OnDemand Books Launches Redundant And Expensive Self-Pub Service

A small but somewhat important story was lost in the buzz of the DBW conference last week.

OnDemand Books, makers of the Espresso Book Machine, put out a press release last Wednesday (PDF) and announced that they were launching a self-pub service which would enable authors to distribute their work through OnDemand Books network of POD machines as well as through major ebookstores.

The new service is called SelfEspress, and a few minutes of research has revealed that this new service is very likely being provided by PastPencil, with OnDemand Books' only contribution being to slap their brand on it and mark up the prices.

If you check this page on the SelfEspress website with this list of publishing packages on the FastPencil website, you might notice that FastPencil's DIY 2 package matches with SelfEspress's basic package, with the only major difference being a several hundred dollar markup by SelfEspress.

Needless to say, I don't think either offering is a good value - not when an author can handle many of the bundled options themselves and deal direct with major ebookstores (for ebook distribution) and LSI or Createspace (for POD distribution).

That covers distribution, but should you want a single copy printed you can arrange it through Createspace, or you can distribute through LSI and have it printed at your local Espresso Book Machine. You can also take the files for your book to whoever owns that local EBM and have them print the book for you (most are used to walk in print orders).

P.S. This is somewhat off topic, but has anyone else considered what the launch of SelfEspress says about OnDemand Books' POD efforts? I would say that they have fizzled, but I could be wrong.

images  by Waag Society