Here's a brief overview of Author Solutions's various self-publishing entities and services.
- AuthorHouse which claims to be the largest self-publisher with over 40,000 authors, and uses the term "AuthorCentric" to describe its approach and its process. Packages include those especially for poetry and children's and full-color books.
- Inkubook allows photobook and scrapbook creation for vacations, milestones, etc. It has tools for creating cookbooks and for books-as-fundraisers.
- iUniverse uses the term "supported self-publishing" to describe its self-publishing services. Self-publishing packages in a broad range of prices and optional add-ons -- covering everything from book editing to book tours to turning your book into a screenplay -- are available to authors.
- Palibrio was launched in June 2010 to provide self-publishing services to the Spanish-speaking marketplace, along with book marketing and bookselling.
- Trafford was originally the largest Canadian self-publishing company, based in Victoria. Today, it offers fairly standard self-publishing services, and promotes features such as its Apple app that makes books compatible with devices such as iPad and iPhone.
- Wordclay calls itself a "DIY" (do-it-yourself) self-publisher. Author Solutions launched the service in January 2008 to compete with free, web-based self-publishing companies, like Amazon.com's CreateSpace. It claims to be "by far the easiest, fastest and most dynamic publishing experience" and its "Genre Lounge" tips to its author base, offering help in the self-publishing categories of poetry, Christian, short story collections, and memoir and autobiographies.
- XLibris self-publishing company was acquired by Author Solutions in 2009. While its services seem largely undifferentiated from its sister companies, it offers leatherbound editions for its print-on-demand titles--a unique, appealing feature for self-published books that are keepsakes--and promotes an installment plan to spread out the cost of publishing your book.
In addition to the self-publishing companies above, Author Solutions partners with traditional publishers to create proprietary self-publishing divisions that strategically foster the respective brands and capitalize on their loyal genre markets. For example, Writer's Digest's Abbott Press is "devoted to helping writers improve their work and realize their dreams of getting published," while Balboa Press within Hay House enables self-publishing authors to publish into the self-help market. WestBow Press, the self-publishing arm of the Christian publisher Thomas Nelson, was created "to help more authors realize their dream of being a published author while discovering more diamonds in the rough to add to [their] roster."
In 2010, Author Solutions launched Author Hive, a book marketing services division for authors, both self-published and traditionally published.
If you've self-published your own book, feel free to submit a review of one of the Authors Solutions self-publishing service or any other DIY publishing service. Or read reviews of other authors' self-publishing experiences or about Amanda Hocking's paranormal self-publishing success story.
