POD Vendors — Compared & Analyzed

Comparison Issues
Six POD Vendors
Table Notes
Getting Started
Costs, Royalties, and Profits
Contract Clauses

Comparison Issues

What are the important things to look at when comparing POD vendors?

While initial costs and royalties/profits are, of course, very important, there are additional factors that also need to be considered:

• Off-Shoring. Some POD vendors have "off-shored" some of their operations to other nations such as India, China, and the Philippines. This means that while the sale of services to authors are handled by Americans, the people who provide those services to authors — and with whom authors interact — might be citizens of other nations whose English language skills may vary from excellent to mediocre.

• Distribution Channels Promised. Which distribution channels does the vendor guarantee for book? (See Set Up Your Distribution Channels for more information.)

• Book Format and Design. How — and who — determines what your book covers and interior pages look like? (See Design the Book for more information.)

• Table of Contents and Index. For non-fiction books that need a TOC and/or index, how are they created, who does the work, and what are the extra charges (if any)? If you design the book yourself, then it's your responsibility. But if the POD Publisher designs the book, then you need to investigate these questions before choosing a vendor. Indexes are particularly thorny because there are two separate issues: who creates the citations (or how are they created), and how (and by whom) is the index generated? (Because this issue only applies to some books, it is not covered in the comparison below.)

• ISBN Ownership. Who owns the ISBN for your book — you or the POD Publisher? (See ISBN for information on ISBNs.)

• Cover Price. The book's cover price is the crucial starting point for determining royalties and profits, and it also has a significant effect on sales. Who determines the cover price — the POD vendor or you?

• Shares. Income received from a book sale is usually divided among three parties: the author, the POD vendor, and the bookseller (in some cases there is no bookseller share). How are these shares determined and what are they? Is the author's share a Royalty or a Profit?

Six POD Vendors

This side-by-side comparison looks at six of the larger, better-known POD vendors:

• Author House. POD Publisher. Once known as 1stBooks, and formerly independent, recently purchased by Bertram Capital. www.authorhouse.com

• BookSurge. POD Publisher. Owned by Amazon.Com. www.booksurge.com

• iUniverse. POD Publisher. Owned by Barnes and Noble. www.iuniverse.com

• Xlibris. POD Publisher. Owned by Random House. www2.xlibris.com

• LuLu. LuLu refers to itself as a "community" and describes itself as "..a technology company, not a publisher ... you can use Lulu to publish and sell any kind of digital content." Depending on the services/programs you choose it can be considered either a POD Publisher or a POD Printer or a hybrid of the two. www.lulu.com

• Lightning Source. POD Printer. Owned by Ingram Book Distribution. The major POD Printer. Some POD Publishers contract with Lightning for the actual printing and shipping of their books. www.lightningsource.com

Table Notes

The tables below compare six of the larger POD vendors on services offered, costs, policies, and contract terms. The following notes apply:

• Packages. If the vendor combines services into one or more packages, the comparison is based on the vendor's least expensive, most basic, package.

• Dollar amounts. For clarity and simplicity, prices are rounded up to nearest hundred dollars. Thus, a package price of $499 is shown as $500.

• Yes = The item is included in the package at no extra charge.

• Up to you = You have to do whatever it is, and pay whatever costs there are.

• N/A = Not applicable, or does not apply.

• ??? = Information is not available or unclear.

• Footnotes. Click on the cell footnotes for additional information and explanation.

Getting Started

1a.) Are some (or all) services used by authors provided by workers in other countries whose English skills may vary from excellent to mediocre?

1b.) Design work is done in China, but authors only have contact with U.S. employees.

1c.) Does screen for "extremely objectional content." Does screen content for admission to certain programs.

1d.) For block of 10 ISBNs ($27 each).

1e.) Amount is what the vendor charges for obtaining a Preassigned Control Number (PCN). You can do it yourself for free plus two copies of the book.

