X-Ftn-To: Maya 

mayaemmett@aol.com (Maya) wrote:
>I signed on with iUniverse about a year ago and have had nothing but
>problems with them.  These problems involved customer service (delayed
>orders, orders not received though paid for, etc.), PSA (I have had
>3), and production (book cover and book block errors).  iUniverse's
>response to these problems was to cancel my contract reverting all
>rights back to me instead of correcting errors of their own making.

I had a similar problem with them.
I joined their "SPAN partnership" program, which mean that they
provided the printing services for small publishers; I provide the
files, they print the book and distribute it on demand. Sounded good,
and the percentage was great.
The first thing was that they took 6 weeks to ship (!) the files to
Shanghai (!!!) for a quality check (?), and after that, they sent me
the final files, to see and report any errors, which I did; the colors
on the cover were completely screwed by the RGB->CYMK conversion,
which I reported. There was also an error in the book block, which I
corrected and sent them the corrected file. Also, they messed things
with the covers, did a bit of unnecessary cutting on the spine, which
I also reported, saying that if they give me the exact specifications,
I will produce another, correct file. Mind you, this was in the
process of book production, before the book was actually set up for
printing and distribution.
They didn't respond at all; however they accepted the corrected book
block, but they did nothing about the covers, and the flawed book was
produced. It took me a long while to find out; one of my friends
ordered the book from their website just to test the process, and it
took them 2 months to actually print it (and 5 days to deliver). When
I saw the book, I complained, which resulted in two things. They just
cancelled their small publishers program, and the person who was
responsible for contacting me resigned his job at iUniverse and found
himself a better company. The entire process lasted a bit less than a
year.
I then went to LightningSource, and after signing all the papers, the
book was produced in less than 2 weeks, with quality exactly as I
designed it. The title was almost immediately registered on B&N and
Amazon. The only complaints that I have against them are that they
don't print hardcovers as frequently as they do paperbacks, which
sometimes causes a couple of weeks of delay in delivery, and that the
production of a 240p hardcover costs more than 8$ - everything else is
cool.

The iUniverse seems to be a fraudulent company incapable of delivering
what they promise; they are disorganized, confused, clumsy and slow,
and I wouldn't recommend them to anybody. I have no good experiences
with them whatsoever.

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Homepage: http://www.danijel.org