If you are one of the fortunate who are sold on the value of excellence and have the means to acquire for it, you will want to compare out Concierge Service starting at $7500 to the Xlibris Executive and Platinum packages at $7099 and $14,999. Here, there are fundamental differences in publishing processes. At Epigraph, collaboration is the hallmark of the work we do with our authors and a coherent publishing process is always followed. Concierge publishing is really beyond the concept of a publishing ‘package.’ It is not so many books and so many postcards but rather a tried and true publishing process aimed at excellence in all dimensions of publishing, from superior design and editing to maximizing your earnings. If you take a close look at the Xlibris Platinum package you will see that it is filled with a lot of fluff and with features you probably will not need or can easily acquire on your own. Unfortunately these substitute for having professional book development and publicity. By contrast, the Concierge begins with developmental editing and ends with 3 months of publicity and marketing. Instead the Platinum package includes: 1 leatherbound edition , data entry service, indexing, bookstore returns (It’s expensive), 300 bookmarks, 300 postcards and 300 business, 30 posters. At Epigraph, we have a marketing BLING department to handle that kind of need because maybe you need 1,000 business card instead of 300, but more to the point, these are collateral aids, certainly not the main affair when it comes to marketing and publicizing books. There is no publishing consultation available even on this top Xlibris package. Authors are assigned an author rep, but that’s a pale reflection of Epigraph Concierges who can personally process orders, write and distribute presses and letters, build and manage your social media networks and who are actively engaged in the entire publishing process.

TIP: Xlibris Platinum is: Incredibly overpriced with low earnings potential. Lots of complaints about Xlibris can be found online. Packages for under $7000 are actually glorified DIY not a professional collaboration between author and publisher.





I-universe offers a volume discounts for print orders. So does Epigraph. But here, the massive cost savings available through Epigraph become even more apparent. Mind you, both companies use virtually the same physical materials make the books. 

PLACE 2nd TABLE HERE

Nutshell comparison of Epigraph BASiC with I-universe’s Premier: Full custom design from Epigraph versus only custom cover At I-Universe. Epigraph’s BASiC designed to save author hours of labor and to produce a better design. Premier is highly labor intensive for the author.  Epigraph’s consultation extends to all publishing processes, I-Universe is restricted to determining a books publish-ability. Royalties at Epigraph can be nearly 4 times than I-Universe and cost for books can be reduced by nearly 44%.

I-Universe’s Premier Pro at $2099 adds a hardcover option (that’s right if you want hardcover you’ll looking at $2K…compare to Epigraph’s Basic with hardcover option which comes to $1,347. You not only save $700 but you get a full custom design), cover copy polish, 20 free books (the equivalent of $126 based on Epigraph’s everyday low print prices), and a special designation called Rising Star. This is the meant to be the real selling point of this program. If a book meets I-Universe professional standards in editorial and design, Rising Star (and other) insignias is printed on the books and these titles are presented to the major retailers Barnes and Noble and Borders. It’s worth examining the value of these programs. If you are a Rising Star, your book goes in a special section in the I-Universe bookstore. That can’t be bad, but in all honesty, who do you know that does any serious browsing-to-buy in a self publishing company’s bookstore? Your book is also presented to major book retailers such as Barnes and Noble but that’s also not as a big a deal as it seems. We offer the same service for free if when it truly makes to do so. What the marketing materials do not tell you, at least until you really do digging, is that in order to sell a book to the national bricks and mortar chains, you must be willing to have your royalty cut in half  across all distribution channels and accept an expensive returns package that can easily send a book into the red.

For roughly another $1,000, or $3149, author can purchase I-Universe’s Online Premier Pro which includes an author website, social media set-up, Google and Amazon search inside book and a Library of Congress control number , an add-on available for $99 with all of their lower priced packages which is included free in all of Epigraph’s packages. The program most resembles Epigraph’s BASiC with Everything, except that Epigraph’s package includes a review copy campaign for the same price. Of course, you’ll also enjoy the advantages of full book design and Epigraph’s superior royalties and reduced print costs.

