I am thinking of Self-Publishing my book with 1st Books(Author House). How does their service compare to RJ Communications and www.BooksJustBooks.com ? First off, you can’t "self-publish" with 1 st Books. To "self-publish" implies that you, "self" are the "Publisher". The most universally accepted method of recognizing a publisher is through the ownership of the ISBN (International Standard Book Number). With 1 st Books, you do not own the ISBN; they do, making them the "Publisher", not you. You can pay them to publish your book making you a "Published Author" but not a "Self-Publisher". 1 st Books is one of many "Vanity" publishers which can be found on the Internet. Like all other vanity publishers, 1 st Books clouds the ISBN ownership issue leading the author to believe that the author owns the ISBN number. For more info on Vanity Publishers (click here) 1st Books takes this "clouding" one step further by devoting a whole section in their "Authors Guide" under the heading, ISBN Application. In this section they state "1 st Books wants to make the publishing process as easy and hassle free as possible. Therefore, just as we can submit your US Copyright application, we will also complete and submit your ISBN application required for all books." The "can" reference is correct. For an additional fee they will submit the formal copyright application for you to the copyright office. The "we will" is not even a deception; it is an out and out lie. The only application for ISBN ownership is located at RR Bowker (click here to see) 1st Books does not "apply" for anything. They already own a group of numbers registered in their name and they assign your book one of these numbers. They are the publisher of record, not you. With www.BooksJustBooks.com , you are the publisher because you own your ISBN. Aside from the ISBN issue, let’s compare some basic pricing based on Dan Poynter’s "New Book Model" (click here to listen to interview with Dan Poynter) . We will also assume that your book is 256 pages and will be printed on 50# offset with a full color cover. Editorial: We will assume that your book is already edited. 1st Books "Worldwide Distribution Agreement" states that they shall "not be responsible for editing Work and shall have no editorial control over it". Similarly www.BooksJustBooks.com does not offer direct editorial service although an extensive list of editorial services is presented in their "Publishing Related Sites" section. Book Design & Layout: Your edited book first needs to be laid out in book format and a cover needs to be designed. In 1 st Books "Author Guide" a chart on page three shows that the "Author controls their cover design and formatting". Yet in the contract that you sign it clearly states "1 st Books shall have the right to format Work and Work’s cover in a manner that 1 st Books determines is best suited for distribution. Content, style, and format of Work’s cover and format of work will be entirely at the discretion of 1 st Books". I am not an attorney but I would think that the signed legal document takes precedent over any promotion copy. Keep in mind, that same chart also makes it appear that 1 st Books is not a Vanity Press. BooksJustBooks owns a design company named Budget Book Design . The author/publisher deals directly with the graphic designer and while suggestions are made, the author/publisher has complete control over the text and cover design. For simplicity sake and comparison purposes I will look at all charges up to the actual printing as "prepress" or "design" charges. Budget Book Design is pretty simple. You can have your word document laid out into a book format for $250. For another $250 you can get a cover designed (note: these prices are discount numbers for BooksJustBooks.com customers. Prices are higher if author/publisher chooses to print somewhere other than BooksJustBooks). With 1 st Books you have an initial setup of $399. Added to that number is $100 for a "customized" back cover, which basically means you can include a picture of yourself. For all practical purposes the price is the same as Budget Book Design. The real kicker here with 1 st Books is that because they do not actually call it "Book Design and Layout", if you ever try to move to another publisher or decide to publish your book yourself, you do not own the digital file . They do. You will have to start all over. All you just need to choose whether you want to be able to talk with a graphic designer and have control of the "look" or you want to leave that up to someone else and whether you want to own your file when it’s done or you want it to be owned by someone else. Book Printing : Now we’re up to the actual printing of your books. According to Dan Poynter’s "New Book Model" you should plan on printing 500 books to use for review and promotion copies to help get the marketing wheels turning. He also says that 500 copies will be printed digitally. With BooksJustBooks, 500 copies are printed on a regular offset printing press (click here to read about differences) , so in this example we’ll use 400 copies so we can compare "apples to apples". Finding the price of 400 books with Books Just Books is simple. You need only to go to www.BooksJustBooks.com