I begin to sense a common theme in all of my
competitive reviews - but if you dig deep enough, you'll see that
self-publishing companies are only the same in the fact that we
all use almost the exact same technologies to print books.
On each of these self publishing company review pages, I include
a link to what I believe is important in choosing a company to
self-publish your book, click here
to see my list.
On to our discussion of Christian self publishing company Xulon
Press.
I'm using the same specs for each self publishing company competitive
review - information and self publishing costs are derived from
the Xulon Press web site and contract.
- 6X9 trim size, 150 pages, one color interior, 4 color cover,
5 interior images
- Paperback or hardcover
- ISBN and bar code included, Library of Congress Control number
- Custom cover and interior - not just choices
from existing templates
- PDF or laser proofs delivered to author,
- 100 additional paperback units purchased
- Available at Amazon and most major online retailers
- Available through major distributors like Ingram and Baker and
Taylor
- Available for order at over 25,000 retail bookstores.
(click here
to see the Dog Ear breakdown - our total cost for this package
and options is $1,327, our per unit book printing
price is $4.28, and you get 10 free author copies
of your book.)
Xulon Press
Xulon Press - recently released a new
self publishing guide and removed older information that was well
outdated. We continue to review the Xulon Press contract.
A strong player at the more-expensive end of the Christian self-publishing
industry. Xulon Press publishing packages range
from $599 to $1699.
For $599 you will not receive full distribution (which means
your book cannot be in Ingram, Baker&Taylor, Barnes &
Noble, etc.)
Options of course increase as you spend more money. In my opinion,
I couldn't really find any package that offered the identical
items as Dog Ear Publishing - so I chose the Xulon Press middle
package called Premium that sells for $999.
Xulon Press doesn't allow you to set your own
profit or retail price. It appears that unless you provide print
ready files, you'll need to accept their interior design templates
and their cover design. Xulon Press offers all
of the standard trim sizes available.
Standard Paperback Publishing - $999
Custom Cover and Interior - $??? - NA
Library of Congress Control Number - NA
Interior Images - $15 ea = $75
UK Distribution - $89
Proofs - NA (not applicable - digital proofs are free)
Printing Services - $7.69 / unit X 100 units = $769 (printing
this book at Dog Ear is only $4.28 per unit - if you only wanted
1 to 49 books at Xulon Press, the cost jumps to $9.09 per unit)
Total Expenditure- Xulon Press: $1,932
($605 MORE EXPENSIVE
THAN DOG EAR)
BOOK DESIGN and PRODUCTION- Comparison
Dog Ear builds a unique design for both the cover and interior
for every book. The design is custom (literally from the ground
up) for each and every book - no 'templates' are ever used. Dog
Ear provides a Design Sample using your
manuscript and allows you complete freedom to revise what our
team has built. No other publishing services company provides
this service FREE OF CHARGE - only Dog
Ear. Every one of our books are designed and built by
professionals with long histories and lots of experience - from
the traditional publishing industry. Your book is being
built by the same staff that creates books for Harper Collins,
Prentice Hall, Simon & Schuster, Wiley, Penguin and many other
of the worlds most successful publishers.
BOOK PRINTING PRICES (author copies) - Comparison
Xulon Press charges a significant amount more than Dog Ear to
print author copies - as noted above (using Xulon's required $13.99
retail price point):
#
of Units |
Xulon Press |
Dog
Ear |
per
unit savings |
1-25 |
9.09 |
4.28 |
4.81 |
26-50 |
8.39 |
4.28 |
4.11 |
51-150 |
7.69 |
4.28 |
3.41 |
151-250 |
7.00 |
4.28 |
2.72 |
251-500 |
6.30 |
4.28 |
2.02 |
1000+ |
4.20 |
3.00 or less |
1.19 or more |
Xulon Press will require a 'minimum' retail price for your book
- the book in our example would require AT LEAST a $13.99 retail
price. This is calculated by multiplying the single per unit author
purchase price by 2.1. Is $13.99 a reasonable retail price for
a 150 page paperback? I'm not sure. Using the same multiplier
at Dog Ear Publishing your retail would be only $8.98... (which,
by the way is too low in my opinion, but you could easily do it
if you wanted; and at Dog Ear you have that option.)
AUTHOR PROFIT - Comparison
Author profit is also a great weakness of the
Xulon Press programs - at Dog
Ear Publishing, when you purchase your
own books, they nearly $3 LESS EXPENSIVE per unit,
with that money going straight to your pocket.
Your author profit when selling through Xulon Press distribution
- even using their required retail price -
Xulon Press Author Profit: $1.12
Your per unit author profit from each
sale is over $3.50 MORE for each book with Dog Ear.
Dog Ear Author Profit: $4.76
Imagine what these numbers do to your profit over the life of
your book. It would be extremely challenging to recover any profit
from your book.
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