that order is for more than 150 copies. Otherwise, discounts start at 20% for 1 to 24 paperback copies, and 30% for 1 to 24 hardback/color copies continuing on a rising scale up to 65% for 2000 copies.

E-Book Royalties
“You will receive 50 percent of the payments received from the sales of your e-book, less any distribution and technology fees, taxes and returns. Royalties will not be paid on copies provided free of charge or sold to the author.”

Distribution Royalties
“Here’s an example of a common sales transaction:
The cover price (list price) for your book is $17.95. Your Balboa Press royalty rate is 50 percent. A retailer places an order for your book through Ingram Book Company, a wholesaler. Ingram, in turn, purchases your book from Balboa Press at a 48 percent discount (our standard discount to wholesalers). Ingram then resells the book to the retailer. Your royalty on this sale of your soft cover book will be calculated as follows:

Retail Sale Example:

$17.95 (SRP “Suggested Retail Price”)
- $8.62 (48% Retail Discount)
= $9.33 (Net Retail Discount)
- $4.97 (COGS “Cost of Goods Sold”)
= $4.36 (Net COGS)
x 50% (Royalty Rate)
= $2.18 (Royalty Earned from a retail sale)

Web Sale Example:

$17.95 (SRP “Suggested Retail Price”)
- $4.97 (COGS “Cost of Goods Sold”)
= $12.98 (Net COGS)
x 50% (Royalty Rate)
= $6.49 (Royalty Earned from a web sale)”

I only hope the retail book example used by Balboa Press is not reflective of a common retail price for their books, because if it is, it is way over the market competition. Likewise their ‘Cost of Goods Sold’ does not reflect whether this is just the print cost or there are other production costs built into that figure. While I appreciate there is different wholesaler and retailer discounts offered, depending on the channel of sale, I would prefer to see a little more transparency. Mainstream publishers generally offer author discounts based on the percentage of the retail price, usually 6 – 8% on paperback books.
Royalties are paid four times a year, but only when the total royalty amount for the due period exceeds $75.

Balboa provides individual services that can be viewed here and here, though we touched on some of those services as part of the breakdown of the publishing packages.

By choosing to publish with Balboa Press, you not only align yourself with a publisher that shares your values, but you also receive benefits you won’t find with any other self-publishing companies. Our professional staff works with you to ensure your book meets industry standards, but that your vision is communicated clearly.

Actually, the reality is you are not aligning yourself with Hay House Publishing whatever the above quote might suggest or allude to. You are aligning yourself and your book with Author Solutions (ASI), the author solutions company who run and provide the publishing services for Balboa Press.

Overall, Balboa Press, as a paid-publishing service, needs to be more transparent about this operation. Nowhere do they mention the involvement of Author Solutions, and the continued implication is that an author is paying for services and work carried out by staff aligned directly with Hay House Publishing. That, or Hay House Publishing are suggesting Author Solutions share the same core values and are equipped with the same publishing experience as Hay House.

Beyond the Embark package at $999 (already priced at twice its true value), authors are being asked to pay for services which are either free or inflated beyond their true value. The Social Media Set-Up service is a case in point, and frankly, it is outrageous to charge authors—even those foolish enough to pay for it—$799 for the setting up of what are ordinarily free social media accounts.

Balboa Press does not do a good enough job of persuading authors who wish to self-publish to use their imprint. Authors might be just as well going directly to one of the Author Solution group of companies and thereby cut out the additional inflated charges which seem to be built into the Balboa Press packages.

Balboa Press has a great deal of work to do with the first few books that come out under their imprint. Right now, I do not see any real evidence that I am going to see anything more than another book by Author Solutions (ASI) and that is not what Balboa Press claim to be selling authors.

RATING: 5/10

He’s also recently released the novel, The Memory of Trees (Amazon). Expect an interview here soon.

This is Mick Rooney’s Independent Publishing Magazine’s Publishing Services Index updated October 2011, grading publishing services from best to worst.

(KEY)

DIY – Do-it-yourself services
ASS – Author Solutions Services (Packages)
PUB – Also Offers Mainstream Contracts
PRT – Printer
FULL – Fulfillment Services provided

Ebookit charges a flat fee of $149:

What WE Do:

1. We Prepare Your File for Conversion
2. We Assign You an ISBN
3. We Convert Your File To Many Required eBook Types
4. We Check Your Converted eBook for Quality
5. We Distribute Your eBook to the World
6. We Promote Your eBook! (optional)
7. We Pay You!

Fine print on #7: they take 15% of royalties. However, that’s the same as Smashwords – but at Smashwords you have to meatgrind your book yourself.  This is also 15% on top of what you’d get from the 30-70% at Kindle, so one option would be to opt out of everything except the Kindle and do this directly (that’s what I’ve done for my own books). What’s missing is sales you might get from the Smashwords site itself. Ebookit does sell books on the site, but it’s nowhere near as vibrant as Smashwords’ community, and frankly it’s hard to access. One does have the option of distribution through Ebookit and posting it on Smashwords without distribution.

Also: “Updates made to your eBook are billed at just $49/hour.” I wouldn’t necessarily put that under “just.” Make sure that everything’s clean before approval. Finally: promotion:

We Promote Your eBook! (optional): For an additional fee of $195, we will send your book description and contact information to hundreds of the top US media outlets via our MediaBlast! Service. This includes leading newspapers, television, and magazines, including All Things Considered – NPR, The Today Show (NBC), Fox News, CNN, MSNBC, Reuters, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Good Houskeeping, Harper’s Bazaar, O, The Oprah Magazine, People Magazine, Reader’s Digest – Online, Boston Globe, Chicago Tribune, Denver Post, Los Angels Times, New York Times, USA Today, and hundreds more! We also offer our International Book Promotion Service ($995) where we write a professional press release for you, submit it through PRWEB, and send your release to thousands of media contacts around the world, carefully chosen based on the content of your book. This includes the MediaBlast! service above.

I wouldn’t necessarily recommend this step unless it’s non-fiction in a highly-marketable niche.

Michael Marcus at Book Making Blog has this to say about Ebookit:

I was impressed by the company’s ultra-friendly website, phone calls with Ryan Levesque and emails with boss Bo Bennett.

Bo says, “I created eBookIt.com out of my conviction that an author should have an inexpensive, simple, and truly fool-proof way to get their book converted to eBook format, and submitted to the major online retailers fast.”

eBookIt does exactly that.

I am extremely happy with the company’s quality, speed, responsiveness and price (just $149 for multiple formats). The eBookit website is easy for even a non-geek to use. It’s always easy to see what work has been done, what has to be done, and to review communications with the eBookIt staff. The eBookIt site is a model for online customer service. Other companies should emulate it.

Some of my emails were answered within minutes, and I don’t think I waited more than 24 hours for any of them.

A disclaimer: I have not used this service for my own books, but I walked my dad through the process for his novel and it was very easy. The book was converted literally overnight. At first, he decided to opt out of Amazon distribution, but then decided against it, and the change was also made very quickly.

One knock against the conversion process – it was not done with right-aligned margins. There are arguments for and against this. Personally, I think it looks cleaner with margins aligned. However, not all distributors or ereaders handle right alignment in the same way, so it’s sometimes a safer bet to spare the alignment. If this is a concern, ask upfront for margins to be aligned during conversion. The service does say this:

We convert your book to the formats offered by the major online booksellers, to each retailer’s specifications.

Blurb was founded by Eileen Gittens, a highly successful business woman with US global companies Kodak and Wall Data amongst others on her CV. She studied photography in her younger days and set up Blurb as on line self-publishing solutions company to serve the needs of both photographers and authors. In spite of all her success, she says Blurb is the most fun thing she has ever done. Fun is probably the best description of Blurb itself.

In 2007 Blurb produced 80,000 titles, with much of this output being a mixture of ‘coffee table’ photographic albums in book form ranging from the humble personal wedding album to the glossy corporate book brochure for high-flying architects and graphic artists. This is where Blurb wanted to pitch their business as a self-publishing alternative to the norms of ‘Aunt Maple’s Cookbook’ and ‘College Graduate’s Great American Novel’. Their last reported turnover was $30m, so we are not dealing with small potatoes here.

I have used Blurb’s services myself on the re-issuing of a previous book I published through my own publishing imprint Aquarius Communications, using Blurb’s BookSmart downloadable software. The Blurb software used for book design and production is called Booksmart and the software is downloadable to a user’s PC. This is what makes Blurb different than most other author solutions services. The author does the job of book design and layout on their own PC before uploading to Blurb’s site for printing and sales.

