In this article, I’ll give you a detailed overview of selfpublishing.com’s origins, its services, and customer reviews. As selfpublishing.com gains popularity, more and more aspiring authors are conducting research on the company and looking for valid feedback and reviews on selfpublishing.com and Chandler Bolt. I believe it’s important to give a balanced report on selfpublishing.com and what you can expect when dealing with selfpublishing.com and its team.
History of Selfpublishing.com (from Ron Pramschufer to Chandler Bolt)
Ron Pramschufer was the original founder and owner of Selfpublishing.com. Why mention the “original” founder and owner, you might ask? Because sometime in the last few years, after Pramschufer passed away, Chandler Bolt of Self-Publishing School purchased selfpublishing.com to expand operations. On many of Bolt’s online profiles he now lists himself as the founder and CEO of selfpublishing.com. The “CEO” designation makes sense but not the “Founder” status. So it should be noted that selfpublishing.com pre-Chandler Bolt was a much different company.
Reviews of selfpublishing.com being operated by Self-Publishing School and Chandler Bolt date back to about 2020. Oddly, an announcement of the acquisition of selfpublishing.com was published on Benzinga in January 2023, along with some videos posted online by Bolt himself, making the timeline of his switch to selfpublishing.com very confusing. To his credit, Chandler Bolt is a successful entrepreneur and author of several books. He states on his LinkedIn that his Self-Publishing School has helped “thousands of people write a book that grows their income, impact and business.” Additionally, he hosts a podcast and was featured on the 2022 Forbes 30 Under 30 list.
Selfpublishing.com, when owned by Ron Pramschufer, was once a place where indie authors could start their own publishing imprint/company and use selfpublishing.com as a designer, editor and printer. The original selfpublishing.com also offered some marketing services such as website design, press release distribution, online bookstore distribution, and podcast interviews to promote the author’s imprint. There was no school or masterminds associated with selfpublishing.com.
Selfpublishing.com in 2024 (Services Overview)
In 2023, Bolt closed down his successful Self-Publishing School (SPS) and shifted his focus onto his new venture selfpublishing.com. The revamped selfpublishing.com offers some of the SPS features like coaching and masterminds, but now Bolt’s selfpublishing.com also provides book design and book upload to Amazon. There is no editing involved and the overall entry-level package costs $7,000. The program also insists that you will become an Amazon bestselling author, although it’s difficult to decipher if there is any sort of guarantee in that respect. The program likely trains or coaches the author on how to become a bestseller. So it’s part full-service and part DIY. $7,000 seems steep for a program that isn’t completely done-for-you.
If you just need book marketing, having already published your book, they have a plan for that as well: it’s $10,000. It includes coaching and a mastermind group as well as a media kit, promotions on popular book websites, social media marketing for 90 days, and a “Top 50 PR Hitlist,” in which the team will find 50 PR opportunities for the author (along with templates) so the the author can handle the outreach. For $10k you’d think selfpublishing.com would handle the outreach too.
Selfpublishing.com has the Author Advantage Accelerator, consisting of everything in their entry-level package along with everything in the marketing package. The price is $16,000 and still doesn’t include editing. I don’t know if they don’t see book editing as a priority, if they tell authors to get that done elsewhere or if they offer it in-house for an additional fee, but I find it odd that it’s not included in a $16k package that is said to be the company’s “Publish, Launch, and Advanced Marketing Package.” Surely, professional editing needs to be part of any successful book production and launch. I can’t speak to how much they might charge for editing (if they offer it at all) but it’s not uncommon to pay a few thousands dollars for pro editing of a manuscript. So take this additional editing cost into account when looking at selfpublishing.com publishing packages.
Selfpublishing.com/Self-Publishing School (SPS) Reviews
When you Google “selfpublishing.com reviews” you’ll have to ignore all results from before 2020-ish when selfpublishing.com was something else entirely. Also keep in mind that in some cases he merged Self-Publishing School reviews with reviews of selfpublishing.com. There’s nothing necessarily wrong with this approach. The strategy makes a lot of sense after an acquisition takes place, especially when Self-Publishing School has taken a hit to its reputation over the years.