IUniverse’s Book Launch Premier Pro at $4199 only includes two additional features for the extra thousand dollars: An email campaign and some marketing bling such as bookmarks and business cards. The email campaign is a press release submitted to a large list of booksellers and media. Epigraph offers a similar service using opt-in media lists from reliable suppliers, but this kind of approach is only minimally effective if the lists are not highly targeted and researched. Save the thousand and use Epigraph’s BASiC with Everything.

IUniverse offers some of the most expensive marketing services of the Big 3. But there is an inherent and very serious flaw in the I-Universe approach which nearly makes the services useless—I-Universe’s print and royalty economics suck. If your royalty percent is one third of what you would earn on Epigraph, your I-Universe marketing will have to result in three times the number of copies sold to produce the same royalty earnings. 

Just as bad, they offer an integrated editorial, design and marketing process to insure market-readiness. In the highly competitive worlds of book publicity and marketing only the best book will do.

IUniverse internet marketing’ offers 4 programs that activate ‘search inside the book’ features on Amazon, Barnes and Noble and Google. In addition they offer social media set-up and a website. The combined cost of the programs comes to around $1300 with hosting fee for the website of $29 a month.  The website is provided by a third party company called American Author.  Epigraph offers the same package sans the third- party website for $1,000. If you have a well managed blog and social media websites, do you really need another website? If you are not sure, we say try it our way for a while, save the $300 upfront and save the monthly hosting fees. You can always add another website later, but if you are new to online and social media, you will have your hands full for awhile and in reality you’ll have everything you need to truly succeed.  

I-Universe’s Email Marketing Campaign

We’re sorry to say, but we feel these are all money down the tube. And they are not cheap. A single email campaign to 10 million recipients will cost you $10,000. If you are one of those who find the seductive power of those big numbers just too much to resist, then for the sake of your pocketbook, why not test the program with a smaller list first and then expand if successful?  Start with their $1596 campaign which includes 500,000 names. It will also prove to be a bad investment, but it will at least not be such an expensive one. Why are we so suspicious? Because the emails will be coming to readers from a self publishing company, namely I-Universe, which doesn’t have a true readership of its own. Nowadays it’s comparatively easy to acquire and build large so called opt-in lists and it’s worth it if you can market them later for a high price, over and over again. It’s not worth it if you are trying to sell books because the lists are filled with ‘junk’ relative to a true interest in the subject matter of your book.

I-Universe’s Video and Book Trailers compared to Epigraph

I-Universe’s Standard Book Trailer at $2499 is a professionally produced 45-60 second commercial for your book. Your video is posted on YouTube, DailyMotion and MetaCafe.  It includes soundtrack and narration. Not every book warrants such an expense in video however, and for those, Epigraph offers our Indie Videos which are priced from just $1,000. Indies are also a 45-60 second trailer but with a little less polish than our Commercial which is priced the same as I-Universe at $2499. Of course we feel the Epigraph quality is higher.

I-Universe’s Premium Book Trailer at $3999 gives authors up to 30 seconds more in length and a voice over by a professional actor. Epigraph has similar offering in its Professional Grade at $4500. If you watch the videos on both sites, you can compare quality for yourself.

I-Universe offers onsite—at the author’s home- commercial shooting starting at $5,000 (plus travel). Ditto Epigraph.  This is a great service for some authors.

From there, the I-Universe video packages jump to $19,999. We will come back to that one in a moment.  First, at Epigraph you will have an option not available through I-Universe: our exclusive Full Cut Video Package at $7500 which includes a 60-90 minute commercial, a fuller book trailer or infomercial of up to 5 minutes, plus a video biography of the author of up to 6 minutes. The package is perfect for high-level media work where more information is needed than can be contained in a minute long commercial. It’s also a powerful way to extend your presence on social media sites. Full Cut videos can take the viewer behind the scenes, or more deeply into them.

