With the year well underway, you likely already have your most recent book idea almost finished and ready for its final touches before your official release. The only thing standing between you and steady sales is sending your manuscript off to a publishing service for fine-tuning. Of course, you can do it yourself, but if you want to use a full-service publisher, there are a number of options available.
The big question is which book publishing service to use to get the best results once you make your latest offering available.
The answer is not a simple one. It all depends on what your focus is and the kinds of books you write.
There are many new book publishing services launching every day, and there is one out there that will likely suit your needs well, once you take the time to discover the benefits and drawbacks of each.
Here are 5 new book publishing services for self-published authors to consider using in 2017.
Outskirts Press offers a full-service self-publishing package to authors looking for an exceptionally high quality finished product and who need a combination of editing, design, print, publishing, marketing and distribution to transform their manuscripts into sellable books.
While the service offers much of the same things you would expect from any other quality publishing house, the thing that stands out the most about Outskirts Press is that with them you have the ability to set your own royalty rates.
What this means is that you get to put a true value on your work and don’t have to sacrifice any potential income because of publisher rules. With the advent of services like Kindle Unlimited, that is very powerful.
Outskirts Press even provides you with a handy pricing calculator to help you figure out the royalty rate you need to set to make the projected income you want.
With an average turnaround time of between 10 and 13 weeks for their paperback package options, you can have your book professionally prepped with a service that includes:
- Layout design
- A unique ISBN number
- Original cover artwork
- Barcode creation
- A fully-integrated author website
- Book sales tracker
If you desire a comprehensive book publishing experience Outskirts Press is definitely a good choice.
How would you feel about having a totally free editorial evaluation done before ever actually having to pay for your manuscript to be edited professionally?
That’s just one of the perks you get by using Breezeway Books to bring your book to market.
Depending on where you’ve read about it, the publishing service also goes by the name Llumina Press, and offers you the option of using an editor outside of their own service if you desire, even after receiving the free evaluation.
Specific offerings from this publishing service include:
- An original full-color cover design
- Manuscript layout
- Image placement
- Full formatting
- Unique ISBN number
- Library of Congress number
- Paperback and hardcover packages
Breezeway Books service also includes a unique author page on their website that features your book.
The only potential shortcoming is that you have to file your own copyright registration if you want one. However, they are nice enough to provide instructions for getting it done.
With a lead time of approximately 12 weeks to transform your manuscript into a ready-for-distribution book, the service provides the typical prep period of most web-based services.
However, where they exceed average expectations is in their royalty percentage, which is 30 percent of the price of the books sold through the service and 10 percent on books sold through third party platforms. That’s pretty darn generous.
When it comes to audience reach, Xlibris is one of the better publishing companies to work with to launch a book title.
Another positive aspect of this service is the variety of packages it offers. You can choose the precise level of service you want and are not forced to pay for features you don’t need.
Basic service features they offer for self-published authors include:
- Templates for book covers and interiors
- Formatting
- Unique ISBN number
- Free copies for authors
- Unique author page on their website
You can always choose to select or build a more comprehensive publishing package that includes features such as copyright registration, expedited publishing along with custom layouts and illustrations for an additional fee.
One drawback to this service is that it can take up to 4-5 weeks longer than the average 12 week lead time to have manuscripts turned into finished books.
As far as potential royalties go, Xlibris offers 25 percent for books sold through their online store and 10 percent for titles sold through third-party channels such as Amazon and Barnes and Noble.
As one of the smaller book publishing services online, Wheatmark has an average lead time of approximately 12 weeks. It offers a 20 percent royalty payment for books sold through their own website which is slightly less than average.
However they also offer a 20 percent royalty on books sold through third party platforms, which is twice the amount offered by most other publishing services.
A unique benefit of publishing through Wheatmark is that they place heavy emphasis on book promotion and provide several paid services to get your books seen as far and wide as possible.
An added bonus is that they also offer free marketing training to authors who use their services. You learn how to use your book for personal branding purposes and how to use social media channels like Twitter to get more sales.
With a library of videos, newsletters, tutorials and other tips as well as an ever growing FAQ section and convenient toll-free number, you can get questions answered at any time.
Wheatmark is a great resource for helping you to figure out how to get your books moving quickly once they are ready for distribution.
If excellent customer service is high up on your priority list, Virtual Book Worm Publishing is definitely a service to look into.
Their offerings include basic service features such as:
- Book layout design
- A generic book cover design
- Unique ISBN number
- Unique book promotion page on their website
What you don’t get with this service are any frills or bells and whistles. That is of course if you don’t want them. This means a low initial investment. However, if you need more comprehensive and higher levels of service, there are several add-on options.
With lower cost packages on average, fast book creation lead times (average 4-6 weeks) and awesome customer support, Virtual Book Worm Publishing is an ideal service of you are a newer or more inexperienced author who is just getting started in the self-publishing realm and need to ask many questions.
Another benefit of using this service is that the 50 percent royalty rate on the net price of each book applies to all books sold through Virtual Book Work Publishing’s own platform as well as those sold through third party platforms!
Once caveat however, is that the book pricing style of this service, which tends toward the higher end, could spell lower total potential sales when compared to some of the more aggressive pricing strategies used by other book publishing service providers.
Technically, these publishing services are not “brand new”. But who really wants to work with an inexperienced provider?
The truth is that they are certainly not as well-known and widely used as the more mainstream publishing options such as Create Space, Lulu and AuthorHouse. So be sure to check them and other lesser known options out as publishing possibilities for 2017 and beyond.
Leave a Reply