I came across Blub about a year ago but did not start seriously looking at their services until late last year. Blurb is surfing in the Lulu and Createspace market, and perhaps much more so now than they have previously been. Blurb’s initial pitch and investment was into the high end corporate market which would attract in photographers, architects, graphic designers, as well as the general consumer exploiting the advances in digital technology brought to the family home. Even in the time I have followed Blurb, there has been a subtle change in how they market their services. They are now openly pitching directly to the common man and woman in the home and the self-employed graphic artist and photographers, all highly technologically aware, but ultimately these artists are looking to present a personal and visual representation of their lives, or a small artistic business product or brochure for a captured audience. This is the key to what Blurb has to offer at the moment.

Visit Blurb’s website and you will quickly see the cornerstone is the quality of an individual’s artistic endeavour (personal or corporate), but without real worldwide or wholesale distribution beyond Blurb’s own bookstore window. For example, at the moment, Blurb does not provide ISBN’s for their published books, nor do they provide third party distribution such as Ingrams or on line retailers like Amazon.

Following the forums on Blurb’s own website tells a story in itself as to where authors want Blurb to be, and where they actually are at the moment. The key forum criticisms directed at Blurb from their own users is the ability for the user to load the highest quality images quickly and efficiently; the end product to be flexible, adaptable and available for distribution worldwide. I believe that Blurb will catch up and resolve many of these issues and allow them to properly compete with companies like Lulu, CreateSpace and other print on demand solution providers. While it is just a matter of time—Blurb do need to start putting their best foot forward.

The very mention of the word ‘Blurb’ seems to send authors into an immediate comparison with DIY author solutions service, Lulu. While it is understandable, I still see Lulu as a highly established company pitted against Blurb as a young pretender. These modern day forces in the author solutions world have emerged from different corners of the DIY self-publishing ring. Lulu offers everything from calendars to DVD production, to the next great novel, while Blurb’s roots lie with photographic and artistic production since 2006. Both offer accessibility and ease of use with author-friendly production tools and the ability to produce a quality product for fun or serious endeavour. Lulu have offered a publishing platform for the serious author for quite some time, whereas, Blurb has only recently tailored their Booksmart (TM) software to accommodate authors with text-laden books and PDF file compatibility.

What grabbed my attention about Blurb straight away was the quality of their internal book layout, the costs of their books to authors (paperbacks certainly), and significantly, Blurb choose to hand over the tools of book production to the author by way of software download. This free software is the engine of Blurb’s whole business itself. Since 2006, it has continued to be a ‘work in progress’, with continued upgrades and updates in an effort to make the hands-on publishing process for authors as easy as possible. It still remains an ongoing ‘work in progress’ and some of the issues I experienced myself when using it have now been ironed out with recent updates.

For authors, Blurb is not like Lulu. It is a different experience, first and foremost, with benefits as well as deficiencies when compared to Lulu. The attributes of the final book are different and present their own advantages as well as challenges for a self-publishing author. It is clear from the start when you browse the Blurb website that you are dealing with a company who can present a highly visual, glossy and polished book. The skill of the author using the Booksmart software is to convert their manuscript into a presentable quality book with the facilities, wherewithal and avenue to market to the family, friends and crucially to the general buying public. The fact that PDF files can be uploaded directly to the Booksmart software ‘as is’ provides considerably more flexibility to authors. The greatest challenge for Blurb is not longer the quality or production of the book, but the distribution and sales of them.

This is where we encounter the first critical hurdle with Blurb. They do not provide ISBN’s, nor do they provide distribution beyond their own on line bookstore and community to market to. I could be harsh and say Blurb simply give you a cheap but effective and friendly version of a book design package, such as InDesign, and an on line platform to display it for sale. Maybe I am being unfair and it belies the potential power of a sleeping giant. How the author using this completely free service decides to properly utilise what is available—how they best use their own guile and ingenuity—sums up Blurb’s strengths as well as their weaknesses.

Every tutorial on Blurb’s website emphasises the fun involved in the publishing process, but that is actually one of their weaknesses. It’s a weakness because Blurb is sophisticated and sexy enough to offer a viable book product—through the creativeness and design savvy of their authors—which can actually compete in the on line retail world of books given a proper chance. So much of what they do utterly beats the socks of paying author solutions services. I suppose I am saying Blurb need to take a leap of faith and realise that many of their authors and artists are serious individuals, whether designers, photographers, architects or novelists, and offer them a full author solution service. You just want Blurb to match the professionalism of their clients with a like-minded service.

Once you peruse the Blurb site and see what is on offer, you are invited to download Booksmart (TM) and try out the software. It takes a minute or two to download to your PC or MAC and there are plenty of tutorials to also view on line before you dive in.

http://www.blurb.com/help/tutorials

When Booksmart launches on your PC you are given the option to upload a word document or a series of photographs for inclusion in your book or entire completed PDF files. You decide upon the trim size and format of your book and proceed from there. It is not hard to see that the text/black/white interior was the more recent option to be added as it has the least layout choices available, though Blurb are increasing the layout options with each subsequent upgrade of Booksmart. Immediately the cover, copyright and title/chapter pages are there, but you can edit these pages to your own specifications. You effectively get all fonts available in word and the freedom to customise as much as you want or import your documents onto a themed template. What I like most is the flexibility it gives you.

It is worth spending an hour or so on the tutorials. All Blurb books default to having a copyright page and back page with the Blurb insignia on them. Getting rid of this insignia for a self-publishing author is important. It can be done but the consequence is that your book will incur an additional mark to the price—sort of like upgrading to a self-publishing path of freedom where the blurb branding is removed and you can freely insert your own.

The biggest challenge with using Blurb’s free publishing service is whether an author can turn their book into a viable product for self-publishing. The lack of proper on line distribution, ISBN and data book registration are serious enough to send most authors on their heels in the direction of the door. I think the lack of ISBN is the most important lapse on Blurb’s part and a serious business oversight. Without an ISBN, an author is dead in the water, or rather; their book is, unless, of course, Blurb just want to make books available the author’s family and friends. I know Blurb is used by professional photographers, artists and small businesses alike to present corporate booklets, full graphic books, and I think it is only a question of time before Blurb does make this option available. For now, authors need a quick ‘fix-it’.

We know you love Blurb. We also know that sometimes you may not want our logo on your book. All standard Blurb books are printed with the Blurb logo on the copyright page and final page, but our Custom Logo Upgrade lets you add your own branding or go ‘logo free.’

When you select the ‘logo free’ option, Blurb adds this to the cost per book unit rather than simply charging you a set fee. If the author is also serious about on line sales and bookstore sales with a retailer discount also added on, then this ‘luxury’ takes on a far greater importance. In truth, there really is only one ‘fix-it’ and that is for the author to own their own ISBN’s registered in their name or their own publishing imprint, purchased from Nielsens Book Data.  The author can then include one of these numbers on the copyright page, which will still bare the Blurb insignia, but what matters most is the ISBN is registered and owned by the author and their imprint name. This ISBN can also be used on the back cover of the book along with your own publishing logo when you design the cover with Booksmart. In some circumstances, where the page count of a paperback book is low, it may prove to be financially viable to use and pay extra for the ‘logo free’ option. Without shipping and taxes—it leaves no room for a retail discount or author profit.

Ultimately, if any author is going to be continually working and editing book files, they should seriously invest in a program like InDesign, or the more expensive Adobe Acrobat. Before I leave the issue of ISBN’s, I have been asked by authors many times about how they generate their ISBN barcode to include in a book cover design. Again, here is a free resource site which does the trick for you.

http://www.tux.org/~milgram/bookland/index.html

Distribution is the area which causes most concern with Blurb. Distribution is something which Blurb needs to seriously look at if they are to develop beyond being seen as just another manuscript display site, with the add-on bonus of offering authors a hard printed copy of their work. You will not find a single Amazon listing at the moment for a Blurb book (bar my own book, Thais) if you go looking there, and for that matter, any other on line retailer. Without the on line distribution service from Blurb, authors will have to order a quantity of books, register them with on line sellers, and in the case of Amazon, that will mean participating in their Advantage Program as an Amazon seller and sending them copies of their book, conceding the 40% to 60% discount. An author will also need their own book website with paypal facilities to drive sales. In many ways, the author will have to operate as a traditional small publishing press and hold their own stocks of the book or find and pay for a small independent distributor to take some stock. As it stands, there is simply no way that Blurb could be a viable option for an author wanting to make a reasonable profit on a book if they were to utilise all the available sales channels. On a small scale, for personal kudos, it could work, but not as a profit making venture.

