iUniverseReviews of iuniverse.com

No timeline provided for marketing packages and my expectation was that it would be in work as soon as I paid. 4 months later there is no information, no marketing materials and no one will take my calls or respond by email

The copy editing was of marginal quality. The editorial review was a surface look which made it useless. The advertising campaigns were oversold and under performing. The website does not provide me any control except a blog it takes weeks of repeated requests to get a review paced on it. In short, I wasted several thousand dollars that I cannot afford.

The follow up after my book was published was pitiful. When I expressed my frustrations about my issues, I was dropped like a bomb. Definitely a wasted investment!

Where do I even begin? We had a simple, well-edited manuscript of less than 200 pages. We needed very little editing, graphics, etc. Having co-authored a leading textbook for the past 30 years, I was not a stranger to writing or publishing. After clearly stating our needs and asking every question we could think of, my co-author and I paid for the biggest package recommended to satisfy those needs. From the very first after that, iU seemed to be on a mission to upsell us on things they seemed to actually be in the business for. Between constantly thinking we’d already paid for things they were now trying to upsell us to, to each step in the process being so siloed that the left hand didn’t seem to have any earthly idea what the right hand was doing, we were totally, totally frustrated with them and their process. Things were dragged on and on, simple mistakes were made time after time after time, further dragging out the process, we had to constantly Re-do things like requests for information that had already been done, deadlines were missed repeatedly, we ended up doing work on our own that should have been done by iU such as finding the font needed for our cover totally on our own, and there were just flat-out breaches of contract. We not only contracted to have an audiobook, but paid extra to have it expedited for release with our book. Our book was posted on Amazon on 11/1/22, totally without the audiobook, then on 12/13/22, after still hearing NOTHING about our audiobook, we called and were told it would take seven months. Do you believe it?! Aaaaaaagh!!!!! This is aside from things like discovering that even tho customers have the virtues of print-on-demand publishing extolled to them, it is only later that you’re told that many bookstores will not carry books done this way or that POD printers are all over the world, so the quality and appearance of your book may vary greatly and be unsatisfactory and take weeks and weeks to be delivered. And, of course, the upsell solution is to place an order for Digital Short Run books instead, requiring you to buy zillions of books and have them warehoused for quick access upon ordering. To the tune of about another $4000. Or expecting that your “worldwide marketing” you bought involves something other than them throwing up a few ads on the web. Only to learn there is a difference between “advertising” and “PR.” The upsell, of course, is a $12,000 PR package that actually attempts to market your book. We came to IUniverse after looking into several other self-publishing companies, mainly because we found it as a recommendation on Oprah’s publishing imprint page since they were not accepting manuscripts at the time. We feel obligated to let her folks what our experience with IUniverse has been because she would never want to recommend such a shoddy organization. At every turn we have tried to remain positive and upbeat for what we understood to be a major accomplishment: writing the first book in a series and having it published. It is also simply the way we go through the world. We understand that things happen and nothing is perfect. But IUniverse tested this over and over and over and over. Our experience has been WAY beyond merely “things happen.” We are now WELL into “Why are these people even holding themselves out to be in this business?” What should have been one of the happiest events in our lives is now indelibly colored with our experience of paying tons of money (about $30,000) and having this be a huge, long, unsatisfactory, sad experience. It should not be this way. If this is my experience as a lawyer and someone who has been involved in publishing for 40 years, both with my own textbooks and others, can you imagine what it’s like for just the average person who wants to publish a book? It should not be this way. We plan to do all we can to protect the public from having our experience moving forward. Not because we are mean, vindictive or hate IUniverse, as we are none of those, but simply because it is the right thing to do.

Process was very frustrating. The sales people were great - very enthusiastic, encouraging, knowledgeable and professional. But, the company personnel who actually did the work were arrogant and under qualified. I paid for support in areas of my weakness, and what I received was poor quality work. I felt helpless throughout this process. When I pushed for answers, they stopped responding. Recently, I requested a refund for an overpayment of almost a thousand dollars. Customer service keep sending me to the marketing manager who is not responsive. The personnel that worked with me, all along the way, made getting my book published more difficult than it had to be. I felt like they worked against me rather than with me. For example, the images that were created for me. When I gave feedback, it appeared that I communicated with a different person each time. For months I struggled, as my frustrations mounted, with what appeared to be resistance or lack of comprehension to my vision for the images. The team lead became argumentative. At that point, I accepted the rendering. Although, one in particular was not completed satisfactory. I just wanted to move the process along. This was the type problems that I experienced all along the way. I spent a lot more money to correct things in the book that the professionals were paid to help prevent. A very tough and expensive lesson for a first time author. This could have been a much better experience for all if quality was the driver instead of profits. Date of experience: May 2022 - November 8, 2022. These dates are given because of the still not resolved overpayment, mentioned earlier.

I found out after the fact that other self publishing companies have much better royalties with package prices about the same. This was very disappointing news. I feel as if I will have to sell thousands of books to see any real monetary gain

I published my book through iUniverse in January of 2022 after an extremely long and frustrating process. A lack of communication between different company functions caused lengthy delays, mistakes, and dropped balls. Several services I purchased have still not been delivered after six months. The web site development I purchased is still incomplete, placing the social media marketing campaign I purchased on hold. One of the “marketing consultants” I dealt with had been more interested in aggressively selling more services than solving problems. The only positive aspect of the entire experience has been the quality of the editing packages I commissioned. But I’m still waiting for the unfulfilled promises and deliverables.

I corrected all the mistakes I was presented with, but there are so many more mistakes in the final printing of book, that were not presented to me.