The Canadian-based company Trafford Publishing claims to be one of the “founding fathers” of the self-publishing industry. Trafford introduced “on-demand book publishing services” in 1995, which is a printing technology/business model that allows for books to be printed in small quantities, even as little as one book if the author so wishes. In addition, Trafford uniquely boasts their own in-house printers, so customers are getting their products right from the source.
Trafford offers three publishing packages: Black and White, Full Color, and Chapters Indigo Review (a package in partnership with the Canadian publishing company Chapters Indigo and available exclusively to Canadian locals). They also offer a range of publishing services that vary greatly in price. From “Novo” ($999) to “Tapestry” ($11,999), these buzzword-titled packages seem like they offer solutions that fit the various needs and circumstances of each author.
The Veil Drops
All of this sounds nice, right? Trafford appears to have a genuine interest in helping their customers publish their works. They promise to maintain a working relationship with their authors, as long as they remain a part of the “Trafford family.” But the truth is that Trafford is just another facade.
Acquired by Author Solutions Inc. in 2009, Trafford’s lot is with some of the self-publishing industry’s most detestable businesses, like Xlibris, AuthorHouse and iUniverse. If you dig (and you don’t even have to go deep), you’ll find alarming tales of exploitation and disappointment.
Customer Complaints
The customer complaints are shocking at the least, with authors reporting having never received royalty checks for works published years ago or never being refunded for poor quality work.
For example, one customer reported that they published a book with Trafford in 2008 and were happy with the size and image quality. Recently, Trafford reached out and asked if they could reprint the book to a smaller format at no extra cost to the author. Seeing no harm in offering different sizes and formats, the author agreed.
However, when they received their newly sized book, the blurry images were indiscernible and the tiny words were hardly legible. When the author requested that Trafford return the book to its original format and size, Trafford responded with a $500 price tag to fix their own mistake. It could be ascertained that Trafford purposely reprinted the book in poor quality so that the customer would have to pay to correct it. Trafford doesn’t seem to be doing right by their customers, and they aren’t even trying to hide it.
Trafford is NOT recommended
Based on a number of customer reviews, Trafford appears to shell much of the illustrative and editing work out to amateurs who produce embarrassing graphics and Grammarly-quality editorial skills, two things that might be fine if those services were free, but considering how the prices stack when working with Trafford, anything less than quality should be unacceptable.
Companies under the Author Solutions brand are, however, unfamiliar with what quality work and service should look like. If you’re looking for a no-nonsense publishing process that delivers excellent results , you’re better off staying as far away from Trafford as possible and not hiring them.
The better solution
If you’re looking for a company that does right by their customers, I recommend MindStir Media. MindStir is the top-rated self-publisher in the world for a reason: it cares about its writers.
This post is written by Jesse Haynes, an independent reviewer, not J.J. Hebert.
Trafford Review