Overall, Blurb is excellent for quality and service, and yes, fun, but for profit and serious sales, try Lightning Source, Lulu or Createspace for real contenders on profit margin. For the moment, Blurb is a sleeping giant of the self-publishing world and is an outstanding fit for a small art gallery wanting a high quality brochure, a photographer wanting to show off his portfolio to the corporate sector, or an author happy to see a book in print for family and friends.

In October 2009, Blurb launched their 2.5 version of Booksmart and new flat-rate-shipping. See details here.

Came across this exchange of comments this year which I believe is fair and finely balanced on Blurb’s book quality.

In April 2010, Blurb launched the Blurb Bookshow widget. See details here.

This DIY self-publishing engine remains an excellent tool and avenue for the new enthusiast to self-publishing.

UPDATE: January 2011
For late 2010 and early 2011 Blurb Updates – go here.

UPDATE: July 2011
Blurb continue to improve their download software with comparability with high end design programs and excellent tutorials.

UPDATE: October 2011
Blurb offer ebooks for the iPad.

RATING: 7.2/10

Selfpublishing.com has the name every author solutions service would love to have got their hands on. Company founder Ron Pramschufer, a veteran of the print and publishing industry and author of the widely popular self-publishing guide, Publishing Basics – a Guide for the Small Press and Independent Self-Publisher (Navigating the Self Publishing Minefield), proved to be the first to spot the huge potential of the Internet as a communications tool in 1997. Selfpublishing.com actually started out as RJCommunications (http://www.rjcomm.com/), before evolving into http://www.booksjustbooks.com/, and finally in 2009 into www.selfpublishing.com/.  Though each incarnation of the original company is still in operation, Selfpublishing.com is now the recognised and dedicated wing for authors looking for self-publishing services. The other two company brands focus on the corporate print sector for publishers and business as well as Resell Book Printing.

Selfpublishing.com is based in New York City and the core principal and by-line of the company is ‘Helping Authors Become Publishers’. This is certainly demonstrated by the company’s dedication to provide online guidance, two-way discussion and a website crammed with educational information on self-publishing. I don’t think I have every come across an author solutions service so committed to providing an insight into the strengths as well as the pitfalls of becoming a self-published author. In fact, Pramschufer’s book, Publishing Basics, is available as a free e-book for download on their website.

http://www.selfpublishing.com/free-ebooks/

What impresses me most about Selfpublishing.com is their openness to disclose a full listing of their key staff and detail their experience in the print and publishing industry. If there is one thing poor author solutions services all have in common, it is a complete lack of experience in the industry. Selfpublishing.com lists amply skilled managers and staffers from Abbeville Press, Alfred A. Knopf, iUniverse, Doubleday Publishing, Random House, Modern Publishing, and McGraw-Hill Publishing with careers in Print, Design, Graphic Art, Marketing, Sales, Book Project Managing, Web Design, Researchers and Book Coaching. The list of credentials would make many medium-sized independent publishers envious.

http://www.selfpublishing.com/about

It is important to emphasise at this point Selfpublishing.com are not a publishers, nor do they present themselves in any way as publishers. What they do and provide for authors is in their company by-line. They make authors publishers. Selfpublishing.com fit more neatly into the group of author solutions services I term DIY Printer/Publishers, like Lulu, CreateSpace and York Publishing Services. There are no tailored publishing packages on offer here, but rather a menu of individual or collection of services appropriate for what a particular author may be looking for to produce, publish and market their books. It is why they break one of my rules regarding the presence of books on the main website page. But then, Selfpublishing.com do not profess to sell books—rather they give authors the education, guidance, means, tools and services to do exactly that—sell their books. That said, there is a link to the online bookstore at http://www.justbookz.com/ and that is presented much in the way you will expect to see any good online bookstore. It features many of the books by authors who have used Selfpublshing.com’s services as well as the listings of micro and small independent press publishers.

Selfpublishing.com approach the process with authors in four key steps—education, preparation, book printing, and finally marketing and distribution. In this regard, I am going to break with normal tradition in these reviews and follow the allocated four steps Selfpublishing.com have adopted as the model of business for authors using their services. That way, I can give a better account and assessment of the services they have to offer and how they will be suit authors considering Selfpublishing.com as a serious option for their book project.

Step One – Education

“Step one is “Education”.  This is where you are going to learn as much as you can about what lies ahead. Our book, Publishing Basics – A Guide for the Small Press and Independent Self-Publisher will help get you started.  You can either order it through the www.JustBookz.com bookstore or send me an email with your address and I will mail you a copy for free.  You should also spend some time at www.publishingbasics.com and read the current newsletter as well as prior issues.  They all contain valuable information that will aid you in your publishing effort.”

The Publishing Basics free e-book is the core of step one, but that also goes along with a highly informative website full of candid information on self-publishing, including their online FAQ pages, the Publishing Basics Newsletter, links to their own radio podcasts and articles on avoiding the pitfalls of self-publishing and vanity publishers. The company are also contactable through email, question forms and direct telephone lines. http://www.selfpublishing.com/steps/new.php

Step Two – Preparation

“You have finished your manuscript. Your ten best friends plus your mother have told you your book is GREAT. You have made up your mind that there is a market for your book beyond your ten best friends. You have decided to self publish your book and hopefully become the next Tom Clancy. Your Tenth Grade English teacher has read over your manuscript caught a few typos and gave you further encouragement to self publish. Do you really need a book editor? Yes, No and Maybe.”

Selfpublishing.com presents the author with the option of using editorial services if they see their book as more than just for family and friends. I tend to strongly concur with the advice provided regarding what level and expense should be afforded to editing services at this stage of a book’s inception.  At the very worst, an author can use a combination of MS Word and the input of an academic friend versed with some basic editorial skills, and at best, a full edit of the book by a professional editor.

Selfpublishing.com are pretty much in line with market costs per word, with a basic proofread of a 200pp 80k book coming in at $800, rising all the way to a full substantive edit  at $1360 for the same book. These are base starting prices dependent on the amount of work needed. The proofread looks a little higher than I might expect and the substantive, if anything, a little lower. I’d have expected a substantive edit to come it at $2000+, but again, these are starting prices. Quite why per word quotes are given, and described as ‘starting’, puzzles me. The either are per word, or they are not!

Selfpublishing.com provides free templates, direction and guides on designing internal layout with MS Word, and other useful design articles. They provide a full breakdown of individual design services of anything the self-publishing author could possible need from single barcodes, registered to the author or their imprint name at $25. They are recognised as an official selling agent of Bowkers, the national ISBN agency. The following is just a sample of some a la carte services at the design stage.

The author can of course supply print ready files to Selfpublishing.com without using any of the editing or design services. Whether the author does or not, all files remain the property of the author to take away unlike so many other author solutions services. (If an author uses the design and layout services available, they do have to pay a fee of $25 to get them on a CD) Full listings of all design services are available here.

Step three – Printing

“Most printers can print books although most printers are not book printers. Even if you are lucky enough to find a book printer, are you lucky enough to find a book printer who does not want to fill your garage with books with little concern whether or not you, the self publisher, can sell them? We deal with a group of offset, offset web and digital book printers. Our only concern is getting you back for a reprint after you have sold your first printing. We buy book printing in large enough bulk that we can print and sell the self publisher books for less than the printer can sell to the self publisher direct.”

As industry print veterans, this is the area I expected Selfpublishing.com to really excel.  They didn’t. Our standard 200pp book, perfect bound paperback, four colour cover, black and white text interior with no internal images is the example we have all grown to know and love in these reviews. I punched the detail into Selfpublishing.com’s online price calculator, bearing in mind the minimum print unit option is 100 units and these were the results.

208 pages6 x 9100 copies$6.28 unit costTOT – $627.70 plus $100 admin charge on all print jobs!
208 pages6 x 9500 copies$5.15 unit costTOT – $2572.72 plus $100 admin charge on all print jobs!