and enter your specifications and get an online "Instant" price. Four hundred copies costs $4.18/book plus a $100 administrative charge, or $1772. Finding out the cost of 400 books (or any number books for that matter) through 1 st Books is a little tricky. There is no mention of cost or any formula for figuring cost anywhere on the 1 st Books website or in any of the literature I received from them. Their contract refers to "royalties" based on an unspecified retail price. One of their major selling points is that the author "selects their royalty level" but it was impossible to find out exactly what that meant without calling. I’ll address the royalty issue later but the answer I got for the price for 400 books was $7.61/book, or $3,044. Prices quoted do not include shipping to final destination. 1 st Books quoted me $340 additional for shipping. The BooksJustBooks.com shipping price was $154 to the same location. The total savings using BooksJustBooks through this point is $1457 . Even if you subtract the $225 you will pay to own your own ISBN series of 10 numbers, your savings to this point is $1232 and you have not had to do any more work and you are the publisher, not someone else. Distribution and how much money you will make on sales of your book. This is where the retail price and "royalty" issue comes into play. If you own your own ISBN, you set the retail price and there are no "Royalties" only "profits". 1 st Books allows the author to "choose" their own "Royalty". When I called to get clarification, I came to realize that there was no magic formula. It was simply, the higher the retail price the higher the royalty. 1 st Books sets the retail price, not the author. For our 256 page book, I was told if I wanted to make 5% on bookstore sales the retail price would be $13.50. If I wanted to make 10%, the retail price would be $14.50 and for 15%, $17.50. IE: I would make $.67 per book ($67 per hundred books sold) at the $13.50 Retail. I would make $1.45 per book ($146 per hundred books sold) if the book retailed at $14.50 or $2.62 per book ($262 per hundred) if the book retailed at $17.50. There is also an initial $199 setup fee for this bookstore distribution. With BooksJustBooks’ new Thor Distribution program the author/publisher makes 50% of the retail price minus the production cost. Production cost is figured at $.013/page plus $.90 per copy. Using the same retail price scenario above one would make $2.52 per book ($252 per hundred), $3.02 per book ($302 per hundred) or $4.52 per book ($452 per hundred). It is important to remember, that with BooksJustBooks you set the retail price. Both 1 st Books and Thor utilize the exact same book distribution system which makes your book available to over 90% of the bookstores in the US as well as 72 other countries so there is no advantage using one system over the other. It’s strictly a matter of with which one can you make more money. The signup fee for the 1 st Books distribution program is $199. The signup fee for BooksJustBooks’ Thor Distribution program is $49.95 plus $19.95/year file maintenance. That puts an additional $129 in your pocket. Realistically, you rarely see a 256 page paperback book retailing for more than the $14.50 figure. If you are lucky enough to have 500 copies in bookstore sales the first year, you would make $531 with 1 st Books and $1440 with BooksJustBooks.com. How many books will you sell? That is always the $99 question. Sorry but nobody has a crystal ball on that one. That’s part of the publishing "Challenge". How successful are the two programs? I can’t say how successful the 1 st Books system is any better than they say it themselves in their own press release. " BLOOMINGTON, IN - JANUARY 9, 2003 - 1stBooks, the leading provider of print-on-demand and e-Book publishing services, announced today that the company printed its 1,000,000th book in early December 2002. Robert McCormack, President of 1stBooks, made the announcement….. our ever-growing family of more than 11,000 authors and their 13,000 titles has paid off handsomely for authors and readers alike." In case math is not your strength, the admitted average number of books sold per title is 77. Given that most people have at least 50 friends and family that only leaves 27 copies per title sold through all the other marketing channels. Is this what you have in mind? RJ Communications, www.BooksJustBooks.com, recently passed the 100 million book mark and they have certainly not printed 1,298,701 different titles. If you have a vanity title… go with a vanity press. If not, the choice should be clear. If you have a question pertaining to the publishing production process, please feel free to contact me at ron@rjcom.com .

Last 5 posts by Ron Pramschufer

• Is there any publishing award which rewards sales? - August 25th, 2008
• Bookstore Distribution—Self Publishing Dream come true or The Emperor’s New Clothes? - July 8th, 2008
• I want to self-publish a book. Where do I start? - May 29th, 2008
• What do you think about Amazon’s announcement that small publishers need to print with their printer in order to be listed on Amazon? - April 17th, 2008
• What are the steps are involved in Self-Publishing a book? - March 24th, 2008