Publishing Service Index: June 2015 | The Independent Publishing Magazine

This is the PUBLISHING SERVICE INDEX for June 2015. IngramSpark continues to occupy the top spot ahead of CreateSpace and Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP). In fact the top nine positions remain unchanged from last month. Kobo Writing Life enters the top ten for the first time ever and it comes at the expense of Lulu.

Kazoo Publishing Services enters the Publishing Service Index for the first time. You can read the full detailed review we carried out earlier this month here and you can also click any of the companies listed in the index to be taken straight to the review.

TIPM continues to receive regular feedback on services through comments under our reviews, via our TIPM Facebook page, and directly to us. The amount of feedback over the past four weeks to TIPM continues to remain particularly high and we want to thank all of those who took the time to share their publishing experiences. Your comments are always welcome and every comment and experience of a publishing service — positive or negative — is always reflected in every new index published through TIPM. We are hoping to add at least one or two new reviews for the June index.

JUN POS	MAY POS	COMPANY/SERVICE PROVIDER	PRIMARY COMPANY BASEMARKET	SERVICE CLASS	JUN INDEX VALUE	INDEX POS MOVE
1	1	IngramSpark	GLOBAL	PRT/FUL	686.2	SAME
2	2	CreateSpace	USA	DIY/FSP	684.03	SAME
3	3	Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP)	GLOBAL	DIY	660.59	SAME
4	4	Smashwords	USA	DIY	568.77	SAME
5	5	Lightning Source (Direct)	GLOBAL	PRT/FUL	536.33	SAME
6	6	Matador	UK	FSP	509.21	SAME
7	7	Hillcrest Media/Mill City Press	USA	PUB/FSP	453.05	SAME
8	8	SilverWood Books	UK	FSP	427.89	SAME
9	9	Blurb	GLOBAL	DIY	425.65	SAME
10	11	Kobo Writing Life	GLOBAL	DIY	408.65	UP
11	10	Lulu	GLOBAL	DIY/FSP	408.39	DOWN
12	12	BookLocker	USA	FSP	375.52	SAME
13	14	Bookbaby	USA	DIY/FSP	364.05	UP
14	13	Draft2Digital	UK/USA	DIY	357.44	DOWN
15	15	Publish Green	GLOBAL	FSP	347.3	SAME
16	17	Dog Ear Publishing	USA	FSP	337.67	UP
17	16	Selfpublishing.com	USA	PRT/FUL	336.29	DOWN
18	18	Unbound	UK	PUB/CRW	324.31	SAME
19	19	York Publishing Services	UK	PRT/FULL	323.69	SAME
20	21	Thomson-Shore	USA	PRT/FSP	314.18	UP
21	20	John Hunt Publishing	GLOBAL	PUB/FSP	313.23	DOWN
22	23	Pressbook	USA	DIY	311.59	UP
23	22	Wingspan	USA	FSP	310.01	DOWN
24	26	Mijn Bestseller	EUROPE	DIY	307.69	UP
25	25	CPI UK Antony Rowe	EUROPE	PRT	305.81	SAME
26	27	eBookIT		DIY/FSP	304.02	UP
27	24	Google Play Books	GLOBAL	DIY	302	DOWN
28	28	Aventine	USA	FSP	295.99	SAME
29	29	VirtualBookVorm	USA	FSP	292.92	SAME
30	30	Checkpoint Press	IRELAND	PUB/FSP	291.34	SAME
31	31	Infinity Publishing	USA	FSP	290.95	SAME
32	32	Book Country	GLOBAL	FSP	290.8	SAME
33	33	SelfPublishBooks/Lettertec	IRELAND	FSP	287.44	SAME
34	34	Wheatmark Publishing	USA	FSP	286.93	SAME
35	35	Cold River Studio	USA	FSP	284.63	SAME
36	36	Apex Publishing	UK	PUB/FSP	284.37	SAME
37	37	Grosvenor House Publishing	UK	FSP	283.24	SAME
38	39	Wasteland Press	USA	FSP	283.24	UP
39	38	The Choir Press	UK/USA	FSP	283.23	DOWN
40	40	Acorn Independent Press	UK	FSP	281.71	SAME
41	41	Outskirts Press	USA	FSP	278.3	SAME
42	42	Tate Publishing	USA	PUB/ASP	278.03	SAME
43	50	FastPencil	USA	DIY	276.76	UP
44	44	Authoright	UK/USA	FSP	276.22	SAME
45	45	Americas Press	USA	PRT	276.07	SAME
46	43	iUniverse	USA	FSP	276.04	DOWN
47	46	Janus Publishing	UK	FSP	275.32	DOWN
48	47	Pumbo	EUROPE	DIY	274.81	DOWN
49	48	Telemachus Press	USA	FSP	274.44	DOWN
50	49	Xulon Press	USA	FSP	274.18	DOWN
51	51	PubliBook	EUROPE	DIY	271.65	SAME
52	NEW	Kazoo Publishing Services	IRELAND	FSP	269.41	NEW
53	52	Llumina Press	USA	PUB/FSP	268.66	DOWN
54	53	A.H. Stockwell	UK	FSP	268.02	DOWN
55	54	Diadem Books	UK/USA	FSP	267.94	DOWN
56	60	Open Book Editions	USA	FSP	267.94	UP
57	55	Pyjama Press	UK/EUROPE	FSP	267.03	DOWN
58	56	Direct POD	UK	PRT	265.67	DOWN
59	57	Kbuuk	USA	DIY	265.47	DOWN
60	58	Eprint Ireland	IRELAND	PRT	265.24	DOWN
61	59	Book Guild Publishing	UK	FSP	265.2	DOWN
62	61	True Directions	USA	PUB/FSP	263.25	DOWN
63	62	Original Writing	IRELAND	FSP	261.59	DOWN
64	63	Abbott Press	USA	PUB/FSP	261.43	DOWN
65	64	The Book Producers	IRELAND	FSP	260.41	DOWN
66	65	Pomegranate Press	UK/USA	FSP	260.28	DOWN
67	67	Arima	UK	FSP	256.41	SAME
68	68	Better Book Company	UK	FSP	256.16	SAME
69	66	Turning Stone Press	USA	FSP	255.69	DOWN
70	69	Austin MacAuley	UK	FSP	254.72	DOWN
71	70	UKUnpublished	UK	FSP	252.57	DOWN
72	72	Archway Publishing	GLOBAL	PUB/FSP	249.79	SAME
73	71	AuthorHouse	GLOBAL	FSP	246.54	DOWN
74	73	Gemini International	IRELAND	PRT	246.22	DOWN
75	74	Trafford Publishing	USA	FSP	243.34	DOWN
76	75	Balboa Press	GLOBAL	PUB/FSP	243.16	DOWN
77	76	WestBow Press	USA	PUB/FSP	242.45	DOWN
78	77	Epic Press	UK	FSP	242.25	DOWN
79	78	Chandler Book Design	UK	PRT	241.88	DOWN
80	79	Choice Publishing	IRELAND	FSP	240.74	DOWN
81	80	Dolman Scott/Oak Press	UK	FSP	239.52	DOWN
82	82	Dorrance Press	USA	FSP	232.86	SAME
83	81	Xlibris	GLOBAL	FSP	232.65	DOWN
84	83	ShopMyBook (Unibook)	GLOBAL	PRT	228.2	DOWN
85	84	Spire Publishing	UK/USA	FSP	226.45	DOWN
86	85	Spiderwize	UK	FSP	223.37	DOWN
87	87	Melrose Books	UK	FSP	208.69	SAME
88	88	Dom Tom Publishing	UK/USA	FSP	208.02	SAME
89	86	Pegasus Elliot MacKenzie	UK	PUB/FSP	208	DOWN
90	89	PublishAmerica/America Star Books	USA	FSP	204.42	DOWN
91	90	Olympia Publishers	UK	PUB/FSP	176.98	DOWN
92	91	Raider International Pub./Green Shore	GLOBAL	FSP	99.68	DOWN