It would help if Selfpublishing.com explained that the ‘admin’ charge is for print set-up, rather than casually describing it as an ‘admin’ charge. Customers don’t like administration charges. The customer perspective will always be – if I don’t see it, and you don’t directly say it – then I’m being charged for something I can’t see or qualify. It is still not made entirely clear whether the $100 admin on print jobs is included in the calculation, or is an extra. I can only take it from the widget and terminology that it is extra to the unit and total quote. The second quote is based on litho not digital—the cut off I have explained elsewhere recently in POD versus Litho has now dropped to 400 – 500 units. The digital POD unit price was actually a little higher. LSI (Lightning Source) come in at under $4, CreateSpace, marginally more than LSI, and that is not having to order 400 to 500 units or even 100 units per print run. This was one result I just wasn’t expecting from Selfpublishing.com at all.  It is time to dust ourselves off and move on to the next stage.

Where Selfpublishing.com fall down on here is not explaining that the mark-up on print costs per copy  takes into account set-up, which should not apply if an author provides print ready files.

Step Four – Distribution & Marketing

Selfpublishing.com suggests this should be a first port of call in an effort to educate the self-publishing author. Kremer is an exceptional knowledge base and deft hand in book marketing and you certainly will not go far wrong reading any of his books.

If you haven’t done so already you need to buy a copy of this book. Some of the information is a little dated but for under $30 a great place to start.

It is a hefty volume and at a hefty price. Did Selfpublishing.com do the printing??! To be fair, it is the kind of book that will earn you the cover price back many times over.

Selfpublishing.com list a number of marketing services from web design, press releases, non bookstore direct sales, and storage and fulfilment. In-depth details can be found here.

THOR DISTRIBUTION is an inexpensive, low risk way to make your book available to virtually all the book wholesalers and retailers in the US as well as many in Western Europe.

How much does it cost? The cost is $249, with NO MONEY DOWN, for three years of availability. The initial fee will be subtracted from actual sales. No sales, no fee. Self Publishing, Inc. is betting that you will do what you need to do to drive buyers to these outlets.

It is important here to emphasise the difference between a wholesaler and a distributor. Wholesalers hold and warehouse stock and ship book stocks when the book is ordered. Some wholesalers may provide raw print catalogues or data files of titles, even very basic descriptive catalogues of titles, but they are not intended as a sales tool—merely a listing. Sales, and the ability to promote, sell and pushing a title into a brick and mortar store is the job of a distributor—a company with a dedicated sales staff working on behalf, or on contract, to a publishing house(s). Some book distributors also specialise in different areas and genres of the publishing book industry—Academic & Educational, Outdoor Pursuits & Sports, Foreign Language or Self-Help/Medical etc. It is such an important part of the book business; the large publishing houses have their own in-house distribution teams to do this. Smaller independent distributors may handle a region, territory, or chosen list of publishers with common strategies or conglomerate affiliations.

What is Thor Distribution?

Thor Distribution is a strategic alliance between Self Publishing, Inc., a New York printing services company with over 100 million books in print , and Lightning Source, a Tennessee based digital printer with just under 10 million books in print. The Thor program provides publishers with a cost effective POD alternative to traditional book distributors. The Thor delivery channels cover over 90% of the bookstores in the US.

We now know who Selfpublishing.com is. We know Lightning Source is a global printer owned by Ingram Group, one of the largest US wholesalers of books. Enough said.
Selfpublishing.com list their warehouse storage and book fulfilment program and charges here.
There are Press Release services on Selfpublishing.com, but these seem to be all directed out to external PR Media online sources.

Promote Your Business with Professional and Affordable PR Services including placement on News.Google, Yahoo!, Reuters, and thousands more, starting at only $69!

OK. I have gone as far as I want to go.

Selfpublishing.com say their services are for all authors, novice or experienced. I came across Selfpublishing.com about two and a half years ago. At that stage, I knew them as RJCommunications. I knew a lot less then, than I know now—and I have been researching all forms of the publishing industry for a great many years, both as a self-published author and a traditionally published author. Selfpublishing.com made me wary then of the business of self-publishing. They made me wary two years ago. I think the may still unnerve the first time author looking at self-publishing for the first time. I am not convinced the author with a limited understanding of self-publishing is actually going to be drawn in when they come upon Selfpublishing.com. That may be less Selfpublishing.com’s problem, but rather the visiting author. It’s simply my instinct and opinion, if correct, then it’s business lost, no matter how much information is provided, and that is one area Selfpublishing cannot be faulted on.

The author is allowed to set their own retail book price and trade discount can be up to 50% to wholesalers. What I found most difficult for a perspective author, is the ability to quickly navigate the site because of the vast amount of information provided, and arrive at a ballpark figure for costing for a full book project. The time invested on the site may very well be worth it. The 100 unit limit on print orders may preclude many novice authors, and that is one case in point regarding my comments about some authors being wary of Selfpublishing.com at first investigation and call.  Much on Selfpublishing.com is designed to be open to the new author contemplating the self-publishing path for the first time, and yet, I sense and have seen enough to suspect the novice author may be put them off, and instead, pursue a service like Lulu or CreateSpace.

What you get, novice or dedicated self-published author with Selfpublishing.com is far beyond the information or cost saving you get at Lulu or Createspace when considering the purchase of multiple services. For me, Selfpublishing.com is author service shopping for the discerning author with some experience. You might say informed and shrewd shopping—a la carte—it may not be the place for the novice, but for the true self-publishing author, this company are a treasure trove of services.

Selfpublishing.com is more for the serious-minded author who sees their self-publishing as a business, prepared to pay a little more on print costs under 400 units than they might get from Lightning Source, but with more services and flexibility offered. While Selfpublishing.com are no sales powerhouse with all the bells and whistles—crucially, they offer far greater support than Lulu and CreateSpace in addressing the real detail of the process of self-publishing a book.

When you go to services like Lulu and CreateSpace, it is easy to feel the process of self-publishing is incredible easy—as easy as falling over. At Selfpublishing.com, the self-publishing author is quickly educated and the strengths and weaknesses of publishing are laid bare for them to see. The author might not like what they find out, but when you spend your own money, it is far better to be educated about the realities of self-publishing than remaining in the dark about what your money will buy you.

I respect anyone in this industry, trying to run a business in difficult times, but is still prepared to risk inadvertently scaring off perspective customers with their honesty in an effort to educate them before taking their money.

Selfpublishing.com is an exceptional and outstanding company. I felt they let themselves down in the one area they should never have let themselves down—print costs, and being clear on the administration print costs. The novice may never want to order 400+ copies of their book, but where Selfpublishing.com really comes into their own is for the author with print ready files and a specific menu of services they want to purchase within a set and budget and well-thought-out book project.

RATING 8.5/10

CreateSpace is the publishing engine of global online retailer and publisher Amazon. Createspace began life in 2002 as CustomFlix Labs (DVD), originally intended to make widespread distribution easier for independent filmmakers by providing on-demand DVD production. In 2000, a small group of writers pooled resources to form Booksurge with the intention of creating opportunities for authors to self-publish their books and retain content rights and sales profits. Both companies quickly flourished and in 2005, Amazon acquired them, with CustomFlix Labs changing its name to CreateSpace in 2007. By late 2009, Amazon took the logical step and merged CreateSpace and Booksurge under the CreateSpace brand name to form a single company offering on-demand manufacturing of books, DVD’s and music formats for independent artists and businesses. CreateSpace also supports on-demand products for Amazon retail and their publishing imprints AmazonEncore (for deserving author slipping under the mainstream radar)and AmazonCrossing (for foreign language books deserving an English translation).

A couple of years ago CreateSpace might have seemed like any other POD (print on demand) service, but visit their site now and you will be in no doubt that you are dealing with a compant connected to the Amazon brand. For several years CreateSpace was the main competitor to DIY self-publishing service, Lulu.com, but 2009 has actually seen CreateSpace surpass the published output of the Tennessee self-publishing service.

Many readers will have followed my own DIY self-publishing experiences on this website with Lulu and Blurb and wondered why we did not offer a more expansive review of CreateSpace until now. We delayed doing a thorough review throughout 2009 and 2010 because of the rapid development and changes at Amazon and CreateSpace.

CreateSpace, in spite of all the changes, has built up an extraordinary strong brand and it was no real surprise late last year when Booksurge was subsumed into the CreateSpace brand. Like Lulu (LUL 244.75), CreateSpace is the ideal place for an independent DIY artist to go and upload a book, film or album for on-demand production and publication.

