A Boost for a Specific Self-Publishing Company

By Christina M. Schumacher

There are a good number of self-publishing companies out there and we have provided a list of the ones we could find for you. However, I felt the need to boost one particular company that I will be working with for the fourth book that I've put together with Psychic Photographer, Ron Bowers, who is from England.

The book has over 70 photos within it, so we obviously needed to really look into self-publishing companies to find decent pricing for photos. I researched for nearly a week, working through the many websites, but was getting quite frustrated with the photo packages offered separately from the publishing package. I was having a hard time understanding why putting photos in a book had to cost so much. In fact, I had already done my manuscript with the photos embedded, so could not understand why it was necessary for the companies I was seeing to have all the photos on CD to rework into a manuscript where all the work was already done for them.

Finally, through Diana Akroyd, the author of "Chosen - End Times Truths Revealed", I found the website for Infinity Publishing.

I was very excited when I discovered that the photos could be embedded into the manuscript and as long as they were, there was no charge for having photos within the book. This was absolutely awesome! The photos have to be black and white, but many books with photos have black and white photos and it's not a problem since you can place these photos in color on a website if people wish to view them in color.

The first major hump for finding a publisher was overcome at that point. However, I still needed to find out other essentials before I made my decision on whether to use this company or not.

Let me tell you, in all the searching that I had done, I had not found any company that was as thorough as Infinity. Their website was not at all confusing which was another huge plus. The best part of it all, though, was that this company had taken the time to write an e-book (free to view) that explained every aspect, in great detail, of their publishing process, prices, packages, royalty information, specifics on setting up your manuscript for them, and what was required of photos if you had photos within your book.

Their e-book did not just tell about these things, but gave specific explicit instructions on HOW to do what was needed! However, they stated, if for some reason you were unable to figure out how to do something like the table of contents in your book, do the best you could and they would take care of the rest at no extra charge.

At this point, I was pretty well sold, but still had a few things to consider. I needed to check into their publishing packages, the size of the books they print, royalty information, etc.

Before doing this, I sent an email. I needed to know since Ron, my co-author is in England and I am in Iowa, how were we to work the contract and royalties which we would split 50/50. I received an explicit response email the same day! Another chalk mark on the plus side for this company. At that point, there were no negatives I'd discovered.

As I began really reading the e-book they provided, it was apparent to me that Infinity had taken the time to really look at other companies and how they were set up, then set up their company to be completely different.

Most self-publishing companies do not print the books from their own facility, but send the orders off to be printed and filled elsewhere. Infinity does there own printing. In fact, they keep copies of your book on hand so that large and small orders can be filled immediately. Due to this, they do not charge the author the "Return Book Fee" (anywhere from $500 to $700 extra in publishing) that is so important to bookstores. The reason they do not charge this fee is because they can just store the returned books for later sales.

The royalties for publishing are also at a much higher percentage than most companies, as well as the discount price for buying your own books. Most companies give a 10% discount for buying your own books based on the retail price you have set for your book. Infinity offers 50% discount on the first order of books of 20 or more and then 40% for 20 or more thereafter. This, in itself, was amazing, but also, only requiring an order of 20 books to get the discount was refreshing. Many companies require an order of 50 or 100 to receive your discount. This plan that Infinity offers makes it much more affordable to buy your own books as you can.

You also receive 10% royalty on the books you purchase for yourself. Most companies do not offer any royalty for books you purchase. Your royalty checks are also sent out monthly from Infinity whereas other companies do this every three months.

Infinity does not overwhelm you with publishing packages either. They have specific book sizes, offer a basic package, and an Ingram package and a few other extras, but your decision making in this area is easy. There is no yearly fee to keep your books in print either. When you publish with Infinity, your books remain available and you don't pay a dime other than what you paid for your basic package to be published.

You can find their email, address and phone number in plain view on their website as well. There is nothing hidden there.

I could go on, but believe that I've probably said enough. Due to the completeness of the information Infinity gives about publishing with them, the ease of publishing with them, and the extra money we will save in the long run in comparison to the other three books I've published elsewhere, my decision to go with Infinity was a simple one.

It is obvious to me that Infinity isn't just in it for the money, but that they also have taken the time to see what will benefit the author and have offered accordingly. They do, of course, still make money which is necessary to continue to run their company, but they are not gouging the author and, to me, that was the biggest plus I could find.

Just for the record, I am not receiving any money for plugging Infinity. I was just very excited to share this company, to help others who are considering publishing to avoid the mistakes I have made over the past five years in my self-publishing decisions.