AuthorHouse
and iUniverse - dissecting the merger
If you watch the stock market at all,
2007 was a banner year for M&A activity - it seems every time
I turned on the radio some large corporation was being purchased
by an even larger conglomerate. Our little industry (which actually
isn't so little if you look at the volume of titles published,
printed, and sold) isn't immune. In what may be the largest transaction
ever conducted in this arm of the market, self-publishing giant
iUniverse was acquired by the self-publishing
juggernaut AuthorHouse. And, this just off the
heels of AuthorHouse being acquired by the private
equity investment firm Bertram Capital, a company with $350 million
in capital under management, back after the first of the year
(2007).
Here's what AuthorHouse
had to say in their official PR piece-
“At AuthorHouse,
we have built our brand by making service to the author our first
priority,” said Bryan Smith, president and CEO of Author
Solutions and AuthorHouse, “and iUniverse
has done a great job leveraging their traditional publishing experience
to make authors successful. By bringing the two biggest forces
in self-publishing together, we will draw on the unique strengths
of both brands and offer an even better suite of publishing services
for authors.”
Not to be outdone, Susan Driscoll
- iUniverse CEO painted a pleasant picture for
all of her iUniverse author via email-:
"Quite simply, the strengths
and the capabilities of AuthorHouse and iUniverse
complement one another, and by building on our individual strengths
we can expand the range and enhance the quality of the services
that each company offers. Under the Author Solutions umbrella,
we are dedicated to becoming the preeminent provider of publishing
services to authors."
Stepping to the forefront after some
time in the shadows, is parent company Author Solutions - the
actual publishing arm (if you will) of Bertram Capital that now
owns AuthorHouse UK, the sister company of AuthorHouse
US; Wordclay, a web-site based publisher in the Lulu model; and
Rooftop Publishing, positioning itself as a trade publisher owned
by Author Solutions, Inc. Some folks have researched a number
of titles presented by Rooftop - and many are books you can see
were initially brought to market by AuthorHouse (data collected
from Amazon.com.)
AuthorHouse & iUniverse - what's
it really mean?
I can't really say - iUniverse
had made some amazing strides in its positioning, web site presentation,
author-centric content, and even pricing. Perhaps AuthorHouse
will adopt many of the market approaches of iUniverse
- most likely not, as the measure seems to be that AuthorHouse
is the more successful endeavor. Neither company presents a particularly
successful book publishing model if an author is expecting (or
even looking for) any significant level of sales - see our AuthorHouse
publishing comparison or iUniverse
publishing comparison. iUniverse's publishing
packages range from $399 for the FastTrack to about $1,299 for
the Premier Pro program - and you can go much higher if you add
any 'custom' services. AuthorHouse service start at $698 and go
up as you add their a la carte items.
iUniverse and AuthorHouse still receive
a fair number of complaints through out the internet - but not
nearly as many as they have in the past, nor nearly as many as
some of our more 'interesting' competitors. Both companies seemed
to have solid models - albeit models built on tremendous volumes
of authors be led through the doors.
What will we see a year from now -
will there still BE an iUniverse? Or, will the big just get bigger?
A question to be answered - are there
advantages to being a tiny teensy teeny part of a huge company
- or, are personalized service and true publishing experience
a better alternative?
Compare AuthorHouse and iUniverse to
Dog Ear services -
We've tried to be objective, even
though we love Dog Ear and think we have the best thing going
- check our comparisons to AuthorHouse
and iUniverse.
We hope to hear from you soon -
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