Is iUniverse Losing It? [UPDATED YET AGAIN]

(SCROLL TO THE END FOR THE SHOCKER UPDATE.)

Writers beware.  I've been recommending the iUniverse print-on-demand (POD) publisher for going on a decade -- they've published two of our books -- and our and our friends' experiences have been uniformly good . . . until now. 

Something has changed -- whether it has to do with iUniverse's 2007 acquisition by rival AuthorHouse, thereby perhaps growing too big to provide quality service, or whether the economic downturn is sucking the company under, I don't know -- but the writer friend I most recently brought to them, a superb second novelist more than a decade older than me, has had a terrible experience.  Her book still isn't in print, and she signed her contract over a year ago.  Every stage of the process has been fraught with typesetting errors and long delays, but worst of all is that her "publishing services representative" is all but unavailable, unresponsive, and blandly unforthcoming on the rare occasions when she does surface.  It may just be damage control -- last I heard, iUniverse's design department was located in, um, Shanghai -- but it comes across as high-handed and blame-the-victim.  My friend, the paying customer, is made to feel as if she is being unreasonably demanding for asking, patiently, when she might reasonably expect to see the next stage of her book's production.  All of this could not be more different from my earlier experiences. 

Here's the heart of the problem:  the novel, part of which takes place in Prague (where the part-Jewish protagonist is investigating a family member's fate in the Holocaust), has Czech accents on many characters' names and place names.  Most of these accents were at first typeset correctly.  I had advised my friend to follow our example and wait to see whether the type font chosen by iUniverse's designers was clear and legible enough in their default 11-point type.  Some fonts are, some aren't, but when it is, the 11-point type is advantageous in keeping the book's page count and cover price down.  In my friend's case, she judged that the type was too hard to read, and she requested a change to 12-point type, a routine operation I and others I sent to iUniverse had gone through uneventfully.

Well, what happened was that most of the Czech accents went haywire in the reset, replaced by gobbledygook.  That can be fixed again easily enough with search-and-replace; much worse, the reset ran together paragraphs of dialogue in more than a dozen places.  It was as if the text had been fed through a machine without a human in the same building.

The "publishing package" my friend bought leaves it up to us to do all the editing and proofreading.  That's how we want it, and she has willingly paid extra for corrections that weren't caught in manuscript (my bad).  The typesetting, however, is iUniverse's job, and having botched it badly, they now have to correct it at their own expense.  But are they doing so?  And approximately when might it be done?  These are the questions to which there are no answers forthcoming, giving my friend that ominous feeling that she is being punished for being a troublesome client, and that after all this time, her book may be shoved to a back burner or worse.

When iUniverse started up eight years ago, print-on-demand (POD) publishing was new and cool and high-tech and didn't carry the stigma of traditional vanity publishing.  By now it does, because the glamor of the technology has worn off and the books iUniverse and its ilk publish are largely personal projects and obsessions of widely varying quality.  If it were as efficient and user-friendly as it used to be, it would still be an economical way for a serious writer who can't break through the agent/publisher wall to get books produced, distributed, and listed in the databases that matter.  It is then up to the author to find readers and notices, and the nonexclusive contract leaves an opening for a "real" publisher to take a good book over.

But if professional standards of design, typesetting, and customer service are things of the past, then iUniverse is worthless.  I may never use or recommend it again, very much depending on the outcome of my friend's project. 

UPDATE:  So my friend's re-typeset proofs have shown up, with an "O ye of little faith" flourish.

I have no idea if my arm-twisting has anything to do with it or if it was just normally in the works and on the way.  But if the latter, why couldn't they just tell her so?  Why the sadistic silence, the withholding, punish-the-anxious-paying-client behavior?

It has supposedly been in the hands of a "veteran designer," so we'll now read it again and make sure all the errors have been corrected.  If all is well, you have a gripping good read to look forward to.

UPDATE II:  Oh no.  How shocking and insulting:  this "new" proof is identical to the previous one.  NOT A SINGLE ERROR HAS BEEN CORRECTED.

I am speechless.

When I can speak again, I'm advising my friend to get a lawyer and demand her money back.  The year she can't get back.  And she's not young.  She hasn't got years to waste.

UPDATE III:  It wasn't quite the last straw, after all.  The story continues here.

Comments

[elderberrypresseditor]

I don't really get the righteous indignation aspect. IUniverse is a poor service. Fire them and hire a competent service to generate the text pdf file. Or work with one of the thousands of small custom publishers in the US. There are many folks who work with their authors, talk with their authors and care about their authors right here in the US. Hire one.

[amba]

Fire them, after investing a large amount of time and money in getting it right, which cannot be retrieved?

The righteous indignation is mostly a way of bestowing consequences on a poor service and giving it notice to shape up, otherwise warning others away from it. At this point it's a poor service that is actively courting and soliciting customers and then mistreating them.

I do think that it's a dead giveaway when the only "contact us" feature a company has is its sales arm.

Do you have a press, or a directory, to recommend?

[Rhoda Maxwell]

Try Publishers Graphics. Very reliable and not costly. Easy to work with and helpful.

[amba]

Thank you!

