Balboa Press Reviews 

I would not recommend publishing your book through Balboa Press.

My experience with them has now lasted nearly a year and has cost over $10,000. If I knew then what I know now, I would not have made the same decision.

Communication has been one of the biggest challenges. It is very difficult to reach anyone by phone, and most communication happens through email with long delays between responses. When issues arise, you are often directed from one person or department to another, which makes resolving problems slow and frustrating.

I also paid an additional fee for custom cover design. Unfortunately, the design work I received was far below what I expected for a professional publishing service. The revision process was difficult, and I often felt that my concerns about the design quality were dismissed rather than addressed constructively.

During the editing process—which I paid $1,500 for—their editors introduced a typo into the manuscript. Unfortunately, I did not catch the error during the final proof review. I had assumed that after paying for professional editing, errors introduced during editing would be corrected if discovered later.

When I contacted them to fix the mistake after the book had already been printed and promoted, I was told that I would need to pay $350 to correct the error, even though it was introduced during their editing process.

Over the course of this year, I have submitted multiple requests to customer service through email and the contact forms on their website asking for assistance with various issues. Unfortunately, the support has been minimal and slow.

Publishing a book is an important milestone for many authors. Based on my experience, I would encourage anyone considering working with this company to do extensive research and fully understand the process before making the investment.

Bad experience. They took thousands from me. About $3k aud plus and they print your book. But then no sales. They offer you a service that you can actually do yourself. It's quite a scam really.

Balboa Press had been hounding me for years after my first inquiry.
They eventually offered a very heavily discounted price to publish my book. This was a bait.
Unfortunately I engaged with them. They are misleading and deceptive in there behaviour is my experiance.
I stopped the engagement / first payment on the first day. They do not disclose other cost necessary to successfully publish. Its a trap IMO.
I have had to write a letter of demand and the engage my Lawyer just to get refunded for my initial payment.
I strongly recommend ``not`` to do any business with Balboa Press.

Balboa’s marketing service is of very poor quality. I submitted my materials three months ago, and even after chasing them with numerous emails, they were still asking for my documents. All the marketing services were delayed, and communication was extremely poor. Then they produced and released horrible images for a social media campaign without consulting me first. All the money I invested feels completely wasted.

Run as fast as you can. I spent money on a quick publishing and did not sign up for marketing so now i am out of the money i paid for the orginal promise package and no book at all..

Balboa Publishing a division of Hay House. Don't! Just don't. If you're like me you worked hard to pour everything into your book and now you want to publish it. They took my money in advance and called it subscription so it would be harder for me to get it back. Then they did nothing for six months. They didn't even give me an orientation. Since they had me captive they took full advantage of it by charging e $5,000 for editing 250 pages and would have charged me $12,500 for a voice actor and 11 hours of voice. If you've ever looked up prices you can tell that these are outrageous. But what go the was the utter lack of value they provided. No artistic creativity. No instruction of what they needed from me or what the process is. No communication with anyone where the wait was not 48 hours.

Don't waste your time here. And if Hay House is associated with Balboa I would view them with a suspicious eye. I told hay House of my issues and they stood by Balboa. I've gotten $4,000 out of $15,000 so far by working with my CC company. I'm not letting them get away with taking advantage of me. And they likely take advantage of all their clients as I note a preponderance of negative reviews.

I chose Balboa after looking at many Self Publishing options. I started working with Balboa 14 months ago when I published my first book. Since then we have published 4 books together, and are working on a few more!
The guidance I receive from the Publishing Agents help me produce beautiful books that I am so proud of!
Another positive is the price. Self publishing can be pricey, and I found Balboa to be a great value! I have recommended them to others who are on the path to publishing as they are not only great at what they do, they are flexible and kind.

Do not go near them! They are riding on the shirt tales of Louise Hay who started HayHouse with such good intentions. Now if you want to be a Hayhouse author you have to go through Balboa - and they are unbeleivably innefficient, slow to act and quick to upsell and I wish I had never gone near them - dont make the same mistake as me. Another publishing company needs to take over if Hayhouse wants to keep their good reputation. Self publishing is so much easier now and you would think they would be working harder for you to give you the incentive to pay them. Also remember people who want to be Hayhouse Authors are genuine spiritual caring people - and they tend not to complain, yet look at the reviews here! Balboa do not care about you or your book, they want your money. They are not people who Louise Hay would choose. They have ruined what was a good thing. They even charge for reviews and then give bad sloppy chaotic and not well thought, our objective ones!

