Hillcrest Media Group

Bookprinting.com

A recent story in a local paper mentioned that an author had paid $30,000 to have a thousand copies of her self-published book printed. Curious, I did a bit of Googling and found this publisher, which is part of Hillcrest Media.

Their prices are, uh, pricey: $299 for a custom Facebook Page, $499 for a FB advertising campaign, $1199 for a book trailer, $399 for "a custom-designed Twitter page themed around your book cover," and book covers starting at $600. For interior formatting as well as printing, you have to "get a quote."

Book distribution costs $1498:

The distribution at BookPrinting.com is done through an industry-known book distributor. Our Expanded Distribution program involves our distributor sending copies of your book and its marketing materials to buyers at major book resellers, such as Barnes & Noble, Ingram, and Baker & Taylor. Plus, books are sold to—and stocked directly with—Amazon.com and BN.com. Because this is traditional book distribution, you must have at least 75 copies of your book in our distributor’s warehouse before we can begin distribution.

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The distributor doesn't have a name? Who pays for those 75 copies?

The biggest advantage to Expanded Distribution is that your book gets an audience with a book buyer. This means that your book will have a greater opportunity to be purchased by a retailer or wholesaler. The kind of exposure you will receive through this program is significantly more than if you were part of a print-on-demand distribution, or if you arranged your distribution independently.

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Arrggh! Too many red flags flapping. And, despite their name, they're apparently not the printer. From the faq page:

Are you the printer?
No, we are not a printer. We are a company who is tired of seeing individuals charged more than large companies. Because of our connections, we are able to send your work to high-quality offset and digital printers who normally would not work with individual authors. This way we can offer our clients amazing quality at shockingly low prices.

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PVish said:

... an author had paid $30,000 to have a thousand copies of her self-published book printed.

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Yikes! That's 30 bucks a copy. What's she gonna sell 'em for?

$39.95

$40.00 for a book by someone that I'll bet no-one but her family has ever heard of? If it contains the secrets of the universe, it might be worth it, but, at that price, I suspect that those secrets will remain secret a while longer.
They charged her $30.00 a book. Have these gougers no... silly question, sorry.

No, they have no shame, that's why they are in this business.

It may be counter to the spirit of Christmas and the mission of AW, but I have no pity for the woman. Do no research, get taken, rinse, and repeat. She's a good bad example, at least.

I'd like to see the 'quality' of the books this company boasts about, but they are chary about linking to more than an online image bank. I work with companies that produce livres d'artistes fine-bound books that sell for several hundred dollars a copy. I know 'amazing quality', and I suspect these folks aren't anywhere in that range.