For the purpose of this review, we will centre on CreateSpace for the services they offer self-publishing authors. The most significant move made by this company last year was the introduction of a full global online distribution and availability package at $39 (Pro-Plan), costing almost half of what is on offer at Lulu for a similar deal. Books submitted and up-loaded must meet with CreateSpace’s technical requirements. Prior to the introduction of this distribution package, CreateSpace would have always been considered the second choice for serious self-published authors. Thankfully, that all changed last year when CreateSpace introduced the package and it truly put the company on the map as a DIY self-publishing service. Of course, like Lulu, if an author has modest aspirations, and simply want to have a printed book and use CreateSpace’s ISBN and are happy with availability of their book on the CreateSpace’s bookstore and Amazon, then setting up a book is technically free, outside of the cost of the final proof copy of the book before it is made available.

CreateSpace uses online tools to upload a completed book PDF file, or allows the author to design their book using templates and widgets provided by CreateSpace. I found the Createspace application for book load-up not quite as easy to use as Lulu, but that is purely a personal taste. The quality of what you have and what you put in is what determines the quality of output on the finished book. The book samples I have purchased from CreateSpace were exceptionally good and on a par with anything I have got from Lightning Source.

From the CreateSpace website:

Royalties

You earn the same royalty share for each book manufactured through the Expanded Distribution Channel. These earnings are recorded in your sales reports as Expanded Distribution sales. Sales information may take up to eight weeks from when a sale is made to appear in the sales reports.

Timing

It may take up to six weeks for your title to begin populating in the distribution outlets you select. Additionally, changes to any details of your book including list price, selling information (such as your book’s product description), or your book’s files may take up to six weeks to update in all distribution outlets. Outlets don’t update simultaneously, so your book’s previous list price, selling information, or files will persist until the change propagates throughout the distribution outlets.

Book Update Fees

If you need to change the cover or interior files for your book for any reason, we can accommodate your request; however, there will be a $25 book update fee for each new file change request. This fee only applies to changes made for an EDC-enrolled title.”

Upgrade your book to Pro Plan to lower your book’s fixed and per-page charges.

Sales Channel Percentage

A sales channel percentage is deducted from your book’s list price depending on which sales channel the book is sold through.”

Fixed Charges

Fixed charges vary depending on your book’s page count, whether your book’s interior is black and white or full-color, and if your title has been upgraded to Pro Plan.

Per-Page Charge

Some books with higher page counts may also have a per-page charge.

Based on the above figures, if an author goes for the Pro-Plan distribution on our average example of a 200 page black and white interior and full colour cover books, then we are looking at the following royalty share for authors if they set a retail price at $10:

Through CreateSpace bookstore – $10 less 20% ($2) distribution, less fixed charge for Pro-Plan ($0.85), less page charge ($2.40) = $4.75

Through Amazon bookstore – $10 less 40% ($4) distribution, less fixed charge for Pro-Plan ($0.85), less page charge ($2.40) = $2.75

Through other expanded channels – $10 less 60% ($6) distribution, less fixed charge for Pro-Plan ($0.85), less page charges ($2.40) = $0.75″

Total Design Freedom Standard

Let a team of professionals work their magic with your manuscript—we’ll use your input to custom-design your book’s interior and cover while maintaining your unique vision for your book.

Price: $758.00*

Total Design Freedom Essentials

Having high-quality content and a top-notch design are essential to the success of your book. With Total Design Freedom Essentials, you’ll receive great savings on our copyediting and book design services to create a professional, polished, one-of-a-kind book.

Price: $1,798.00*

Total Design Freedom Advanced

Want to create a polished, great-looking book and get a head start with marketing? Total Design Freedom Advanced offers a round of copyediting to help refine and prepare your manuscript for publication, the flexibility of a custom-designed book cover and interior, plus a press release with distribution to help get your book noticed.

Price: $2,567.00*

Total Design Freedom Marketing Pro

Launch your book in style with Total Design Freedom Marketing Pro. This comprehensive publishing solution comes equipped with multiple rounds of copyediting, custom book design including a Signature Book Cover, and an assortment of effective marketing tools.

Price: $4,999.00*”

It is obviously worth making a Kindle version available with Amazon if you are going to use CreateSpace to publish your book. The service itself does not come at a fee and the author gets 35% royalties on the retail price.

Kindle Royalties.

Provided you are not in breach of your obligations under this Agreement, we will pay you, for each Digital Book sold to a customer (i.e., an end user) through the Program, a royalty (“Royalty”) equal to thirty-five percent (35%) of the applicable List Price for such Digital Book, net of refunds, bad debt, and any taxes charged to a customer or applied with respect to sales to a customer (including without limitation any value added or sales taxes). If your List Price for a Digital Book is higher than permitted under Section 5.3.1 above, we will be entitled to deem it modified so that it is equal to the maximum List Price permitted when calculating Royalties due to you under this Agreement.

Like competitor Lulu, CreateSpace offers access to a thriving online community of CreateSpace authors well worth browsing if any author is seriously considering using this service. CreateSpace offers an abundance of other services from design and layout to editing, but again, CreateSpace’s strength lies in being a provider of DIY self-publishing services for authors who can provide print ready files and I would like to think that they will not go the way of Lulu and start to place more of an emphasis on some of the expensive packages listed above.

CreateSpace are now at the forefront of DIY self-publishing and the introduction last year of the Pro-Plan at $39 makes them a difficult choice to ignore.

UPDATE: Nov 2010 CreateSpace announce service improvements.

RATING: 8.2/10

Cold River Studio, based in Tennessee, USA, offer graphic design and self-publishing services for writers, designers and corporate clients. The principal partner of the company is Peter Honsberger, formerly of Cold Tree Publishing.

“We believe in the importance of creative collaboration between clients, writers, editors, and designers. In the spirit of that collaboration, we strive to treat every client as we would like to be treated, with honesty, trust, and respect. We love what we do, and we believe that, in order to produce the kind of work that will reflect the success of our clients business or works, the process must be inspired.”

Honesberger presided over Cold Tree Publishing for more than ten years and brought a great deal of transparency, innovation and quality to author solutions services throughout that time. For me, they were a blueprint of standards to aim for as an author solutions service. For Cold Tree Publishing, the development into traditional channels of publishing came at a time when the US economy was drastically turning in the wrong direction, and in many ways, the decision, though brave, proved to be the beginning of the end.

“For Peter Honsberger, a passionate, honest and committed entrepreneur, this will not be the end of his own personal adventure. A talented and award winning graphic designer he may be by profession—the authors of Cold Tree Publishing knew him as something more than that. There may be some Cold Tree Publishing authors who feel disappointed, even aggrieved at the demise of their publisher, but like Honsberger, the passion and lure of literature and publishing will see them all return.”

Cold Tree Publishing – R.I.P. (Reflection & Celebration)

Honsberger spent much of 2009 assisting and supporting any of the 270 authors from Cold Tree Publishing who wanted to switch their book files to other author services. It was a difficult period of time when Honsberger—having lost everything himself—could have been forgiven for walking away and licking his wounds.

Cold River Studio adopts much of the same philosophy, quality and enterprise, but with an understandable realism for the company as much as it advises it authors on the realities of self-publishing. The business is equally split between the self-publishing services and their graphic design studio.

“The first question you should ask yourself is, ‘Why, do I want to self-publish?’ Is it because you want to share what you’ve written with others? You’ve always wanted to be a writer? You can make more money? You don’t want to deal with a publishing house? You know what’s best for your book? You don’t want to wait to see your book in print?

If you answered yes to anything but the first two questions, stop here, do not pass go; do not collect two hundred dollars. You are doing it for the wrong reasons and are setting yourself up for disappointment.”

This is serious and honest direction on self-publishing, not intended to put authors off self-publishing, but rather, help to focus and allow authors serious about the craft of writing to embrace the realities, pitfalls, expectations and opportunities the path they choose will ultimately deliver. If you read or you are given advice from so-called self-publishing advocates that does not resonate this cautious message—then frankly, you are being given misguided advice.

Bluntly, if this review means nothing to you as an author, and you don’t think you will bother even considering Cold River Studio—you will at least learn a great deal by reading Honesberger’s ‘The Realities of Self-Publishing’.

OK, let’s look at what Cold River Studio has to offer the self-publishing author.