Self-Publishing School has hundreds of positive reviews online, but there are some extremely negative reviews mixed in there too. BBB lists dozens of complaints. Former clients have written entire blog posts about their experiences. Reddit has covered Self-Publishing School and Chandler Bolt extensively, and not in a good way. Many people believe that authors are better off using free or inexpensive courses on self-publishing if they prefer to learn about self-publishing. There has even been some content posted on YouTube calling SPS into question, to put it nicely. That’s just the tip of the iceberg. My opinion is that these negative reviews impacted sales at SPS, hence part of the reason for the rebranding to selfpublishing.com.
Selfpublishing.com Trustpilot Reviews
Obviously, you should conduct your own research before hiring selfpublishing.com (formerly SPS). Even after the transition, Chandler Bolt’s Selfpublishing.com is racking up negative reviews in 2024 — 7% of all its Trustpilot reviews are negative as of 2/22/24.
Here’s a new one from February 2024:
Of course, there are positive Trustpilot reviews too, like this one:
Selfpublishing.com BBB Reviews
Also, around a whopping 15% of the selfpublishing.com reviews on the Better Business Bureau (BBB) website are negative — that’s 16 out of 104 reviews as of Feb 2024. The various negative selfpublishing.com reviews are based on disgruntled clients’ experiences and expectations not being met. I’m sure the SPS/selfpublishing.com platform has done good things for many but it’s not going to be for everyone. I find it promising that SPS/selfpublishing.com replies or addresses some of their negative reviews. But it’s a bit alarming that many of those reviews are left without a response.
Selfpublishing.com is able to keep its A+ BBB rating, however, because they have answered all of the customer complaints. Complaints are treated differently than reviews on BBB. As long as a company answers all complaints, they can usually hold their positive rating. BBB doesn’t require a company to respond to BBB reviews and those reviews don’t affect the company’s BBB rating. So a company could have all 1-star customer reviews but still have an A+ BBB rating if it answers all complaints.
Selfpublishing.com Review Summary
Overall, selfpublishing.com might be a decent fit for authors who want to do a lot of the work on their own and need the professional resources and guidance to do so. However, there are plenty of free or inexpensive self-publishing courses on the Internet that might be a better fit for authors who want to do the bulk of the work on their own. Selfpublishing.com is run by Chandler Bolt, a well-known entrepreneur and author. Selfpublishing.com uses masterminds and coaching to help authors write their books and potentially become bestsellers. But if a done-for-you publishing and marketing service is what you seek, you should look elsewhere. Selfpublishing.com mixes DIY with done-for-you, probably not ideal for busy individuals.
Selfpublishing.com’s pricing is high considering authors will need to pay extra for editing and do a lot of outreach on their own when it comes to getting PR. Full-service publishing services are available through other companies for around the same prices or less. Also, you might consider hiring a true book publicity firm for full-service book promo instead of doing all the outreach yourself. It would look more professional that way and you’d probably get a better response. Or, if you prefer the DIY strategy for whatever reason, just sign up at Help A Reporter and pitch yourself to journalists there for free.
I’ve never used selfpublishing.com or Self-Publishing School personally, so everything I’ve written here is based on research I’ve conducted from the outside looking in on Google. Google should be your friend too. Please research the company on Google before working with them. There have been many positive experiences chronicled online but also negative ones. Weigh the pros and cons for yourself. I’m sure everyone’s experience is different.
Finally, keep in mind that this iteration of selfpublishing.com is still fairly new, having merged with Self-Publishing School. The transition from Self-Publishing School (SPS) to selfpublishing.com has been confusing for some. A confusing rebranding isn’t a good look for a business.
MindStir Media is a Complete Done-for-You Alternative to Selfpublishing.com
One of the biggest gripes I have with selfpublishing.com is that it’s not an entirely done-for-you platform, and I believe it should be for the prices they charge. If selfpublishing.com is going to sell packages for thousands of dollars, the least they could do is handle the whole shebang for its authors. Instead, I recommend a done-for-you company if you’re looking for a company to do the publishing and marketing work for you. Many done-for-you publishers will also offer ghostwriting if you need a professional writer to write your book for you.
One particular done-for-you self-publisher is MindStir Media, a company that USA Today contributor Molly Peck called “the leading provider of self-publishing and book marketing services in the United States.” With MindStir Media, you can have the entire self-publishing and book marketing processes done for you. This is the ideal service company for authors who don’t want to go through time-consuming training or masterminds and would rather completely outsource to a professional publishing company. Many folks with a day job don’t have time to go through lengthy courses, after all, and they certainly don’t want to perform outreach from a PR list to get covered in the media or deal with posting their own social media content. MindStir Media does it all.
Selfpublishing.com Review