iUniverse Reviews 413

I didn't know what to expect. The book turned out to be beyond my expectations. I still can't believe I am a published author. 420 for everybody. Yeah me.

They do what they advertise but they WILL sell your information to third parties. Keep that in mind when pursuing a contract with them

After about five months, I had to finally cancel my order to iUniverse a couple of days ago. Before submitting my manuscript, they were very nice but as soon as signing the contract and submitting the manuscript, my coordinator hardly answered my emails/ voice messages. They are not organized and don't not care about you. The coordinator even avoid letting me know about the order, so that I had to call the customer service several times complaining about the situation. Unfortunately the employees are most often unavailable and nobody is responsible over there for your requests. As my final attempts, I tried to contact the manager of my coordinator but unfortunately nobody was available as usual to handle the problem. After cancellation, I finally got an email from them about the cancellation fee. "It is ridiculous". I will never recommend you iuniverse because of their bad customer service and wasting time .

The process with iUniverse was exceptional. Very organized; uses the team approach. Sometimes it was hard for me to keep up with all the different people that were helping me, it was obvious it was an efficient system. The staff are very responsive. You don't wait long before someone returns your call or email. Coordinated effort; beautiful cover design; and currently working on web design. They are responsive to my vision on what I want to see on the website. Great experience overall.

The representative that worked with me was amazing. I rated iUniverse with four stars because the communication with others could have been better. I must say that everyone was very nice but I value being heard and some people didn’t pay attention to detail which added time to the process. My project was finished early but I also came with a nearly finished project so I expected iUniverse to have very little work to do. I am happy with my final project. I published two children’s books with iUniverse simultaneously. Overall I am pleased with the production process. The books I received are beautiful. The partnership from this point remains to be experienced so I am unable to comment on sales or marketing assistance.

I recently published my 9th novel, the first with iUniverse. The customer service and care I received was excellent from start to finish. The representatives I worked with throughout the process were always ready to assist, to answer my questions, and to help in any way they could. I am working on my 10th novel. I will definitely publish this book with iUniverse.

The company is a very good company and I am proud I went with them and not any other publishing company

The quality of the printed book satisfies me. Unfortunately, a mistake was made: the copyright page states that the book was published in 2021, and on Amazon, the publication date is December 29, 2020. This is an unfortunate mistake!

Everything preproduction went great. I was extremely happy, then my book launched along with a very expensive marketing package and it went downhill fast. My book has been on sale for 2 months now and nothing that I paid for has gone live. I have no website, no scripted launch, no dates of when things will be ready, nothing. I don't have access to any of this either. I understand that there needs to be some self involved in self publishing, but getting sold the resources and not being able to use them is unacceptable. I couldn't imagine a more blundered launch. Really gives off a "take the money and run vibe"

I was very satisfied with the support and guidance I received from iUniverse and would use them again!

DO NOT EVER DO BUSINESS WITH this place can't say business because no one is professional. Their reps laugh at you when they feel you know more than what you should. No one returns calls not even the Executive director. I took my files from this company and dont you know they still published my book anyways? Yes and then had the nerve to build a website for their company page and didn't have my custom page built like I pay for them to been have done. So if somebody buy my product from them funds go straight to them and what do I get? NOTHING! Self publishing is all about you keeping 100% of your royalties with them you only get 25. LOOK CHECK THIS OUT, I asked for my money back since the site wasn't ready and I had already pulled my files and what do you know NO ONE returned my call but you better know when I called back to get my money they're telling me it's in process. They also made me pay for a design service that was already included in my package and then gone try and put a skirt on it by giving me a discount on it. This pissed me off PLEASE dont ever work with this company and I hope my influence carry enough weight to stop their place COMPLETELY!!! And tell me, what sense does it make to create a website built with their company name that you can only make 25% royalties from when you paid a pretty penny in advance for them to build you a custom site IN ADVANCE which would allow you to make 100% of royalties which is deserved?

I feel iuniverse was the best thing that ever happen to me in publishing my book. They lined up all the details and made things easy and professional. To that I say thank you so much for working with me on this project.

I have published many books with Iuniverse as you can see, but they all have taken so long!! My new book was handled by Buddy Dow and he was excellent. Very helpful on a one to one basis. Extremely satisified with his wonderful work.

Production of book and finished product was fine. However, gliches in the local ordering system lost me customers. The company was also selective in addressing my concerns and returning my emails. They seem to have problems with anything outside the parameters of their robotic system.

Christine and James were big helps. They are a credit to your company

I published my manuscript with Iuniverse. .....never again! After I paid $3600.00 and once they had money I was tossed from one so called “editor “ to another. There was no continuation of connection with same person. Each step of the way I had to explain over and over, same questions with no answers.....they only wanted more money. Phone calls rarely returned, people that I was dealing with....gone. I think some of the editors were 6th grade students!
Lee DeRoche
Author of Many Shades of Blue

IUniverse editorial services are why I publish with them. The editorial screening is most useful. Graphics and book design less important to me. They are sometimes slow in responding to questions and when the book is ready it’s more prudent to just go to print than deal with unanswered issues. But quality is very high. One other problem is trail book pricing based on page count which is not good for marketing.

This adventure was an educational experience of self-publishing. I learned cost is very important along with a plan of action that fits inside your goal for your project. This area should be discussed by IUniverse with you to allow foresight to direct your aspirations to be published and to target your market.

IUniverse has all the tools to help people accomplish their goals but like anything, it cost. Know where you're going, allow IUniverse to provide the tools, pay the cost, get published, and you do the work to be read.

The editing process is the strongest part of the experience. I was very happy with the initial content editor's suggestions for improvement. The line editing service was also fantastic. My only issue with it was that I put much effort into avoiding passive voice, only to see the passive voice placed in many sentences. I would have liked it if I had a 15 minute conversation with the line editor - just to explain the reasoning behind the editing. The cover design team did a good job, I wish there was an option for me to purchase the rights to the cover as it was very difficult for me to market my book without a high definition image of the cover. This brings me to the marketing issue which I think is the weakest part of the service. I never had a comfortable feeling with the marketing team. At times, I felt like I was on a used car lot. The price tag was very expensive even with my author learning center membership. In the end, the social media guide was very fundamental, not telling me how to do anything that I wanted to learn. I believe that I could have conducted a more effective marketing campaign on my own using the money that I gave to the marketing team. Kudos to Tiffany, Tami and Mark Frances - I hated to see him go.

Everyone i spoke to was quite lovely. However the editing process left much to be desired. I found misplaced quotation marks, simple grammatical errors. The book was beautiful when I received it however I found an error on the back cover. Which was probably my fault since I didn't catch it. I found out it would cost 300.00 to fix it. Never-ending. Next book I will hire my own editor