They are Scammers. They take your money and steal your book and then disappear. They will never send you the royalties/sales from the copies of your book!!!

At first, everything seemed professional — lots of friendly calls, special offers, and the credibility of being linked to Hay House. But once I paid, the tone changed. The support became minimal, everything useful (like editing or proofreading) cost extra, and I never knew who I was actually working with. No transparency, no real guidance, just a menu of overpriced services.

I canceled — and lost a significant amount of money due to contract terms I hadn’t fully understood. A hard and expensive lesson.

Balboa Press might work for some, but if you're looking for real support, editorial quality, and transparency would recommend to look elsewhere.

If only I could give no stars. This has been the very worst experience with Balboa Press. They are only out for money in my experience. They are verbally abusive gaslight to make money. They made mistakes and charged me for their mistakes denying it was their fault. My book came to a halt due to them.
They won’t refund my money even for marketing which never happened because they won’t finish my book because I won’t pay more. Don’t work with them at all!
I was refunded 100% of the marketing fee and only 25% of the production fee which wherein lied the problem.so in the end I paid for a book that was never properly published.

Honesty would be a great place to start? If a book sells nothing in 3 months why would extra money help????? Why would they praise it if it isn't selling? Why would more than a thousand people praise it on Instagram????????
I have never come across a more dishonest company in my life. The problem is that the book was a true story and aimed to help wildlife around the world. Now that will not happen. THEY DRAINED MY MONEY AND TOLD ME IT NEVER SOLD ONE BOOK IN THE FIRST 3 MONTHS? i FIND THAT VERY QUESTIONABLE AND DOES NOT FIT WITH THE STRANGERS THAT CONTACTED ME TO SAY THEY LOVED IT.
i am a first time author who has been ripped off by this company
Mike Bunce

I have been working with a lovely lady named Ann Minoza at Balboa Press, and I can't sing her praises enough. In a process that can be overwhelming, she has gone out of her way to make my publishing experience easy and enjoyable, and I am so appreciative. I will be a repeat customer for a long time to come!

Balboa Press / Hay House has made joining their company really easy. John, my Publishing Consultant was friendly and walked me through the process. I felt confident in making the decision to self-publish and John and the process really supported me in my decision. I feel like I am on my way.

Warning Australian and international writers!!!! Do not do what I did!!!! I have reviewed three times during the journey. I have spent well over $10,000 AU dollars with Balboa. Believing their promises. The chronic upselling pressure was horrendous. My book is out there in the world, on Balboa and in all online shops!!!!! Google it - take a look. I have only ever received $106. So unless you buy direct from my own author site Hazel Rose .com.au - I will not see any royalties. (Spirit Being Human- Discovering resilience after trauma, 2023). In hindsight I would never have believed the bullshit about the required marketing, book fairs etc! I would have kept my money and gone with an Australian self publishing company. I still get calls today from ‘many other publishing companies’ - whom I believe is Balboa and Author Solutions phishing. It’s always the same voice on the phone- avoid any calls from numbers starting with +1 (888) 9941168. Now I am forced to order my own books through Balboa to sell them privately. I will eventually seek a literary lawyer and republish my first book, along with the next 6. HANG UP the phone when they call.

RE: Response from Balboa below...>>>>if you really cared and are sorry about me as a client, you would pay me back every cent I have paid for marketing -because your marketing promises never happened. If they did happen> show me photo's of sellers selling hard copies at stands, statistics of sales, are you trying to say nobody has bought any copies? anywhere in the world? I find that very hard to believe!! The exchange rate between Australia and US, is that to blame for my lack of sales? Are my bank details wrong? Wheres the money Balboa? Amazon is selling my book for $42 when the retail Balboa suggested is $25.95AU- where is the money? Its my life and story nobody else's!!!!!!!!! COME CLEAN with your customers and show them the loyalty and respect they deserve. PLEASE SEND ME AN EMAIL and include the money trail- and explain where it has gone.