1f.) Amount is what the vendor charges for registering your copyright. If you do it yourself, the cost is $45 plus two copies of the book.

1g.) First two years free, $20/year thereafter.

1h.) As an alternative to having vendor format the book, most vendors allow you to supply a pre-formatted PDF file.

1i.) Formatting performed in consultation with you.

1j.) Not entirely clear how this works. It may be that LuLu simply converts files as-is, but you can hire a 3rd-party to help design the book.

1k.) You are responsible for all book content.

1m.) You can provide a finished cover file, or illustrations & content that iUniverse will use to create cover.

1n.) Covers created from templates. Some templates allow you to incorporate an image you provide.

1o.) You can do it yourself, or LuLu offers various 3rd-party services at different prices.

1p.) Based on total word-count of the manuscript.

1q.) You can make corrections yourself, or pay $80/hour for Lightning Source to do them.

1r.) BookSurge is owned by Amazon.com, so retail customers are redirected to the Amazon website.

1s.) A domain name like "www.booktitle.com" or "www.authorname.com" as opposed to "www.podpublisher.com/something."

1t.) Vendor can provide a "Buy" button (link) for your website that allows customers to buy the book on your site that vendor processes.

1u.) Lightning Source does not sell books directly to consumers. You can create your own website (with your own domain name) to promote your book, but customers will have to go to an online bookseller or bookstore order-desk or to buy it.

1v.) Annual fee to maintain your book distribution channels. In other words an annual fee to keep your book in whatever catalogs the vendor got it added to.

Costs, Royalties, and Profits

2a.) Since you are paid a royalty, cost per book is not germane.

2b.) Vendor determines minimum cover & wholesale prices, you can set higher prices.

2c.) Cover price has to be high enough to cover per-book costs and bookseller's discount.

2d.) No profit, you get royalty instead.

2e.) With LuLu, you specify how much you want to receive from each sale, LuLu deducts 20% of that amount as their commision.

2f.) Profit = (Cover Price) minus (Bookseller's Discount + Per-Book Cost).

2g.) Direct sales = Sales from the vendor's website to a customer. Does not include bulk sale of books to author.

2h.) No royalties, you get a profit instead.

2i.) Unlike other POD Publishers, iUniverse royalties are NOT calculated on cover price, but rather on what iUniverse receives from the bookseller — after the bookseller's discount and shipping costs are deducted from the cover price. This means that the 25% royalties paid by iUniverse to authors are LOWER than the 25% royalties paid by other POD Publishers.

2j.) Since you may want to sell books at signings and personal appearances, your cost to buy copies in quantity is important.

2k.) Discount increases according to number of books ordered.

2m.) You pay the cost of printing the book (unit + per-page cost) plus shipping.

Contract Clauses

Always read the contract before signing up with a POD vendor.

 

Table 3: Important Contract Clauses ~ Vendor Comparison

	Author House	BookSurge	iUniverse	Xlibris	LuLu	Lightning Source
Who owns copyrights?	Author	Author	Author	Author	Author	Author
Exclusive?	No	No	No	No	No	No
Termination	30 days	30 days	30 days	Any time	30 days	45 days
Arbitration or Mediation Clause? (3a)	No	No	No	No	No	No
Work Files Ownership? (3b)	AuthorHouse (3c)	BookSurge (3c)	iUniverse $300/$1500 (3d)	Xlibris	You	You

3a.) Without an arbitration or mediation clause, your only recourse is to sue. Unfortunately, none of these vendors offers such a clause.

3b.) When you buy a "package" of services from a POD Publisher, the biggest item you are buying is formatting the PDF file. If you own the file, you can use it elsewhere — if you don't own it, you have to pay again to create another file if you want to publish elsewhere.

3c.) Vendor may allow you to purchase your PDF files for an additional fee.

3d.) Depending on timing, You pay either an additional $150 each for interior and cover files, or $750 for each.

Copyright © 2007, Bruce Hartford

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(Labor donated)