Aventine Press is one of the few companies that does not overcharge for their books.

Aventine Press is a good company with a great reputation. Its basic publishing package is $399.00. This does not include the book cover, which is $175.00 for a cover based on a template, or $295.00 for a custom cover. If you need everything, their lowest price is $574.00.

Their basic package includes:

• Your choice of styles from their Interior Templates
• International Standard Book Number (ISBN)
• Inclusion of author photo and cover photos
• Inclusion of author biography
• Electronic proofs
• UPC bar-code
• Indexing, up to 25 keywords free. (On request)
• Two free trade paperback copies of your book
• Listing of your book with online booksellers
• Your completed book (final proof) plus cover art on CD
• Quarterly royalty payments and accounting
• Submission to Ingram's Ipage Registration and Database Listing

The basic package is not overpriced, and the cover designs are reasonable. NOTE: You really can save money with the do it yourself approach. You can also save money by looking on the Internet for lower prices for each service you require, and then use CreateSpace.

Their add-on fees are not so reasonable:

Interior Images: $5.00/per image

Image Scanning: $7.00/per image

Alteration Fee: $50.00/per hour, $75.00/per hour for web

If your book has more than a few pictures, it may become too expensive.

The company charges authors $.015 per page, $.90 for the cover, and a 10 percent service charge for printing their books. This is a great price. One of the best in the industry.

However, there are two problems:

One, Aventine Press sets the price, and two, in my opinion, they set them a little low, especially for a "How To" on a really hot topic.

Their retail prices:

Two, they don’t have a short discount. The company says they will price your book right and attract booksellers with generous discounts up to 55% off the cover price. And, they say this as if they were doing you a favor.

The problem is that bookstores don’t like self-published books. They don’t like new authors. The don’t like unknown authors. So, why pander to them? The industry will except as little as 20 to 25 percent for POD books. That’s 30 to 35 percent of the profit that you are missing out on.

Aventine Press should offer a short discount. Bookstores will not carry your book with a short discount, but they will special order it when a customer asks. That’s as much as a self-published author can hope for.

That said, would I recommend Aventine Press? Absolutely! You will make little more than you would make with a traditional publishing company, but you will be dealing with a straight forward company.

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