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 best bang for your buck.

2019 RANKINGS

Top Rankings 2019

First Edition Design Publishing
Books2Go
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 that their removal has caused, and we plan on re-evaluating the publishers for our 2018 ranking.

Click here for our review of POD Publishers

Let's take a look at EBOOK Publishing

What to look for when self-publishing an ebook:

First priority should be

Range of Distribution
Technical Ability
Customer Service

Secondary (but still very important)

Price
Royalty Rate
Services Included
Services Offered
File Submission Flexibility

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	Time Lapse before Your Book Shows on Amazon

Book Baby	***	2010	YES	up to 2 days	YES	NO	USA	< two weeks
KDP^^	**	1986	NO	up to 4 days	NO	YES	Worldwide	< one week
Ebooks2Go	***	2004	YES	up to 1 day	YES	NO	USA	< two weeks
First Edition Design Publishing^^	*****	1986	YES	up to 1 day	YES	YES	Worldwide	< one week
Lulu^^	***	1995	NO	up to 1 week	NO	NO	Worldwide	up to 4 weeks
Outskirts Press^^	**	2002	NO	up to 1 day	NO	YES	USA	up to 8 weeks
Publish Green	*****	2009	YES	up to 1 day	YES	YES	USA	up to 8 weeks
Smashwords	***	2005	NO	up to 3 days	NO	NO	Worldwide	n/a

Company Name	Range of Distribution	Technical Ability	Price	Services Included	Royalty Rate Retained	File Submission Flexibility	Customer Satisfaction Rating	Our Overall Recommendation

Book Baby	***+	***	218.00	**	0	Doc or TXT	***	70
KDP^^	*+	**	FREE	*	30%	ePub/Mobi	*	75
Ebooks2Go	*****	*****	383.00	****	10%	Any	***	90
First Edition Design Publishing^^	***** ++	*****	199.00	*****	0	Any	*****	100
Lulu^^	**	*	FREE	**	10%	DOC or RTF	***	60
Outskirts Press^^	***	**	1097.00	**	0	DOC or WP	*	60
Publish Green	****+	***	1040.60	***	0	Any	*****	80
Smashwords	**	*	Free	*	15%	Word 2003	*	60

^^ Offers POD / PRINT Service as well as eBook Service

Notes -

User friendly web site - based on ease of use to move around, get quick answers, transparency of company, professional layout
Year started in business - self explanatory
Pre-publishing help - how much help is the company willing to give you before you place an order. Booklets, Phone - Email.
Response time of email request - we sent 3 emails at 3 different times requesting information. This shows the average time of response.
Talk to a human with ease - self explanatory
Marketing services - we wanted to know if the company assists or sells services to help with marketing you book.
Customer base - we wanted to know if the customer base only served the USA or was truly a worldwide company.
Time lapse in production - the average time the company commits to in having a title go live with Amazon.
Range of Distribution includes Apple, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Sony, Google. Publishers received one star for each of the top 5 Retailers - for a total of 5 stars. Plus marks are used (+) If company distributes above and beyond.
Technical Ability is ranked with 1 - 5 stars and is determined by company certifications, years in business and quality of work
Price - we used the standard cost that a customer would pay to have their title processed by the publisher. Please refer to the other categories reviewed to review what is included in that pricing.
Services included for a Standard Submission - the basic part of submission should include 5 main components and we used a ranking of 1 - 5 stars, one star for each component. This is based on a company's standard pricing, including an ISBN, formatting of various file types, converting files to various file types needed and distribution to to major distribution points - Apple, Sony, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Google. We felt these are the basic components to a good standard submission.
Royalty Retained - the amount the Company keeps or charges you against your royalty before giving you your share, after the retailer takes their share / discount rate.
File Flexibility - this addresses if a company will work with any file type, adds an extra charge, or has zero flexibility.
Customer satisfaction rating - this is based from online testimonials good and bad, online professional reviews of company, and personal random interviews with clients. *Poor, **Fair, ***Good, ****Very Good, *****Excellent.
Overall - 1 - 100 points was awarded to each company based on the criteria in our chart.

*** There are many companies that offer eBook 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. -

AuthorHouse - Due to the investigation and class action against Author House, iUniverse, Trafford, Xlibris and other Pearson companies - we are eliminating them from this ranking.

BookBaby - BookBaby is the new kid on the block. They are limited in services and ability. The aspect that added them to the contenders was the new cool customer dashboard feature. Although they claim "worlds largest distribution" we found this to be a false claim.

KDP - KDP is a great venue and value for authors that are technically savvy to produce their own files. KDP offers general cover templates that are cookie cutter and not very professional. You do have an option of submitting your own cover with the proper specs. Distribution limited to Amazon worldwide.

Books2Go - Books2Go. They are exactly what they clam to be. Lots of little add on fees to get to a standard format and standard distribution. Although they may not have the perfect package for standard ebooks they do offer an enhanced ebook format and ebook apps. Their enhanced ebook format is a little pricey, but that is their niche. So if you have a ton of footnotes and you are not willing to make them into endnotes - Books2Go is the answer.

First Edition Design Publishing - We love First Edition Design Publishing. They scored the highest consistently in every category. A few words kept popping up as we investigated them - integrity, professional and their clients all chanted the same motto - "they cared about my book". The biggest advantage to First Edition Design Publishing is they have the largest distribution stream worldwide and unmatched customer service. Their claim to the largest distribution is true. - they ranked Number 1

Lulu - Lulu fell close to the bottom due to not having any real checks and balances in play. The quality of the file in are the quality of the files out. Their distribution is very limited. They do offer a Free service and a Paid Service. The paid service will get you a better ePub than their Free service. We also did not like that you have to register with them to access their forums. The forums is where you are directed to get any questions answered. We felt like everything was a big secret.

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.

Publish Green - Technically a very good company. They have the highest pricing in the industry, limited distribution and lots of add on fees on top of their already extremely high pricing. Any little thing outside the norm - they have a fee for it. Their marketing efforts are to compare themselves with Smashwords - down to them saying "no meat grinders here" We did not include all their add-on pricing in order to keep things unified throughout this study.

Smashwords - Smashwords provides a great free service for all books, even if the book contains just one page or one recipe. They publish everything. Their distribution is very limited. At first we were under the impression that they did distribute to Amazon, until we dug a lot deeper and discovered they do not. They have zero flexibility in their service, you have to supply a perfectly formatted word doc, then their system converts your file to an epub. We were very disappointed to see how their cruncher/grinder actually crunches and grinds your files - they were far from perfect. This is a good service if you absolutely have no money, do not care about how your file turns out and fine with the fact that no human ever looks at your file.

Xlibris - Due to the investigation and class action against Author House, iUniverse, Trafford, Xlibris and other Pearson companies - we are elimination them from this ranking.

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.