(KEY)

DIY – Do-it-yourself bespoke services and basic conversion and formatting services
FSP – Full Service Provider (Packages & Bespoke) – May also include Partnership publishing programs
PUB – Also offers Mainstream Contracts or is a service imprint of a traditional publishing house
PRT – Printer (primarily a printer with some additional but limited services)
FULL – Fulfilment Services provided for distribution logistics, warehousing of stock (including supply to wholesaler and retailers)
CRW – Crowdsource

There is a much more detailed explanation of what the Publishing Service Index is and how authors can best use it in this post.

The most asked question we get at The Independent Publishing Magazine is often along the lines of; ‘What self-publishing service should I go with?‘; ‘Is so and so a good service to go with?‘; or ‘Is so and so a scam?‘

In some cases, that is an easy question to answer, cut and dry, but in other circumstances, the answer is entirely arbitrary. We are not here to review and run down a company’s name, nor are we here to endorse a company’s services. If we were only to review companies according to every point on an ideal dream list of what an author wants/should get, we would have very few reviews to share with you. In truth, no company has ever attained a 10/10, and only a few have recorded more than 08/10.

The reality is that some companies offering publishing services begin in a blaze of glory and we might rate them favourably at the time; others, frankly, are just poor, and they improve (sometimes in response to our reviews) to offer reasonable or better services. We are constantly updating our reviews, but this takes considerable time, and so do the initial reviews.

We get a vast amount of information from authors and the companies selling author solutions services every day – good and bad. We get a great deal of information from monitoring services week by week against the experiences of what authors report back to us. Simply put, and truthfully, we cannot reflect all of this information through the reviews. That is why the comments section under each company we review is so important. It is your recording and dealings with that specific company, and a positive or negative flag to subsequent authors considering using the same company.

So, how do we reflect the changing ups and downs with services?

We believe the PUBLISHING SERVICE INDEX will help to guide authors to services on the up, and those, gradually on the down. If you like, what we present is a kind of stock exchange for companies supplying publisher services.

The PUBLISHING SERVICE INDEX was first launched in June 2010.

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