The I-Universe Hollywood Trailer for $19,999. Once you clear away the clutter, what authors receive is a minute and a half long movie trailer of their book, for the purposes of selling (actually showing is the more accurate term) movie rights to a production company named Principal Entertainment. Principal Entertainment may be an up-and-comer (or not), but to date they have only produced two films, neither of which you are likely to have heard of. We’re all for creative partnerships, but with Epigraph’s Hollywood Bound at $12,000, you get the same service and can either pocket the $8,000 difference and/or you can pay the production company of your choice to watch it.

iUniverse Advertising services

Further evidence of the Big 3’s rapacious (read: greedy) attitude towards their authors can be found in some of their advertising programs. The ‘sins’ from a consumer perspective are that they mark up the ads, in some cases, exorbitantly. And that the ads are more for themselves than for their authors. If your marketing campaign is heavily dependent on advertising, they (iUniverse) will be rolling in the dough in advertising mark-ups and promoting their own company, while your campaign will have a fraction of the market penetration it should. By contrast, at Epigraph, we have a dedicated advertising service which can competently handle large advertising campaigns, including ad planning if needed. We know that these ads are for you, not us. We do not mark up ads beyond what you would be able to purchase on your own, and the inclusion the Epigraph logo is optional, not mandatory.

Sometimes these Big 3 ad mark-ups are not so easy to find but a little math can get to the bottom of the economics.

One quick example and then we’ll move on:

iUniverse ForeWord AD for $450. (ForeWord is a monthly magazine distributed to bookstores and libraries primarily.) This is for a 1/12 page ad in color. Actually, if you go to ForeWord’s website and dig out the media kit, you’ll find you can’t buy a 1/12 page ad. You can however buy a 1/10 page ad in color for $300. What gives? Don’t you think that’s crummy service on the part of iUniverse? We do. And we’ll tell you what gives—it’s a bit more cynical than the $150 you could have saved for a larger ad. Go back to ForeWord’s media kit, and you will find that the price of a full page color ad in ForeWord, on a six time rate costs $2567.50. iUniverse has charged twelve authors $450 each for a total of for $5400. In other words iUniverse made nearly $3,000 in ad mark-up off its authors. And in the end, who was main the beneficiary of the ad? If authors believe they’ll sell a lot of books this way, they’ll be sadly mistaken. Booksellers are not going to be compelled to buy an unreviewed book from a 1/12 page with 25 words of copy from a self publishing company, even if it is in color. On the hand, a full page ad for iUniverse —which is what this really amounts to—is likely to bring in some new clients—for them.

Moral of the story:
Buyer Beware when it comes to Big 3 ads especially if you have a large advertising campaign. You can advertise with considerably more style and reach, and for less, with Epigraph’s Advertising Service.

iUniverse Publicity

Here Epigraph’s rates are so much lower than iUniverse that you’ll be tempted to think that our quality is not as high. We contend that it is even higher. It’s just that we’re dedicated to bringing our authors highest quality at lowest costs.

Let’s start at the top:

iUniverse’s Premium Global Campaign for $14,999: This is nothing more or less than an old fashioned publicity campaign conducted by a professional publicist, at a very high price. The campaign includes press-release writing and distribution, and follow up, by the publicist for 3 months. It does not include any social media or book trailers. A nearly identical service is available as part of Epigraph’s Concierge, and a whole lot more, for half the cost. Epigraphs Concierge is an integrated publishing process that creates ‘market ready’ books which are launched with 3 month campaigns for $7500. The campaigns include social media set-up and coaching in addition to traditional publicity. A similar service from iUniverse, that is, including editorial, design, marketing and social media could easily cost you $20,000 or more. Such a huge discrepancy has got to give you pause.

iUniverse’s Premium National Campaign for $11,999. Exactly the same as the one above except that 3500 people are sent your press release instead of 5000. It’s truly important that you see through these numbers. They are meant to seduce you but they are no indication of extra quality or reach. All the meaningful media contacts to any given book can probably be boiled down to about 100 media. A single appearance on Oprah doesn’t require an additional 1500 names, but rather that you and your book are a good fit for the show and that your publicist knows how and to whom to communicate that. So, you’d be better off saving $3000 with this package, but even better off with Epigraph’s Concierge. You would have an integrated solution to all the facets of your publishing and you will have saved thousands of dollars.  