The submission of manuscripts to Cold River Studio pretty much follows normal publishing guidelines. They require three sample chapters, a synopsis, a targeted marketing plan, an outline of readership audience, and the manuscript must have undergone professional editing, using the Chicago Manual of Style. These are stiff guidelines and CRS might be better to be a little more lenient, particularly regarding specifying the manual of professional editing. I’d rather a qualifier that says the author must provide the name of editor/service that performed the edit on the manuscript with links and references of proof, but I still hazard CRS would be prepared to look favourably on an MS so long as has been professionally edited. The Chicago manual of Style remains the preferred reference for many US editors.

Honesberger explains his reasoning for the requirement of a fully edited CMS manuscript:

“My goal with that requirement is that when a reviewer or large house, for that matter, sees it, the book is done to industry standards. If it isn’t, it raises a red flag and may put the whole work in suspect.”

Cold River Studio offers a non-exclusive contract offering royalties through trade at 15% of retail book price and 30% through the publishers own website. The author is entitled to ten copies, with further copies due at 40% discount on the retail price. Ideally, I would prefer all author solutions services to charge authors at print cost plus shipping, but this remains one of the better discount margins.

Paperback option – $1638.75
Hardback option – $1857.25
Combination – $2185.00
Color option – $2294.25
(increased in 2011)

All above publishing costs come with custom cover and interior design, ISBN/Barcode, inclusion in CRS catalogue and online bookstore, online distribution and retail listing availability with Ingram, Amazon.com, B&N.com, Borders.com etc, as well as listing with Bowkers Books-in-print, and returns facility for booksellers.

“There are a couple of standard items we always include, a detailed sell-sheet and we provide an 80 page marketing manual. Past this, everything is customized. If you need postcards, and they are appropriate, we do postcards. If you need a direct mail piece, we do a direct mail piece. A lot depends on your marketing plan. We assist you in working up that plan and reviewing it once complete. We do what needs to be done to help make your book a success. As long as your book is in our catalog, our principal is always here to give you one-on-one consultation. The bottom line is, we want your book to be everything you hoped it would be, as much as you do. We care.”

Cold River Studio adopt a more formal approach to the process of book publishing, following the models of traditional publishing from submission to print production, but essentially this still remains an author solutions service, and there is still a great deal of input expected from the author to make their book a success in regards to providing and implementing a sound marketing plan.

Cold River Studio is a self-publishing service with an outstanding reputation over the good years; tried the avenue of traditional publishing, but reverted back to doing what they know and do best and on a more comfortable scale of operation. I can see the framework and implementation of a day-to-day business model presenting and delivering a competent author service that generates a defined cash-flow (the graphic business remains an equal core and is another area Honsberger offers particular expertise—some of the CRS book covers are exceptional). Yet, deep down, below the business structure, I detect a will, resolve, and even a dream, to present the model of business operated by the rules and expectations of traditional publishing. In this instance, this time around, Honesberger may have got the balance just right with Cold River Studio.

RATING: 7.1/10

Diadem Books are a Scottish author solutions company based in Fife, Scotland, and run by Charles Muller, a South African born academic and former hotelier. An author in his own right, he founded Diadem Books in 1997 and for many years used iUniverse’s print on demand service to issue Diadem’s published books. Diadem became a sister company of Spiderwize in 2010.

“Diadem Books was founded in 1997 by Charles Muller, who is Editor-in-Chief and Proprietor of Diadem Books. Since then well over 200 books have been published and given worldwide exposure through Diadem Books in association with the US company that launched Writers Club Press. The unique feature of Diadem Books is that the basic fee includes unlimited editing, regardless of the amount of editing required.

In July 2008 Diadem Books published the first two books, The Nowhere Man and Journey Towards Himself by Roy Holland, under its own imprint of Diadem Books. Prior to this, for eight years, Diadem Books partnered with the Print on Demand Publisher iUniverse, in Nebraska, USA, during which time over 200 books were published.”

The Diadem main webpage has improved in the past year, but for some unfathomable reason, the previous links to books have been removed, and now, it is entirely author service driven. Diadem are straight and proclaim their all inclusive publishing and editing service of £899. Their claim, above their rivals, is the input they give on editing, something which should be high on every self-publishing author’s wish list.

“Unlike the vanity press, and so many of the self-publishing companies around today, Diadem Books does not accept any, or every book sent to us to add to its stable. We value our imprint of Diadem Books as a hallmark of quality, and need to see the manuscript first before we can confirm that we are happy to go ahead with publication. The editing aspect also ensures that the book will not appear with embarrassing stylistic or grammatical imperfections.”

My suggestion to any author considering using Diadem’s service would be to order randomly one book from their recently catalogue and read it carefully for typos and general errors of editing. This is a grand claim by any company offering a service to self-publishing authors, but the proof will be in the reading. Diadem offer two distinct approaches to self-publishing; their format and publish package (£399), and their edit and publish package (£899). Their editing service is also offered as a stand-alone service (£499) as well.

Diadem has reasonable enough covers and this is part of their full colour cover design provided in their £899 package. The package includes, according to Diadem:

• Diadem will provide editorial help and make revisions as far as possible, regardless of the length of the book.
• Diadem will publish your book.• Diadem will incur any publication or production costs. • Diadem will undertake the proofreading and cover design. • Diadem will place your book in all major on-line bookstores such as Amazon and Barnes & Noble.
• You will receive five (5) free copies of your book.
• Apart from the paperback edition, an e-book version will be produced.
• Your book will be displayed on the Diadem Books website.
• Your book will have its own ISBN number and bar-code.
• You will retain copyright, in your name.
• Royalty payments to the author will be a generous 20% of the retail price.

Royalty payments to the author are usually 10% to 20% of the retail price. After the book’s proof stage we will send you some examples and guidance notes of what we think the best retail, wholesale and author royalties percentage (amount you earn per book) should be for your book. But the final decision is the author’s, so if you wish to change the amount you will earn per book, then this is fine.

Most of the offered details of their services are pretty much standard for a self-publishing service. The ISBN is Diadem’s own registered one and the contract is non-exclusive. However, the royalties, based on retail price, at 10 to 20% are nothing spectacular, but at least Diadem are straight and do not engage in the usual complicated maths which seem to deliberately set out to befuddled authors on what their true profits are going to be. Do bear in mind that a traditional contract from a major publisher will provide, usually 6 to 10% on paperback sales – the 20% offered by Diadem is not a guaranteed profit percentage. Note the phrase ‘up to 20%’.

This above package is for standard on line distribution and for paperback publication and ebook, with an additional option of hardback for £199. Diadem do not specify who does their digital printing, but with author copies available at ‘up to’ 45% discount, meaning the discount is dependent on the amount of copies an author is prepared to purchase. This would suggest the author is paying above the print costs as they do not specify how the overall retail price is reached.

Published books through Diadem will also have their own webpage for one year, and may, for a fee of £40, add additionally published books elsewhere.

Graphics. If you wish to have graphics (pictures) included in the text body of the book, these are at an additional cost of £79 ($99) per 25 graphics (maximum of 50). The graphics within the book are only reproduced in black and white (greyscale), though the cover is in full colour. You are welcome to use your own cover design, bearing in mind that the graphic or image needs to be in TIF format in 300dpi (dots per square inch). However, the cover design team is excellent at implementing your own ideas for the cover—all you need do is describe the way you would like the cover to look. You can also submit a sample picture or drawing as a guide for the cover artist. There is no extra charge for the cover design, or for the use of your own graphic.”

Overall, Diadem Books offer a basic publishing deal for self-publishing authors – not the most competitive, but reasonable, without any bells, whistles or dancing girls. Their recent changes in 2010 allow authors to submit completely edited manuscripts for just formatting and publishing at £399, but ultimately, authors would be better going with Createspace, Authorsonline or direct to Lightning Source if they have the skills to deliver print ready files.

For authors who are concerned about the edited quality of their book, and Diadem can deliver on what they say on screening a book for errors – then Diadem’s publish and edit package may prove ideal. I am not convinced Diadem have actually made a step forward in the past year – a case maybe of two steps forward and two steps back. The best think they could do is become more book centric, particularly in regards to their website. I would like to see their book news page becoming their home page. That might be a great starting point for Diadem.

RATING: 6.5/10

Aventine Press is one of those publishing services I continually keep coming across when I read about self-published books, particular in online magazines and self-publishing reviews. It’s like stumbling upon a sheepdog in a country cabin in the mountains sprawled out in front of a roaring fire. You know you are home and you don’t have to keep looking over your shoulder for the wolves. Mind you— didn’t the uni-bomber live in a log cabin in the mountains?

