Chris A. Baird | May 20, 2022
Best Self Publishing Companies 2022

Are you wondering what companies can be trusted when it comes to your books? Here are the best self publishing companies in 2023 that you should try.

Eleanor had tried multiple hybrid publishing companies with her children's books previously.

Each and every one of them had a different problem that she ran into that made her consider maybe self-publishing would be right for her. 

That's the reason why in today's topic, we're going to discuss Best Self Publishing Companies 2023.

Received Low-Quality Artwork

It was several years ago and Eleanor, a children's author, had written and had an awful lot of different children's books in her head. She got around to it one day and said “Maybe I should get these things out into the world. Not just have them in my head or on scraps of paper where I had written these books.”

But the thing is that it was so confusing. All of the different options available with regards to what you're going to do. She wasn't an artist or an illustrator herself.

She knew she was going to need to find somebody to do it. But it seemed a bit difficult for her. After going through multiple hybrid publishers, she was just very disappointed with the sales that were coming through.

There were a lot of other inconveniences. It was just taking too long and it was impossible to get the books through these hybrid publishing companies onto the market. In a way that made her happy and also resulted in sales.

The problem is that with all of these stories in her head, she realized that if she didn't somehow get these books onto the market, her children and other people's children would never have a chance to enjoy these stories that she has.

In a sense, you'd be creating a problem for the rest of the world. With the idea of not sharing what you have. But how exactly do you do it?

Without being able to do the artwork herself, she began to doubt that she is even capable of getting through the entire process if she were to do self-publishing. And that was the reason why the first thing she did was she went to one of the hybrid publishers that she had heard a little bit about.

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The problem was she put her book with them and they said you own all the rights. It's just that she wouldn't get it to see when the sales were being made with the marketing that she would do. She couldn't see the impact.

She was exactly happy today. Every now and then or whenever they felt like it, every two to three months, they would give her some results. Which was not particularly spectacular but, in a sense, it was her book but she couldn't see what was happening.

She realized this was a bad idea. So, she told them she wanted to end the contract and get her books back. Except for the fact that they kept the books on their contract.

So, then she took her next book at the same time and realized “I don't want to go with that first company again.” So, she went with another hybrid publishing company. This time, they messed up the formatting and the artwork to the illustrations that were coming into the children's books.

But no problem, she could just get it fixed right. Well, you could, but at a hundred dollars per change, that was being made. The hybrid company had already been paid so they didn't care too much about her book.

They were moving on to the next author who wanted to get a book onto the market. And she did the same thing. Requested that she could put these artworks and books out through a different channel.

What they did is they sent her low-quality versions of the artwork. She of course owns the text of the book. The books were still permanently stuck on Amazon even though they agreed that they would pull the books down after she had terminated her contract with them. 

So, what happened was she was listening to my podcast and she heard about my absolutely free Self-Publishing Secrets Checklist. You should grab a copy of that one. And when she was working through it, she realized that maybe self-publishing didn't have to be so hard.

Use Other Distribution Channels

When I got started, I realized some of the pains associated with these other routes. There were many red flags. I didn't meet too many people who were very thrilled with the hybrid publishing options that were available.

We started going back and forth through email after she joined my email list. We were able to start discussing some of the issues. I was telling her exactly as I say on my free checklist, which is that you're going to want to use the best self publishing companies in 2023.

These companies include Amazon KDP. Whether you like them or not, they're the biggest. They're definitely at a place you're going to want to get your Kindle books onto including your print books as well.

Now keeping in mind her hybrid books had been put on there but she didn't have any control over which distribution channels were being used. My favorite is to use all of the different distribution channels and that's why I advised her to go with all of them.

The second one was IngramSpark. Putting her paperbacks on there. The reason is that I make more money off of IngramSpark paperbacks than I do even off of my Amazon KDP paper print. 

So that was the second place and the third was moving on to Lulu for her hardback books. Now it is true that Amazon now has KDP hardback books that are sort of in beta. It has not been fully tested so I still recommend going with Lulu until we get a word back that people can do just as well on Amazon.

I also think that it's good to maximize the distribution channels we have. And ensure that if anything goes wrong with Amazon or with our KDP account, we have multiple ways in which we're receiving money from our books. Lulu is a fantastic way to go about it with hardback books.