[C. White]

I used iUniverse to publish my book a year ago. I didn't have any technical problems, and my Publishing Consultant was responsive to my emails. But it was very clear to me that this is a business that is in the business of making money through POD publishing. They are in control of the entire process. The deadlines they set for the author put me in the position of feeling like I needed to purchase their additional services. In other words, I felt pressured when, in fact, I hired a company to provide a service. If I publish again, I might as well save some money and hire a printer.

[amba]

Yes. They're also very focused on signing people up, much less so on having the wherewithal to give all those people good service and get them to return. I think they're measuring their success right now in purely bottom-line terms, and as long as they can keep attracting fresh blood, it doesn't matter if they lose repeat customers. That's why it seems important to me to spread the word -- to hold their feet to the fire, or if that doesn't work, warn writers to go another route.

[Charles Muller]

I agree totally with the opinions expressed above. iUniverse used to be a user-friendly POD publisher that gave efficient, prompt and personalized service, with a good-quality product. I had well over 150 books published through them over the last seven years before the take-over by Author Solutions. Since then emails are generally ignored and books have taken months, if ever, to appear. I cancelled two accounts on behalf of authors and asked for the fees to be refunded - the accounts were closed and the refunds never appeared, and my follow-up emails ignored. How iUniverse manages to survive now in today's credit-crunch atmosphere is beyond me. Which is why I have abandoned the service offered by iUniverse and now publish under my own imprint of Diadem Books. However, if you are seeking an inexpensive, efficient and reliable POD publhser, have a look at Spiderwize.com

[amba]

Thank you for the recommendation. I'll check out Spiderwize, but will come see what you're up to at Diadem first!

[Oscar Bamuhigire]

I am having a lot of problems with iuniverse and its poor services. Dealing with iuniverse is, like you said, very frustrating. I have one big problem after another in my dealings with them. When I thought all my troubles were over, I was shocked to receive two test copies, which had terrible book covers. I have never seen a book with such a bad cover. The colors were all mixed up, and the text, plus cover photo were misplaced! I would have expected this kind of thing to happen in the third world, but to be honest, books published in Uganda and Bangladesh are pf a much higher quality!

The worst part of dealing with iuniverse is that they are rude and unprofessional. I have written to the vice president, CEO, and many consultants about the poor covers of my books, and they have all ignored me. I have even written to the CEO/ Vice presidents of authorssolution, and authors house, but they are all silent about the issue.

And as if that were not bad enough, the only guy who had the courage to reply said that this was the first time they had ever had a problem like this!!!

It is obvious that what iuniverse writes on its website, is miles apart from what it actually offers. I would not advise any writer to risk invest his money in iuniverse. I wonder why no one had sued it yet! As a matter of fact, each of us who has had serious problems with iuniverse should not blame anyone for our suffering, because by choosing not to take any legal action against them, we are reinforcing their unprofessional behavior. So, I suggest, lets get together and take some serious legal action, seeking for compensatory and punitive damages.

Oscar Bamuhigire
E mail: obamuhigire@yahoo

[sheka]

Greetings All,

WOW!!! I am so tripped out. Reading this blog has put a knot in my belly the size of a soccer ball. I am in the process of having my book published through Author House.

I can only hope that I will have better results. I am mindful of the other suggestions and companies mentioned, though.

Writing is such a rewarding practice, it is such a shame that those affected negatively have had to go through what you have. I encourage you all to continue to speak out and stand up. Surely, if my book isn't what I have envisioned, you can add me to your list of soldiers for the down fall of Authorhouse!

[W.Addison Gast]

Was Xlibris purchased by Authorhouse???? I had two books printed there only because of a bargan ( I thought) "two-fer-one" deal. They stack the deck on sales of your book by the $29.00 and $19.00 retail price they hang on your work.The other pitfall is, Xlibris does not print paperbacks in the smaller "airport" size where 63% of the market is.

[creativethings]

I recently did everything on my book, and the typesetting on a mac, and used ipages. Converted it to a PDF. (lots of great samples out there that you can play around with and change)
I had it professionally edited for grammer etc, four friends read it found typos, and a kid, and still after I got back the first proof found small typos, little things that one only reads on paper.
Three proofs later, for only ($3.71 plus shipping on www.createspace.com, it's damn near perfect and going to print. Do it yourself and take your time, seeing it as a book helped via reading it on a computer. Create a buzz on line and then take it to the next level. A good book doesn't die, just the effort to get it out there.

[Oscar Bamuhigire]

I had my book pubished by iUniverse more than a year ago, but I have never received my royalties. They keep telling me that they have sent my check, when in reality they haven't! I really think they are a scam!!!

[M Kienholz]

I have had the following published by iUniverse: Strange Medicine (I liked the cover and was satisfied with the typesetting); Opium Traders and Their Worlds (long, difficult project, in which I had to split the text into two volumes, but otherwise, fine work); Adventures in Poetry (Excellent job). I don't like the constant pressure to buy expensive promos and fair exhibits, etc., and when I paid on March 9 this year to put Opium Traders on Kindle, only volume one has appeared on Kindle. I have attempted to get action to put volume two on, since I paid for it four months ago ... wish me luck. I also wonder if my royalties are being retained, as my books show up for sale by "second hand" stores and I haven't sold that many books, etc.
M. Kienholz

[Snafu the Elder]

iUniverse came on like roses and over time turned into a gollum creature-greedy, deceitful, full of empty promises. Writer beware! Stay away from iUniverse and find a publisher with a sterling reputation.