• Author Discount: Most self-publishing authors purchase numerous copies of their own book for marketing giveaways, reviews, to sell or to distribute to friends and family. Our authors pay only the actual printing and shipping cost plus 10% – with no quantity restrictions and no minimum purchase requirements.
• Author Royalties: Our royalties are paid quarterly and are substantially larger than the royalties paid by most book publishers. We pay you 80% of the payments we actually receive from sales of printed copies of your book.
• Trade Discounts: Some book publishing companies offer booksellers minimal discounts on titles already overpriced for the marketplace, a practice that can doom your book to obscurity. Aventine Press will price your book right and attract booksellers with generous discounts up to 55% off the cover price.
• Highest Quality: No self publishing company offers you a higher quality print-on-demand product or faster service and fulfillment. Our trade paperbacks and hardcovers are printed to order usually within 72 hours and are printed on premium quality, acid-free, book-grade creme and white paper stock (must be 108 pages or more). Paperback covers are printed on a bright white 80# cover stock.

The pleasure in revisiting Aventine is that so little changes with the core services offered to authors—unlike so many other author solutions services who choose to chop and change prices and packages. That’s actually the way it should be. Be wary of author solutions services who continually changes their packages and services. It’s a sure sign that the company got it wrong from the start—or bluntly—are hiding something and really haven’t a clue what they are doing. The reason why Aventine has no need to indulge in a re-jigging of their services is because the company got it right from the start—provide a basic publishing package at an affordable price that produces a high quality print product with a very low print mark-up (10% over print cost) and a royalty rate (80% net) which actually favours the author for a change.

Actually that log cabin in the country is like a breath of fresh air when you escape the websites of so-called ‘good’ companies offering self-publishing services to authors in the big city. And that’s the difference with Aventine Press—no fuss, the services are not muddied in market speak or commercial complexity sold to the author at a serious, fashion-conscious mark-up. Rather more, Aventine Press is a strong glass of comfort to sharpen the senses.

Aventine Press makes self publishing fast, easy and affordable for today’s author. Aventine Press has helped authors with books that have been accepted by traditional presses. Our technology allows you to get your book into print quickly, while distributing through Ingram and making it available for sale as well as achieving high sales ranks with the world’s leading booksellers:

• Barnes and Noble.com
• Amazon.com
• Booksamillion.com

The Aventine Press contract is pretty straightforward and like most author solutions services using POD (print on demand), it offers a non-exclusive contract; within that contract are particular occurrences resulting in Aventine Press providing a disgruntled author with a full refund. What is also key to the ‘holding rights’ of Aventine Press is the fact that the company  is one in a few who give back the production files on a cd when the fee has been paid, the book designed and set up and made available to online sales channels and listed for distribution. In a nutshell, if the author decides to go elsewhere, all their investment in their book is not lost, leaving them to start from scratch with another company.

Aventine offer a basic starter package and allow the author to add on additional services: Aventine Press is a service organization. We provide the author who has decided to invest in his or her own work, the tools to bring it to fruition quickly, expertly and economically. Our services encompass everything you’ll need, start to finish, in the book publishing process while making it an easy, step-by-step experience. It’s both an extremely practical and efficient method for today’s author to get into print with the best possible results.

Our Basic Service Package Includes:

• Your choice of cover design; use our professional custom covers (as low as $295.00), our cover templates ($175.00) or supply your own design.
• Your choice of styles from our Interior Templates.
• International Standard Book Number (ISBN).
• Inclusion of author photo and cover photos.
• Inclusion of author biography.
• Electronic proofs.
• UPC bar-code.
• Indexing, up to 25 keywords free. (On request)
• Two free trade paperback copies of your book.
• Listing of your book with online booksellers.
• Your completed book (final proof) plus cover art on CD.
• Quarterly royalty payments and accounting.
• Submission to Ingram’s Ipage Registration and Database Listing

Basic Service Package Fee: $399.00 There are basic templates which go with the $399 fee, but I would suggest, an author considering this service, design and submit their own PDF formated print ready files. I have always been wary of publisher templates, and while there is an option to supply your own cover art and photographs—I would still suggest for the price the author is paying—they submit their own artwork at least, if not the finished PDF files.

The costs to an author to purchase any of the books are again pretty straight forward. For a 200 – 300 average page paperback book, selling at $14 – 16; the author gets 80%. That is, 80% of the list price less the print cost and a 10% taking by Aventine. That, again, averaging about $5+ per book. Regarding royalties for the author; it is the list price minus the print cost and the additional amount a third party seller like say Amazon might take; that can be anything up to 55%. With Aventine, the books, by most standards, are competitively priced because Aventine has not chosen to inflate the costs of book production and printing. The profits are actually small for them. In fact, so far, I don’t know another author solutions service that comes to mind making so little on the books they publish. On this note; if you are thinking of going with Aventine, be aware; they do not have an online bookstore. All your books will be sold through third-party sales.

If anything, not having an online bookstore might lead you to believe that Aventine Press’ site is heavy on the author services sales and pretty scant on the highlighting books. Actually it’s the opposite. The main website landing page displays plenty of their successful books with links to third party sellers and author sites. As well as perhaps going to Aventine with a PDF ready book, another would be to already have your own website and a paypal facility to sell your own books. If you are to make the most of publishing with Aventine Press, you really must already have a website and web presence. They do offer a marketing program for $995, which includes a website, Ingram Advance Catalogue Listing, a press release, LCCN (library cataloguing) and copyright registration. The copyright can be a misnomer with several companies regarding the true costs. They build it into packages but do not disclose how much it is costing an author. The truth is–it should only cost the amount of books which are being sent as deposits to the national libraries, as the rest is simply form-filling. Publishers in POD services are skilled at making things like this seem burdensome for the author and then charging the author an arm and a leg to take the ‘burden’ off their hands.

We’re a small book publishing company, but you wouldn’t know it by the quality of services we provide or in the results we achieve. We take a personal interest in understanding your goals, then work hard to help you accomplish them. Among independent reviewers, we are ranked among the best book publishers in the industry!

Aventine Press is by no means the most advanced or sophisticated publisher going. But you know what? This is a company, the more you look at them, the more convinced you become that what is offered and at the price it is offered, sets them apart from much of the competition. The critical things Aventine Press says it will do is comprehensively delivered as part of the terms of the contract offered to authors. Aventine make reasoned and responsible comments on the website about what an author can expect from self publishing books. Their website does not display the heavy handed ‘author-marketing’ concepts so familiar with many companies. Their business operation model does not survive on a template entirely driven by selling author packages. In fact, Aventine and their team would do well to look at ebook sales and a fully driven in-house print facility. They have an awful lot in common with Infinity Press and seem to have a similar homespun value. That is not me being twee, but rather, emphasising the fact that I have found a company which does what it says, properly, and for a reasonable price. And the things it does well are in the absolutely critical areas, set up price, contract, ownership of book files, retail book price, quality of book product, contact accessibility and royalty share.

Additional service add-ons offered:

• Custom Cover Design: $295.00Statistics show that eighty percent of what goes into selling a book is the cover design. A professional cover designer will create your cover for you with your input. Please take note of the book covers you’ll find through-out our web site, we have a reputation for producing quality covers that grab attention and sell more books!
• Hardcover Edition of Your Book : $295.00 (Includes separate ISBN and sales reports)Your book and cover will be formatted to be produced in a hardcover version, complete with full color dust jacket and durable cloth-style (patriot blue or slate gray) cover with gold foil stamped title on spine.
• Copyediting Service : $0.015 / per wordEven world-class writers benefit from good editing. Your manuscript will be copyedited for grammar, punctuation, and spelling to ensure quality. (Yes, we know that self-publishing and print-on-demand are misspelled on our web site. But due to the vagaries of search engines, it cannot be helped.)
• Interior Images : $5.00 / per imageIf you choose to add interior pictures or illustrations to your book, there is a $5.00 per image processing fee. Interior images and graphics will be printed in grayscale (black & white).
  
• Image Scanning : $7.00 / per imageProfessional image scans of your photo’s or artwork for use in your book’s interior. We can accommodate photo’s or artwork up to 8.5 X 11 inches in size. 
• Alteration Fee: $50.00 / per hour , $75.00 / per hour for webIf you decide to make editorial changes (author’s alterations) or cover design changes to your submission during the production process, we may find it necessary to charge you an alteration fee to defray the additional expense. An alteration fee will also be charged for web changes if we find it necessary. We define an alteration as an authors change to text or template while your book is in production. These fees will be charged to your credit card (a credit card number must be provided in the event that you request changes with the applied fees).

