Self Publishing Publisher Ranking - Top 10 - Reviews eBooks and POD / Print

Publisher's Rank

Publishing doesn't have to be a guessing game. We conducted a side by side comparison on the top POD and eBook publishers. We also provide you with actual customer rankings in categories that we know are important to you, such as customer service, quality, and the biggest bang for your buck.

2019 RANKINGS

Top Rankings 2019

First Edition Design Publishing
Ingram Spark
KDP
Due to the investigation and class action against Author House, iUniverse, Trafford, Xlibris and other Pearson companies - we are eliminating them from this ranking. We apologize for any inconvenience their removal has caused, and we plan on re-evaluating the publishers for our 2018 ranking.

Click here for our review of EBOOK Publishers

Let's take a look at POD Publishing - Very Similar to Ebook Findings with a few extra important categories

What to look for when self-publishing an POD / PRINT Book:

First priority should be

Range of Distribution
Technical Ability
Customer Service

Secondary (but still very important)

Price
Royalty Rate
Services Included
Services Offered
Author Copy Price

We used a standard of a typical 6 x 9 Perfect Bound, 250 pages with 5 Author Copies. We only evaluated POD with distribution - not PRINTER ONLY COMPANIES

Company Name	User Friendly Web site	Year Started in Business	Pre Publishing Help Available	Response Time of email Request	Talk to a Human with ease	Marketing Services	Customer Base	Turn Around Time

Ingram Spark	**	1972	NO	up to 2 days	NO	YES	Worldwide	< two weeks
First Edition Design Publishing	*****	1986	YES	up to 1 day	YES	YES	Worldwide	< two weeks
Outskirts Press	***	2002	NO	up to 1 day	NO	YES	USA	1 - 3 months

KDP	*	2007	NO	up to 5 days	NO	YES	Worldwide	< 1 weeks

Lulu	**	2002	YES	up to 1 day	YES	YES	Worldwide	up to 7 weeks
Virtual Book Worm	***	2003	NO	up to 14 days	NO	YES	Worldwide	up to 8 weeks
RoseDog	*	1920	NO	up to 3 days	NO	NO	Worldwide	2 - 4 months

Company Name	Range of Distribution	Price for standard lowest advertised Package	Price for standard highest advertised Package	Royalty Rate Retained After Net	EST Net to Author 250pp, 6x9, $15.95	File Submission Flexibility	Color Interior Accepted	Number of Size Options
Ingram Spark	IN, AM ++	25.00	49.00	10-40%	2.28	PDF	YES	30
First Edition Design Publishing	IN, AM ++	599.00	599.00	0	3.92	Any	YES	32
Outskirts Press	IN, AM+	798.00	1099.00	44% - 50%	.05 - 1.05	DOC or WP	YES	14
KDP	AM+	0	0	40% - 60%	2.53	PDF	YES	15
Lulu	AM+	729.00	4949.00	20%	2.94	PDF	YES	10
Virtual Book Worm	IN	360.00	1950.00	50%	.39 - 1.58	DOC or RTF	YES	7
RoseDog	None	890.00	1980.00	88%	1.91	ANY	YES	ANY

Company Name	Editing Services	ISBN	LCCN	Author Copy Cost	Active Social Media	Returns Option	Customer Satisfaction Rating	Our Overall Recommendation
Ingram Spark	NO	NO	NO	7.95	NO	YES	**	80
First Edition Design Publishing	YES	included	included	6.15	YES	YES	*****	100
Outskirts Press	YES	99.00	99.00	7.85	NO	YES - 499.00	***	75
KDP	NO	included	NO	5.44	NO	NO	**	60
Lulu	YES	99.00	NO	9.50	YES	NO	**	65
Virtual Book Worm	YES	included	75.00	6.40	NO	YES - 500.00	***	75
RoseDog	YES	included	included	9.57	NO	YES	****	80

**Author Solutions owns - Trafford, Author House, iUniverse and XLibris **Bookmasters is Atlas Books **RoseDog is Dorrance Publishing

Notes -

After reading our ebook comparison, we feel no real explanation is needed for the categories we researched and ranked in the POD area.
IN = Ingram, AM = Amazon

*** There are many companies that offer POD/Print services, however if they didn't meet a certain reasonable level of service we did not include them in our chart. We reviewed 48 companies and picked the top 10.

Please conduct your due diligence when choosing a company to represent your title. We mention this as our research showed findings that some of the companies did have various lawsuits pending. We chose not to highlight these suits due to any liability issues that may arise and these suits are still pending to our knowledge. We do not endorse any company listed above, and companies that we chose not to list failed to meet a minimum criteria in several areas. We highly recommend when choosing a company to represent your title that is not on our list, please proceed with caution.

Simple one paragraph overview of company to help explain either our results or provide information that is not listed in the charts above. -

Ingram Spark - Ingram Spark is a great alternative for the author that can do everything themselves. This is a true self publishing option with great distribution and practically zero cost. They offer training videos and online tools to assist the computer savvy author. They do not care a whole lot of how the book does in sales. They make their money on direct book sales to the author - you can order as low as one copy at a time is needed. Cost of shipping is high and they have a large handling fee. On the plus side you maintain 100% control of the look and feel of your book.

First Edition Design Publishing - First Edition Design Publishing scored the highest consistently in every category again in the POD area. They are the perfect hybrid publishing company. If you want he most professional look and feel for your title, and great distribution, this company is for you. Great pricing and you keep 100% of your royalties.. One thing that really stood out with them in gathering client feedback was that they care about the books that go out through the distribution stream. You just get the feeling that they want your book to be the best - you are just not a number. (preaches their clients over and over) Their clients love them and we couldn't find anything negative, we tried.They do advertise a ZERO royalty retained as prior years they took 4.25% and paid out monthly, now they payout quarterly.- First Edition Design Publishing ranked Number 1

Outskirts Press - Every company on this list has obtained customers from Outskirts Press from time to time due to bad experiences. Outskirts subs all their work out and we are not even sure if they have one employee. Talking with them took up to two weeks. Ebooks are not their forte - they have grown from their POD. They have a long way to go in the ebook market. The royalty rate bothered us at Outskirts. They claim not to take any royalties, however they have the lowest payout in the industry. We just do not understand. The overall feeling was non-professionalism. The first email back from their support team had typos and incorrect grammar. That worried us a little - but not enough to lower their ranking. What lowered their ranking was very low royalty rates, net to author and customer satisfaction.

Lulu - Lulu fell close to the bottom due to not having any real checks and balances in play. The quality of the file in is the quality of the files out. Their distribution is very limited. They do offer a Free service and a Paid Service. POD service is very expensive and you are not really getting anything for your money.No one reviews your file and it goes out as is, only to Ingram. No value with this company. They are only getting their business from the unknowing. Lots of customer regrets / buyers remorse here.

Virtual Book Worm - This company was easy. Nothing jumped at us neither negative or positive. They just exist. Their royalty rate could be better and instead of multiple add on components that didn't make much sense to us - they should just delete them from their system.

RoseDog - We had to rank RoseDog Number 4. You have to love this company. They have been around since 1920 and have really made an effort to evolve. Hands down they have the worse web site - but there is something to be said for that; they are one of the most honest companies, nothing to hide and we didn't have to spend an hour to find out the ISBN and LCCN were included - and they are!! Their pricing is very high and they have close to zero distribution - however it is nice to see a company who has been in business go though the scrutiny we put them through and came up with ZERO complaints and nothing negative. Customers are happy.

This site is for informational purposes only. It serves to compare the leading self-publishers. This study was independently conducted. Please visit any of the above mentioned companies for additional information.