Xlibris and publishing?

Okay, ever since a friend of mine told me to look for his grandmother’s book on AuthorHouse’s website, I’ve been doing research on them and on self-publishing. It’s been, maybe, a year.
I came across Xlibris one day, eventually. I’ve researched them for several months. I know they’re reputable but not completely perfect.
I know the arguments of self-publishing versus “traditional” publishing.
I’ve reviewed various options.
Do you have any advice and encouragement to a young writer/author? (That’s my real question :})
Very helpful, everybody, thank you.
I did know about that merger of AuthorSolutions. It added to my skepticism and now that you’ve put it so plainly, I choose to avoid it.
There are many venues and I simply needed to discover more so thank you for the help!!
God bless!!!!

My advice is to steer clear of XLibris. I requested their free E-guidebook way back in early May, but ended up getting laid off and worried about spending the money to self publish. Now, I’m getting constant emails and phone calls from this company. I’ve told them I’m not interested, and asked them to stop calling and emailing. I’ve even went as far as to unsubscribe from their mailing list in the third week of May. Yesterday, the guy called and left five messages, twenty minutes apart, acting as if I hadn’t asked him to stop calling almost twice a day previously!

I have nothing against self publishing, if you do your research and find a print on demand service that works with many well known book sellers…but when a company (the same person) can’t seem to take a hint when they are basically hit in the head with it, it shows that they aren’t as “well off” financially as they claim. Why keep bothering with someone who has blantantly said “I am not interested, and have no intention of publishing with your company”.

Keep at it. Writing, as I’m sure you know, is very hard work. Getting published is even harder. But, if you stick with it and love what you do, then it’s worth it, no matter the outcome.

I wish you a lot of luck and even more success!

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