Ingram Book Group is the largest distributor and wholesaler of books in the United States. Founded in 1964, the company also owns Lightning Source, a print and fulfilment company with facilities throughout the world. In the summer of 2013, Ingram launched a dedicated publishing platform for small publishers. Although touted by many as Ingram’s answer…
Publishing Service Index – December 2013
This is the PUBLISHING SERVICE INDEX for DECEMBER 2013 and the final one for this year. This update reflects some review updates and author feedback over the past six weeks. Smashwords is now included and comes in at number four. This ranking is provisional and should settle over the coming couple of months. Penguin’s Tarcher imprint…
True Directions (Tarcher Books/iUniverse) – Overview
Penguin’s mind-body-spirit imprint, Tarcher Books, is the latest traditional publisher to launch a self-publishing venture for authors. It shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise to learn that the new Tarcher Books imprint is a publishing partnership with iUniverse (also a self-publishing imprint and owned by self-publishing service monolith, Author Solutions Inc.). Hey presto!…
Smashwords – Reviewed
Smashwords is one of the world’s largest distributors of independent and self-published e-books with over 200,000 titles in its retail catalogue worldwide. The company also provides an online publishing platform for authors and publishers. Founded by Mark Coker, and officially launched in 2008, it represents the single most well-known option for author-publishers outside of Amazon’s…
Book Guild Publishing – Reviewed (UPDATED, October 2013)
Book Guild Publishing is a UK Independent publisher based in East-Sussex. It has been in the publishing business for thirty years. Headed by MD, Carol Bliss, Book Guild impressively list full details of staff and roles in the company. That’s a big plus and something many established publishers in both conventional and service publishing don’t do.…
Kobo Suspend Distribution of All Self-Published Titles
Following on from our TIPM Weekly Brief this morning, Kobo, an e-book distributor, has taken the decision to suspend the distribution of all self-published titles from its catalogue. It is understood that this decision only involves its UK online bookstore, and the decision follows a previous move to remove books loaded from the Digital2Draft e-book…
Publishing Service Index | October 2013
This is the PUBLISHING SERVICE INDEX for OCTOBER 2013. This update reflects some review updates and author feedback over the past two months, but the most significant change to this index is the addition of three new and individually rated categories, Distribution, Product & Service Range and Customer Feedback & Transparency. IngramSpark is listed and ranked for…
The Choir Press – Reviewed (Updated – October, 2013)
The Choir Press, based in Gloucester, England was founded in 1982 and is owned by Action Publishing Technology Ltd. The Choir Press is a publishing services provider offering everything from editing, design and formatting, printing (POD, short and offset runs) and marketing advice. In regard to working with self-published authors, the company prefers to describe what…
Turning Stone Press (Hampton Roads Publishing) – Reviewed
A little over one year ago Hampton Roads Publishing, in collaboration with Conari Press (a division of Red Wheel/Weiser LLC), launched a self-publishing service imprint called Turning Stone Press. Unlike a number of big publishers to launch such paid-service imprints over the past four years, like Thomas Nelson, Harlequin and Simon & Schuster, this was…
Publishing Service Index – July 2013
This is the PUBLISHING SERVICE INDEX for JULY 2013. This update reflects some review updates and author feedback over the past two months. FastPencil (recently reviewed here) and Turning Stone Press, Hampton Roads Publishing’s new author service imprint (full review due soon – current rating is provisional) are both new to the index. IngramSpark is listed at the bottom of…