Many of the positive reviews are in reference to the book publication process. My experience was, likewise, very positive. My poor rating, however, has to do with Balboa's marketing. Their objective is to sell their author's overpriced campaigns with no real guidance on how best to market their book. For example, given the subject, how to best develop a personalized campaign for your book? What would be the preferred format and marketing focus? Is your book best suited for e-book, audio, best social media platform? Do not expect true marketing guidance! After paying for the "campaigns" no statistical analysis is provided on the effectiveness of the campaign...yours of even in general. So, the bottom line is, Balboa's marketing focus is to upsell services not to help truly market your book. You are on your own!

I published a book through Balboa Press, and it has been a nightmare. I got the book published and it did cost quite a lot, and they also promised a lot.

There has been little done, and it has now been 12 months since the publishing of the book. I am still waiting on my review which was paid for in the costs. Also they said that they only pay by check and funnily enough checks are now not being accepted by banks. I did discuss this with them and they said that they were looking into it. I asked them why they couldn't do a bank transfer which is how a gave them my payments.

I have not received any royalty payments for any sales because of this, and it has now been over 12 months and I will not do any marketing of my book until they rectify the way they pay me, or for that matter all of their Authors.

I would suggest to anyone thinking about publishing a book through Balboa to not go ahead with it if you want to get it done professionally and get your royalty payments.

My belief is that they are just one big scam company who just prey on unsuspecting authors. DO NOT USE BALBOA!!!

This happened a few years ago. Basically, I lost $500. Balboa contacted me offering to publish my book. I signed up and paid for the first tier contract. Then I was hard sold to sign up for the next level comprising more advertising, promotion etc. When I informed them I didn’t have the money at that time, I was offered a pyament plan, different to the standard payment plan and over a longer period. Balboa refused to honour this payment plan and I could not contact the person who had offered it to me. I had to cancel the contract as I could not afford the payments. It cost me $200. Naturally, I was unsatisfied with the outcome and cancelled the first contract as well, @ $200, fair enough, but then I was slugged another $100 unstipulated fee. Of the $1100 I paid I lost $500 with absolutely nothing to show for it except frustration. As they were based in the phillipines, I had no redress through Australian law to get my money back.

I am a well regarded professional book designer and have been doing this for over 30 years.

I did a set of covers for a dear friend and author who's publishing a 2 volume set of books with Balboa Press. Originally the 2 covers were done for a 6x9 format. At the last minute Balboa convinced my friend to use an 8.5x11 format due to page count. This put a big time crunch on the book.

On request, May Arado, the contact person at Balboa, sent me the "cover template" (and then went on vaca for a few days so I couldn't reach her to find out if this template was good for both books). I went ahead with adjusting the old cover design to the new template, assuming it was accurate, as time is of the essence. My designs are complex with many layers, and the adjustment required lots of fine tuning to integrate the front back and spine.

When May got back, AFTER I'd done the work, she told me (on query) that she'd sent an approximate cover template and her design team will "fix" the spines to the correct width when they get the actual page count. (Spine width depends on the page count and paper used.) She did NOT tell me this when sending out the template.

No May, they won't, unless they want to spend 8 or 9 hours adjusting the 15 wrap around layers on the file. What her design team WILL do is a cut and paste and wreck the integrity of the design.
...Not on my watch.

May did NOT communicate this when sending out the template (and then disappearing for 2 days). Her design team will not be able to 'fix' the spines as its made of layers running from the front and back covers, so would lose the wrap around effect. I spent a lot of time creating these covers, then an entire day working them up to Balboa's new dimensions and template, only to discover this is not in fact a template generated for the book, but just something generic May decided to send out before she went on vaca.

It all has to be redone. This is beyond unprofessional.

I have never worked with Balboa before, will avoid working with them in the future, and will caution my clients not to work with them. If I charge my client / friend for the extra time spent it will run her around $800.

So be forewarned writers: working with Balboa could run up your budget big time, as others will have to make up for their unprofessionalism and YOU will pay.

Update: Balboa Press sent me a generic reply which you can read below this review. So thoughtful. I guess I'm supposed to feel better now for the wasted day?

You pay to have your book printed, the design team is not good at their jobs at all. They overcharge for clip art by a mile, then you only get 10% of the profits after that. Slightly more if someone buys directly from them. They charge astonishing prices for marketing. Strongly recommend not using them.