Then, the final option for 2023 that I recommended was Draft2Digital. It just gives us some additional platforms that we would not be able to get using our eBook only on Amazon Kindle. Because they would only distribute it through Amazon if we want to get on to Kobo or in terms of Apple ibooks or Google Books or these other places.

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Then we're going to need to go through Draft2Digital. I also previously recommended Smashwords but they've been bought up by Draft2Digital. So, you should just go with Draft2Digital.

But this particular combination would be the best option for you in 2023. Using Amazon KDP, IngramSpark, Lulu, and Draft2Digital as the best options for going with the self-publishing route. What we like with these is that we're able to see the sales.

In addition, there are plenty of winners. Lots of people you can talk to who have done very well on these platforms. Not those who are telling people on their sales page that people love them. But that actual real goodness to life people who can tell you that “yes these platforms work”.

I can tell you from my personal story. When I got started and put my books on KDP once, I discovered the miracle of being in profitable niches on KDP and how to play the keyword game.

Suddenly, I was seeing massive amounts of money flying through there. So, I no longer needed to trust other people. Even though I was in groups of people who are making a killing in these markets.

It got me very tempted to say, what do I need to do to do this? That was when I discovered the power of these platforms. That it wasn't just fake gurus telling you how you do it.

They tell you “No work, you don't need to work at all.” It's just suddenly, magically, you're going to make money. That's complete insanity. 

Going The Self-Publishing Route

 But in the case of Eleanor, she just needed to move from hybrid over to doing the self-publishing route which is the perfect route within 2023. The other thing is you own the rights if you do self-publishing.

It's very easy to move your books. Take them up, take them down, and make the changes that you need. You can put them on multiple platforms without any problems.

You can do infinite revisions without paying a hundred dollars per revision. You can just do it by doing the revision yourself and reposting your book. You can no longer change titles and subtitles however you can take the book completely down and then repost it again.

If you have reviews, it's probably not a good idea to take your book down. But if the book is brand new on the market, then you can do that if you've chosen the wrong keywords. But one of the big things that I was telling Eleanor is the idea of learning to invest in yourself.

Because what happened was, she decided that yes this was still a bit of a challenge for her. So she decided to go one more time with a hybrid publisher. I recommended A Thousand Story Books.

I'm not an affiliate, however, they are reliable one. I have seen people who have gone through them, and customers who have been very happy with the results that they did. She went with them and they were very easy to work with.

She went back and forth with them and they were able to get the book out. But the problem she had was again back to this time issue and where exactly the book gets published. But they did a fantastic job and they maintained and kept it to the amount of money that they require.

It is like a thousand dollars or something to do the entire process and get you shown so many illustrations. Get your book actually out onto the market which is a fantastic service that they provide. And they deliver exactly what they said.

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It's just the time that you're going to wait. Also, if you want to change the text in your books at all, then it creates a problem. That's the reason why Eleanor decided she's going to go the self-publishing route in the future.

She's going to do as I've said a thousand times in my secret checklist, go the Jutoh route. Now, don't just get the software Jutoh but also buy the course that I offer. The reason I tell you this is because I've seen people buy the Jutoh program alone and they're unable to figure it out. 

They don't have what I offer in my self publishing course where we're going back and forth. In a forum, I can tell you exactly what it is. I guarantee you, that we'll get your book formatted correctly and ready to go so you can publish it on KDP.

If we're not able to do it, we're just going to take your book and put it in there. I'm going to show you exactly what you need to do throughout the course. We're going to take your hand, we have a forum, we have everything necessary to get it going to do that.

Conclusion

That's one of the reasons why I stand behind my courses with a 30-day money-back guarantee.

Eleanor has not yet purchased the course I recommend. You definitely need to go about purchasing that course because that is a thing that you are not going to want to skip.

The other thing just to keep in mind in general here it's the fact that with the year 2023, there is so much that you can do. There's an awful lot of things to do.

But there are so many people who are wondering should you self-publish your book in 2023? That's the reason I created this exact video: Should You Self-Publish Your Book In 2023? So, I will see you over there. 

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