Xulon Press Review

Xulon Press is one of our publishing competitors from the Christian market. In many ways, they are the grand old company of Christian self-publishers and Christian self publishing companies. A strong player at the more expensive end of the Christian self-publishing industry, Xulon Press publishing packages range from $1,699 to $4,999.

How does Xulon Press compare to Dog Ear Publishing?

Xulon Press is one of our publishing competitors from the Christian market. In many ways, they are the grand old company of Christian self-publishers and Christian self publishing companies.

You’ll begin to sense a common theme in all of our competitive reviews, but read on. If you dig deep enough, you'll see that self-publishing companies are only the same in the fact that we all use almost the exact same technologies to print books.

On to our discussion of the Christian self publishing company Xulon Press.

We’re using the same specs for each self publishing company competitive review. Information and self publishing costs are derived from the Xulon Press web site and contract.

• 6X9 trim size, 150 pages, one color interior, 4 color cover, 5 interior images
• Paperback or hardcover
• ISBN and bar code included, Library of Congress Control number
• Custom cover and interior - not just choices from existing templates
• PDF or laser proofs delivered to author,
• Available through the Google Booksearch Program
• Available as a Google Editions eBook.
• Available at Amazon and most major online retailers
• Available through major distributors like Ingram and Baker and Taylor
• Available for order at over 25,000 retail bookstores.
• Available through the Espresso Book Machine
• Author wanting to purchase 100 additional paperback units

(Our total cost for this package and options is $1,527, our per unit book printing price is $4.28, and you get 5 free author copies of your book.)

Xulon Press

Xulon Press - recently released a new self publishing guide and removed older information that was well outdated. We continue to review the Xulon Press contract.

A strong player at the more-expensive end of the Christian self-publishing industry,Xulon Press publishing packages range from $1,699 to $4,999.

For $1699 you can purchase Xulon’s package named the “Premium”. We have chosen this $1699 Xulon package as the basis for our comparison to follow. It is very similar to our entry-level package the Basic here at Dog Ear Publishing.

Xulon Press determines the book’s retail price based on the book’s page count. For a 150 page paperback book, the prescribed retail price according to their black and white pricing chart is $13.99. Xulon Press offers all of the standard trim sizes available.

• Standard Paperback Publishing - $1699
• Custom Cover and Interior – Included
• Library of Congress Control Number - Included
• Interior Images - Included
• UK Distribution - Included
• Proofs - NA (not applicable - digital proofs are free)
  Espresso Book Machine Availability - $99
• Printing Services - $8.39 / unit X 100 units = $839 (printing this book at Dog Ear is only $4.28 per unit - if you only wanted 1 to 49 books at Xulon Press, the cost jumps to $9.09 per unit)

Total Expenditure - Xulon Press: $2,637($1,100+ MORE EXPENSIVE THAN DOG EAR)

Book Design and Production

Dog Ear builds a unique design for both the cover and interior for every book. The design is custom (literally from the ground up) for each and every book - no 'templates' are ever used. Dog Ear provides a Design Sample using your manuscript and allows you complete freedom to revise what our team has built. New information on the Xulon site implies that they too offer custom designs for books’ interiors and front covers.

At Dog Ear Publishing, our books are designed and built by professionals with long histories and lots of experience from the traditional publishing industry. Your book is being built by the same staff that created books for Harper Collins, Prentice Hall, Simon & Schuster, Wiley, Penguin and many others of the world’s most successful publishers.

Book Printing Prices (author copies)

Xulon Press charges a significant amount more than Dog Ear to print author copies - as noted above (using Xulon's required $13.99 retail price point):

Xulon Press will require a 'minimum' retail price for your book. The book in our example would require AT LEAST a $13.99 retail price. This is calculated by multiplying the single per unit author purchase price by 2.1. Is $13.99 a reasonable retail price for a 150 page paperback? We’re not sure. Using the same multiplier at Dog Ear Publishing your retail would be only $8.98 (which, by the way is too low in our opinion, but you could easily do it if you wanted and at Dog Ear you have that option).

Author Profit

Author profit is also a great weakness of the Xulon Press programs. At Dog Ear Publishing, when you purchase your own books, they’re nearly $5 LESS EXPENSIVE per unit, with that money staying in your pocket.

Your author profit when selling through Xulon Press distribution - even using their required retail price -

Xulon Press Author Profit: $2.39

Your per unit author profit from each sale is over $1.70 MORE for each book with Dog Ear.

Dog Ear Author Profit: $4.11

Imagine what these numbers do to your profit over the life of your book. It would be extremely challenging to recover any profit from your book.