One of the few criticisms I had from my previous review of Aventine a couple of years ago was their lack of advancement into ebook services. Aventine has rectified that, and while this service is not undertaken in-house, it did not surprise me to find that Aventine had partnered with eBookit to provide multi ebook format options for authors. This is a classic case of one outstanding company recognising and affiliating with another of equally strong reputation. If you plump for Aventine Press – you won’t go far wrong. In fact, you will do far better than that. This small author solutions service is absolutely exceptional in its field, for competent self-publishers as well as those new to this chosen publishing path. My single remaining bug-bear is Aventine’s lack of in-house sales platform. That is critical at this level of self-publishing, and something Aventine Press need to address in the next stage of development and when I revisit for an updated review.

RATING: 8.3/10

Authors Online describe their company as an author solutions service. They proudly claim to be the original UK based company to offer a digital Print On Demand publishing service with full distribution. They may have been, but a lot has changed in self-publishing since they first began in internet publishing in 1997. There are more companies offering these services across the globe than at any time ever before, and the quality of service can vary widely.

A look at the Authors On Line web site quickly tells you that they are book and author driven with sizeable space given over to their books with ‘buy’ links, rolling tickers and the latest PR news about their titles. A read through the information present suggests these guys know about self-publishing, but they also understand the business of publishing itself and how it has particularly changed in the recent few years.

“Since we first introduced this revolution to the UK in 2001, the technology has grown and improved, and many authors have themselves acquired the knowledge and software to prepare manuscripts and cover designs ready for publication. In response to this growing trend, Authors On Line are now able to offer an even more flexible and up to date service catering for all levels of technical ability.”

You get the sense that Authors On Line are discernible enough and eager to pitch to authors with skills useful in self-publishing. This is a welcome change from the heavy-handed service marketing speak from other companies. I refer to the ‘we can fulfil your dreams—not your book’ type of self-publishing author services.

“If your manuscript is of an acceptable literary standard, Authors On Line can help you to realise your dream and put your book into print with whatever level of distribution you require.”

It is important here that the ‘dream’ for an author is seeing their book in print—not bestselling lists and literary fame. No self-publishing service or traditional publisher can promise or guarantee this. Note the words ‘book into print’. One of the key criticisms of companies offering self-publishing services is that they simply ‘print’ rather than ‘publish’ your book. And though this criticism is meant as a slight on authors who choose self-publishing as a path; there is some truth to it. Publishing a book entails far more than just printing, binding and slapping a registered ISBN on to it. The key to publishing a book is the resources employed by author and publisher (paid service provider or not) to market, promote and provide a direct channel of distribution through to the retailers (on line and actual shelf space) and ultimately the reader.

Authors On Line offers a package to self-publishing authors, but they have a varied and flexible range of add-on services which they refer to as ‘Modular Services’. They actively encourage each author submitting to reduce their financial outlay by utilising their own technical skills.

“WHATEVER YOUR NEEDS, and budget, we can hopefully suit your purposes. You don’t even have to publish the final book with us!”

From these last few words we can quickly glean that some of the recent self-publishing companies we have reviewed undertake to publish a book for an author as a service, rather than be listed with Nielsens Bookdata as the publisher. Nielsens are the UK equivalent of Bowkers in the US. They look after recording published book data and ISBN allocations to publishers. Authors On Line will allow you to assign one of your own ISBN’s or they can assign one of their own. Authors also have ownership on the completed PDF files of the book.

The ‘Basic Service’ from Authors On Line is entirely free. It involves the author downloading standard templates, pasting their own book in, saving the file as a PDF and submitting it to Authors On Line. No ISBN or distribution is included, though those services can be added from the ‘Modular Service’ list separately at a cost. This package is really just intended for those wishing to have books available to print for family and friends. The cost of the actually books is £1.00 plus 2 pence per page. That works out at £5 for an average 200 page paperback book. This is reasonable and an excellent option which every author solution service should provide.

“Perhaps it’s a private family story, or you are preparing for submission to a trade house for consideration, or you are a school, company or organisation requiring a few copies (or even a few hundred).”

I am curious about the idea of an author using a private printed book to go courting a perspective trade publisher. I have seen this suggestion from a number of other author service companies, and I would suggest it is wholly unsuitable, ill-advised and positively unprofessional. A traditional publisher of any kind wants to see a polished and marketable manuscript from a writer with talent—not a sample copy of a book they might be publishing.

The ‘Basic Service’ can have ‘distribution’ added to it for £199 and this will get you database listing, on line availability, legal copies to national libraries, a website and the first year’s hosting fee included, and a registered Authors On Line ISBN. If an author provides their own ISBN then the individual ‘Modular Service’ cost of £25 for the ISBN will be taken off the £199. Personally, I think this service actually offers more value for money than Lulu’s equivalent ‘Publish By You’ package, which does not include legal registration. You will have to manage the layout and conversions of files without the kind of support and widgets that Lulu.com, and Authors On Line do make this clear on their website that they cannot supply technical support if the author chooses this package.

Authors On Line also have a ‘Standard Service’ which incorporates all the standard modules (formatting, file conversions to PDF, a sample copy, legal library registration, a website, an ebook and annual ‘in print’ fee) plus ISBN, distribution, 6 author copies, unlimited press releases to UK journalists, and additional copies at print cost plus 25%. The cost of this is £525. Normally I find that the mid range packages with author solution services are the best value. In this case, I have to disagree. The difference between the £199 ‘Basic Service’ and the ‘Standard Service’ at £525 is the file formatting and conversion and layout. For me, it is too big a jump for so little. It may be that Authors On Line has deliberately weighted things in favour of the ‘Basic Service’ to avoid having to take on the more time consuming formatting and layout tasks. Still, the ‘Basic Service’ is excellent value for what you get.

The final package is the ‘Enhanced Service’ at £1225. It is only now that we have the full and original cover design from Authors On Line. Individually this would cost £350 as a separate service. Proofreading is also included, but only up to 80,000words, with a £1.50 per 1000 words thereafter. If you purchase both the proofreading and cover design, then you get 20 free copies. You also get additional author copies at print cost plus 20%.

Authors On Line pay their authors 60% of the remainder after retailer and print costs have been subtracted. On a £10 paperback book, after a 40% retailer discount, we have to minus off the print cost of, say, a 200 page paperback at £5 That is £6 minus the £5 cast of printing. And 60% of our remainder £2 leaves £1.20 for the author. In real terms that is about 6% of the retail price, less than the author will recieve from a commercial publisher, and the weakest area of Authors On Line service.

The ‘distribution’ offered here is the standard service most author solution and print on demand publishers offer. There is no guarantee of sales and the vast majority will come from either the authors own efforts or on line sales through sites like Amazon. And like most descent companies, if a title starts to sell and there is a demand for it, Authors On Line will aid an author in trying to get physical placement in stores.

“We cannot guarantee to sell a single copy and Authors On Line does not wish to give any potential author unrealistic expectations as to earnings.

We can initially help with press releases and fact sheets as well as offering help on organising book signings and preparing prospect lists. We can also help with certain types of merchandising.”

As I pointed out earlier, Authors On Line do have a screening process and will not accept every manuscript they receive if it is not to a reasonable literary standard. Authors On Line realise that more and more authors are becoming savvy about self-publishing and the day has long passed when it was enough to present authors with off-the-menu packages. Authors have different skills which they can bring to bear on the self-publishing process. They are more likely to baulk at a ‘package’ which is filled with services they are not only perfectly capable of doing themselves, but actively want to do. This is Authors On Line’s strength, but in some ways, I feel they have somehow missed hitting a large, slow-moving target.

For the £525 ‘Standard Service’, you have to include original cover design, however simple. It is almost as if Authors On Line do not want their authors to choose this package, but rather, the ‘Basic Service’ at £199. The ‘Enhanced Service’ simply does not stand up against other competitors. The proofreading parameter at 80,000 words is too little for a standard novel of 100,000 – 120,000 words and pushes the price up. For this kind of expenditure from an author, they are going to expect more than 20 free copies.

Authors On Line do the simple things perfectly; they have the essence of what is a sound author solutions service, their ‘Modular Service’ is an excellent idea and their ‘Basic Service’ with distribution is excellent value, but somewhere beyond this, Authors On Line have dropped the ball in an effort to be all things to all authors.