BookBaby Review

 

 

In this website, I review products/programs that claim to help people make money online. I’ve reviewed close to 500 online money-making products in my several years of doing this. I can confidently say that I am knowledgeable in my skill as a reviewer because I can easily spot scams from a mile away. But of course, before I brand anything as SCAM, I dig deeper into their program, become a member if needed, to gather relevant information from the inside. Only then will I be able to make an unbiased and unclouded opinion of the program.

 

If I had to guess, I would say that you are here because you searched for “BookBaby Reviews.” Due to the nature of this website, you are probably wondering why I choose to review this program. Technically, BookBaby is also an online money-making program if you think about it. It’s an online self-publishing company that encourages authors from all over the world to submit their work. Probably the biggest reason why authors would want to publish their work is to earn money, which in a way, makes this company an online money-making platform.

 

In this review, we’re going to take a look into BookBaby. I am going to dissect its structure to help you determine if you can actually earn from it. Even if you aren’t an author, this would be a good read for you. Without further delays, here’s my full review.

 

What Exactly Is BookBaby?

 

BookBaby is an online self-publishing company that is based in Oregon. It was opened in 2011 with the primary goal to help authors, bloggers, writers, and poets an avenue to self-publish their work. The site is owned by authors, too, which makes it somehow more special because they understand the plight of being an author in this generation.

 

Another thing that caters to are on-demand optical discs for independent artists all over the world. This is great for artists that don’t have enough fund to sell their music to large companies. In a way, BookBaby is one of the best alternatives that artists can turn to when they want to elevate their professional work.

 

If you do your research, you will see that there are plenty of companies offering the same services as BookBaby. I am not going to review those similar products but I will compare this one, BookBaby, to the industry standard to give you a better idea of the standing of this company. Is BookBaby a company worth using? Read further and let’s find out.

 

 

How Do You Use BookBaby?

 

The first thing you need to do when you want to self-publish is to create your content. Make sure that your content is good enough to stand on its own. After all, you want people to buy your book. Make your edits and proofread it several times before you even think of submitting it as a book.

 

Now, the next step would be to go to their website and create an account. To have a better understanding of how BookBaby Works, you better read their FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions). This would give you the answers for the usual concerns that face its users.

 

After you’ve created your account and filled it out with useful information, like your name, email address, payment information, and other similar things, you will need to select a package — free, standard, or premium. Select the package that you can benefit from. You can determine that by reading the qualities of each of their packages.

 

Once you have selected the perfect plan for you, you can now upload your book into their system. You can use MS Word of PDF, whichever is more convenient for you.

 

How Does BookBaby Work?

 

How it works is basically just like any other self-publishing company out there. The only difference is this is online where much of the process is hidden into this digital layer than anyone can get into. It actually makes things a lot easier since everything can be done digitally.

 

BookBaby Payment Structure

 

As I’ve said, you can choose from their 3 different packages – free, standard and premium. Most of their users are on the free package. The free package includes distribution to the most popular online reading platforms like Apple iBooks, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Amazon, Scribd, and many more. You will earn 85% of the royalties after BookBaby has claimed its share (the figure isn’t explained clearly).

 

The Standard package will cost you $99. In this package, you will get all the things from their Free package and more. Your book can now be converted to other formats like ePub, PDF, text, Word, HTML, and many more. They will also provide some proofreading along with software quality check to ensure your book is readable on all kinds of devices. Customer support is also added along with other upgrades from their free packages.

 

The premium package is their crown jewel which costs $249. You are entitled to everything from their Standard package and more. The only thing that you need to do is give them a copy of your book and they will handle the file conversions, proof-reading, software quality tests, and many more. But what is more delightful is BookBaby won’t take its 15% royalty fee. All net sales will be given to you. Now, that’s quite a good deal but remember that it is NET that we’re talking about. They will still take some of their fees but otherwise, the 15% bump is a nice addition.

 

How Does BookBaby Pay?

 

If you have a US bank account, you can request a direct deposit. If not, you can choose to have your check delivered via mail or just use Paypal (the easier option for non-US users). It usually takes 45 days to see the sale of your book reflected onto your dashboard. That means that for your first 45 days of using BookBaby, you won’t see any movement on the sales. Don’t worry, that is just how their system works. They have a minimum threshold of $10. Less than that and you won’t be able to withdraw your money.

 

Honest Thoughts About BookBaby

 

• If you read reviews online, you will see a lot of complaints with this company. Most of the problems have something to do with the material side of things. For on-demand orders of physical books, many users have claimed to have issues over this matter.
• Another issue that you may soon face is their unusually long processing time. It would take up to 2 months for your work to be reflected in your dashboard. For most people, this is a long time.
• Your ISBN number isn’t free either, even if you are a premium member. You would have to pay $18 to get your number.

 

Conclusion

 

If you’re going to ask me if I would recommend this platform to my author friends, my answer would be NO.

 

I’m just being honest here. I know plenty of better alternatives.

 

There are plenty of better online publishing companies out there. Amazon has one (if you want to read my thoughts on it, feel free to click this link – CreateSpace Review), and it is way better than this, albeit the low royalty fee which only comes to 60%. For BookBaby, authors would get 85%. However, you need to take note that you have to promote your book on your own. In the past, BookBaby helped its authors to promote their books but not anymore. I’m not sure what happened but they suddenly decided to halt that marketing program altogether.

 

Overall, if you want to self-publish your book, I suggest you look for other companies. There are too many glaring problems that I simply can’t overlook. The 85% royalty fee is tempting but if your book is not going to be marketed to people, what’s the use of that high royalty? You’re better off opting for lower royalty fee but a better marketing strategy.