My Experience With Xlibris Publishing

This was the review I left on Yelp for Xlibris on 7/10/2017. The years following my signing on with Xlibris, lots of people started leaving bad reviews. I have had a few people email me about my review to get more details before they signed on with them. Here is my review.

I signed on with Xlibris 2.5 years ago (in 2014). I paid them $3,200 to publish the SECOND edition of my book. When I first spoke to them in the beginning, one of their promises was that my 2nd edition could be 8.5"x11" just like my first edition. The sales rep had my 1st edition on his computer so he could see the dimensions, the publisher info, the book title, the book's topic, and how many pages it was. They called me about twice a month for the 2.5 years I was with them asking for my manuscript.

Jump ahead 2.5 years and I am ready to publish my book. I called them and found out that my book had to be 6"x9" and couldn't be the same size as my 1st edition. I went ahead and accepted it and moved on even though that was not what was promised to me. I asked my rep for the timeline of printing. You see, my book is about Disneyland and I had a booth at the bi-yearly D23 Expo that is put on by the Disney Company in Anaheim. There was a specific deadline I needed to meet for me to receive my copies in time. After he told me the review time, print time, delivery time, time for me to approve the author's copy, print the 300 copies I needed, and delivery for those. I needed to have my document to them by June 9th. I pressed all night on the 8th and stayed up all night to finalize everything and had to go back to work in the morning without even going to bed. I was exhausted. I had worked so hard on it over the previous 6 months to get it finished. A few days in, the emails started. You can't use that title for your book, you can't have these photos in it, you can't have these lyrics, you can't use these quotes, you can't use these forewords or photos or testimonials without written consent, you can't use these bullets, and you need permission from Disney to write an unofficial guide. I went ahead and changed everything they said. I took out photos, I rewrote chapters, I got permission emails from everyone, I changed the title of my book, and I spent two hours changing all my bullets. I kept asking my rep to let me speak with the review team so I can talk to them about the changes they wanted. Now we are at June 21st. Two weeks have been wasted. I made all the changes they wanted and then in my last email they said I still needed permission from Disney to write an unofficial guide. OMG!!!! It's UNOFFICIAL because I don't have permission. If I had permission, then it would be official. I ended up calling my rep's supervisor and discussed things. I told her all the changes I had done to fit what they needed, I resized my whole book even though the sales rep said it could be that size, and even changed the title of my book even though they knew the title and what the book was about for 2.5 years. I said it wasn't right to make promises and not be able to fulfill the duties they were supposed to do. She then told me that there wouldn't even be time for them to print them all for my event on July 10th. It takes 2 weeks for printing, even though my rep told me 2-5 business days. I told her she needed to set him straight. She said they don't even review anything about my book until I send in my manuscript. I told her that was never told to me or else I would have sent in what I had already done months before to start the approval process. I told her she left me no choice, I was going to have to let them go and hire someone else. They sent me my money back, minus $330 for the stuff that they did do. I ended up hiring Synergy Book Publishing THAT DAY and they printed my book as is and shipped 1,500 copies to me in time for my event. They will be arriving on two pallets in two days. They are also half the price. Xlibris was going to charge me $10.80 per copy that I bought, and Synergy is charging me $4.66 per copy.

I have two more books coming out in the next two years and I also need a publisher for my client as I am the PR manager for Tinker Bell (the aerialist who flew across the castle during the fireworks, Gina Rock), and we will not be using this company. Stay away from Xlibris it was a nightmare and very stressful. I am a carefree kind of guy and never get angry. This bothered the heck outta me and made me mad.