Publisher Reviews

Most of the author solution services I review here are companies I have been familiar with over the past three to four years since I began my research on fee-charging publishing services in the industry. Though, I have known some companies a great deal longer.

“Even at the age of fifteen, I was already very familiar with those vanity publishing ads in the Sunday newspapers. I remember writing off to Vantage Press for their brochure — getting it a few days later in the post and spending many nights in bed browsing through it and dreaming away about my future

Amazon.com Titles – 31

Dolman Scott are based in Berkshire in the UK. I have come across them in trade publishing magazines and Google ads on the Internet, which is why their low volume of titles listed on Amazon surprised me. Their titles cover a span of approximately eighteen months, right back to November 2007. Again, Dolman Scott’s on line ‘portfolio’ page only features eight titles and they do not support their own on line bookstore. This is not a good sign in spite of the strong presentation of their website with built in flash media.

“We publish books as

Choice Publishing is one of the few Irish author solution services and was founded in 2005. The company is located in Drogeheda, Co. Louth.

“Set up in 2005 by Deirdre Devine and Michelle Bradley, who, having worked in the Publishing industry and witnessed the frustrations of local authors, decided to take the publishing sector in Ireland to a new level.”

Choice Publishing utilise print on demand digital technology to publish their books and they make it clear from the offset that sales and distribution are focussed through on line availability and sales. They have their own on line bookstore and […]

Amazon.co.uk Titles – 50,000

Amazon.com Titles – 44,100

AuthorHouse are one of the largest flagship author solution services with 50,000 plus titles available on Amazon UK. AuthorHouse was founded in 1997 and is owned by Author Solutions US who also own iUniverse and Wordclay. Further expansion in 2009 for Author Solutions has led to the acquisition of Trafford Publishing and Xlibris making them a real powerhouse conglomerate in the author solution service market.

There are a handful of books shown on their main webpage, but these books are linked to AuthorHouse’s packages available to authors. From the outset, it is […]

Xulon Press was founded by author and publisher Tom Freiling in 1999, and the company is part of the large media and communications group, Salem Communications Corporation, based in the USA. Salem is a Christian communications media group with commercial interests in radio, the Internet, and magazine publishing, and not surprisingly, Xulon Press claims to be the ‘leading Christian publisher in the United States – title for title’.

Xulon Press present a very corporate image and I have to say operate one of the best publisher websites that I have seen (commercial publishers included). The website is packed with self-publishing […]

In 2005, David Buttle, a financial accountant, began to look at the development of ebooks long before many publishers and authors acknowledged their significance. He decided to set up UKUnpublished, with the idea of producing ebooks in an attempt to make them a more popular medium. With the advent of DRM (Digital Rights Management) by traditional publishers and a developing and complex medium, he shelved the project. He began to look again at self-publishing and the growing number of authors he was hearing of, frustrated with paying high service fees to so-called self-publishing services. He revisited his UKUnpublished project […]

Spiderwize describe their services as ‘assisted self-publishing’ and though based in Lochinver, Scotland, their services are available for UK and US authors. Although relatively new kids on the self-publishing block, Spiderwize have become more prominent in the past year, particularly in the UK.

“We are a small publishing business who have a passion for books and a passion for helping authors see their books become a reality. We pride ourselves in giving each author a fast, high quality and efficient service making sure that you as the author are kept up to date on the whole publishing experience.

Our dedicated