iUniverse’s Video Newsmaker Publicity Campaign at $9,999 is 60-90 minute video with a six week publicity and social media campaign. Authors can purchase the same services from Epigraph by purchasing our Professional Grade Video for $4500, adding social media set-up and coaching for $750 and our mini-publicity package (six weeks instead of 3 months) for $1500. Your combined cost will be $6750 for a savings of more than $3000.  

iUniverse’s Online Newsmaker Publicity Campaign for $5999. This is a combo of a six week publicity campaign combined with social media. You can purchase the same services through Epigraph by combining Social media set up and coaching for $750 and our mini-publicity campaign for $1500 for a combined cost of only $2250, a savings of close to four thousand dollars. You will not getting the 15 minute interview broadcast on iUniverse’s internet radio station but in all honesty, who listens to iUniverse radio except when iUniverse authors direct them there. In our publicity campaign, our effort will be to get you interviews on a more widely listened to shows.

AuthorHouse’s Publishing and Marketing Combos

AuthorHouse’s Cornerstone Nonfiction: $3999.

Here there are still all the design restrictions found in the previous packages.

For the extra $2,000 over the Pinnacle, they include social media marketing set-up, email marketing to one million names, and a bookseller’s return program. We buy the need for social media help, but the email marketing is suspect from the point of view of its effectiveness. And because of the economics involved, the bookseller’s return program will not only cost you $699 but will also have the effect of either lowering your royalty or increasing your retail price. To us, they seem like bogus add-ons, all sizzle with no steak. Epigraph’s BASiC with Everything at $3146 will get you the same or superior social networking help plus true custom design and a book review campaign for more than $800 less. In addition you will receive free publishing consultation.

For $5499 authors can purchase AuthorHouse’s Springboard Nonfiction. For the $1500 increase over the Cornerstone, authors get a 3 million email campaign instead of 1 million of questionable value, a review of the book and a half page ad in Radio TV Interview Report (RTIR). If authors stick with Epigraph’s BASiC with Everything at $3146, they will be saving $2300+, will not be suckered in by an unnamed email list, and gaining multiple reviews instead of just one. Epigraph’s Reviews, Reviews, Reviews averages 3 or more reviews for every new book we place, and some many 10 or more. If authors are really sold on the value of advertising in the RTIR, they can do so through Epigraph’s design shop at about half the cost of AuthorHouse’s $799. Authors can also place ads directly with RTIR and save even Epigraph’s design fee since there is no design or copy writing necessary. RTIR does all that for you.

Astute comparison shoppers will do well to take a moment and learn a key difference between how Epigraph and AuthorHouse price ALL advertising. If you are planning on pursuing an extensive advertising campaign this is especially important for you. To put it plainly, AuthorHouse marks up the pricing of the ads substantially, Epigraph does not, charging design fees ($60/hr billed in half hour segments) only where applicable. As an additional service we will also place the ad for you, but we will not double the price of the ad when we do so., your advertising dollars will go where they should with Epigraph. The same and even more goes for paid review services. For $2999 AuthorHouse offers the Kirkus Basic which is named after its expedited review service by the famed book review magazine Kirkus Review. As an author you can submit your book directly to the same program, called Kirkus Indie for the price of $575. The AuthorHouse program also includes a 1/8 page ad which costs around $300 if placed directly with Kirkus. That’s a whopping mark-up—more than $2,000-- money you would have saved with Epigraph.

Summary: AuthorHouse Essential package costs $300 less, but does not include a Library of Congress Control number or paper proof. Adding the cost for 100 books, the total publishing cost comes to $1670, compared to Epigraph at $1485. Most notable is the difference between Epigraph’s Net Sale Profits of $5.27 per book and AuthorHouse’s royalty of only $1.70. Not only does Epigraph’s program allow for more flexibility in book design, pricing and discounts, it earns nearly $5 more per book from wholesale sales.

Summary: Epigraph saves you $100 plus inclusion of Library of Congress control number and paper proof.

Self–publishing.com also requires a minimum purchase of 100 books to get distribution, which would increase author’s initial out-of-pocket expenses by an additional $619.