Product Description

Stacie Vander Pol has done exhaustive research to uncover the self-publishing firms that sell more books, pay the highest royalties, and provide the best overall value for writers.

Company profiles include: Sales Results ranked from Poor to Excellent. Amazon royalties, bookstore royalties, and publisher website royalties. Distribution channels including online registration, Books in Print registration, and wholesaler access. An Overall Value rating factors in the cost of publishing with sales results and royalty payments. Trade discounts available for stocking in stores. Timeline to expect. Book Pricing - who decides the price for your book. Cost for Author Purchased copies. Author Rights and Contract Cancellation policy. Hundreds of examples of top-selling books published by the firms profiled are presented. A head to head chart makes it easy to compare firms in one glance.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #40502 in Books
• Published on: 2008-09-04
• Binding: Paperback
• 166 pages

From the Back Cover
Top Self-Publishing Firms is the only book on the market that dares to rate each self-publishing company based on the sales performance of its books. This valuable resource profiles the twenty-six best firms, defined by sales results, and provides the information you need to choose a self-publisher, including:

¨Sales results, royalty payments, contract terms,

bookstore distribution, best-value publishing

packages, author purchase discounts, and

overall value ratings for the top companies.

¨Hundreds of top selling, self-published titles

and the firms behind them.

¨An easy to read reference chart that compares the

best firms head to head.

¨Tips for getting the best sales results on

Amazon.com.

About the Author
Stacie Vander Pol has a Masters degree in Business and fifteen years of sales and marketing experience. She has applied her business expertise to the world of publishing and shares it with you in Top Self-Publishing Firms.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
This book profiles the top twenty-six self-publishing firms based on their sales results. Other factors in self-publishing are important, but without sales none of them matter. Book sales will determine how much money you make, how seriously you are taken as a writer, and how much recognition your book receives.

This book does not spend time convincing you to choose self-publishing over traditional publishing. It simply evaluates the top performing companies. This book assumes you have researched your options and have your reasons for using a self-publisher. Perhaps you are familiar with the highly unfavorable odds of being traditionally published, you're publishing time sensitive material, or you believe you can make more money through self-publishing. For me, it's all of the above.

Here you will find publishers with a proven history of success and impressive book sales. You will learn which firms are best for getting your book into stores like Barnes & Noble and which firms rock the charts on Amazon.com. You will also be able to compare royalty payments between each company based on real dollar amounts paid per book, not just the confusing (and often misleading) advertised percentages. You might be surprised to learn that many of the most successful publishers are also the most affordable.

Everything you will need to know about choosing a publisher and succeeding with your book will be covered in the chapters to follow.

Customer Reviews

Fantastic Resource
If you are planning on publishing a book, Stacie had created an extremely valuable resource to save you time and money getting your book into print. She has also provided a number of tips to help make publishing your book a financial success.

If you have never seriously thought of publishing your own book, you should heed Stacie's advice. "Publishing a book can make you an authority in your field. Writing a book can increase your credibility, advance your career or pave the way for a new one." In a world where it is getting more and more difficult to set yourself apart, writing and publishing a book is an easy and surefire way to do that.

Stacie has done the research and complied a list of the top 26 self-publishing firms based on their sales results. It would take you an enormous amount of time just to find these 26 companies. But she not only list the companies, she ranks them by sales results, recommended publishing packages, Amazon results, bookstore royalties, distribution, author purchases and overall value.

The range in recommended publishing packages shows why this book is such a valuable resource. The recommended packages range from $0 cost to $22,400. And while you might think that the one that cost the most gives the most value, you would be wrong. But the one with the least expensive publishing package is no bargain either.

All the companies are listed on a comparison chart which makes it easy to compare the various strong points and weaknesses of each company. That chart alone would be worth the price of the book.

In addition, Stacie gives some great inside information about how the book publishing business works. Not understanding how the royalty percentage really works could lead you to picking the wrong company. The quoted royalty percentage is not the determining factor. You really need to understand what the royalty is a percentage of and how that number is calculated.

While the book is very short, there is a wealth of other information that you really need to understand if you are going to have a pleasant experience.

If you are serious about writing a book, buy and read this book. Stacie gives some great advice about editing, book cover, topic, titles. I have seen many books that had great content but failed to follow the advice of this book and as a result failed to achieve the results the author expected.

In choosing a company to publish your book, you need to be very honest about what you expect from the book. If you are like most self-published authors, the greatest value will come from the books you use in marketing your business. So pay very close attention to the price the company sells your book to you. On a $14.95 book, the range was from $2.65 to a high of $11.96. For most authors this should be a strong reason for selecting a company. Be sure to think the project through.

The section on Amazon is well worth the price of the entire book. You cannot afford to self-publish without knowing the way to work with Amazon.

If you are in a profession where publishing your own book makes sense, then you really can't afford to be without this resource. It is worth ten times the price in the time it will save you doing all the research yourself. And you will learn all about the process. I highly recommend it.

The Inside Story
'Hard times, hard times, come again no more' is an old song that certainly applies to our current economic status in the country at present, but it could also be a frequently hummed tune by first time authors who are struggling to see their words in print. This very well written and designed help book by Stacie Vander Pol should be a welcome light at the end of that dark tunnel of publishing houses. In a very down to earth, practical, and well researched manner Vander Pol distills the information about the many Self Publishing houses available to writers frustrated with returned manuscripts from the major publishing firms and offers insider information and statistics on the strong points and weak points of each of these firms.

But before getting to the 'secrets' of the self publishing firms, Vander Pol offers thoughtful aids in approaching both fiction and nonfiction book subjects, adds a succinct 'glossary' on the ins and outs of publishing packages, and advises writers how to approach self publishing firms. Then comes the meat of the book: 'This book profiles the top twenty-six self publishing firms based on their sales results' (though there are a number of fine firms not mentioned here). And what follows this very informative section is advice on how to gain exposure, obtain reviews, act in a business-like fashion as a new writer, and very importantly, how to utilize the fact that Amazon has long been credited as providing sales pages for the works from self publishing houses.

Vander Pol's book is a solid resource for writers actively searching for avenues for publication, but it is also a fascinating book for students at the university level who are considering a writing career, and for those of us who receive the email requests for reviews of 'new works'. It is a pleasure to read and an important addition to the resource library of every beginning writer. Recommended. Grady Harp, October 08

Only $19.95?
I just put the book down. If you are going to self publish a book, I would recommend reading this one...along with The Self Publishing Manual and Plug Your Book. The two chapters giving examples of top selling self published non-fiction and fiction titles is certainly worth the price of admission alone. From there, you can see what really sells. It also gives ideas to edit your book title for greatest impact.
The author also lists and dissects several firms that will print & market the book for you. These firms are not book printers, but are full service firms to handle every part of your publishing needs.

If you are new to writing a book, and want to self publish...this is a valuable directory that can save you tons of money by picking the right book marketer.

The one thing that still stands out is the price. I simply don't understand why this book is so inexpensive. Oh well.