There’s a supposedly new player today: Gatekeeper Press

I know very little about them—just heard about them. But, it’s an interesting concept.

As you know, I am basically against paying publishers anything without a very good reason. My books teach you how to publish for free, and I still think that’s the best route to go—IF you are willing and IF you are able.

So, why do I mention Gateway Press?

This just seems like another competitor to companies like BookBaby, and that’s true. Gateway Press is a little cheaper, but it’s the same type of service. They’re both basically low-priced vanity presses. They give you all the royalties in return for your purchases of their production services. That can get very pricy, but nothing like the tens of thousands charged by most vanity presses. BookBaby, for example, offers a complete book publishing package for $899 (as of today). The ebook package is around $300. For both, you can quickly up your bill to well over $1,000.

There is one huge difference

Gateway Press seems to offer distribution only packages for books you design. That may turn out to be a good deal. If you hear anything or have any experiences, please let us know in the comments.

There is a $200 distribution package for print which includes Baker & Taylor, Ingram, NACSCORP, Amazon, and Barnes & Noble. More than that, it includes a free ISBN and the name of your choice for Publisher.

Their ebook distribution is also $200, but it doesn’t offer much more than the Amazon/Draft2Digital combo I am currently recommending. They offer the normal Kindle, iBooks, Kobo, Nook, and Scribd. Plus, Gateway does include blio, CoreSource, ebrary, Follett, Freading, Gardners (England), Google Play, Overdrive, and Wheeler (New Zealand)—but I have never heard of any of these distributors doing much. That could simply be my ignorance, of course.

So, while it is not the cheapest possible, it may be an excellent solution for some authors. That remains to be seen. I would love to hear your comments on Gateway Press or BookBaby.

I am not recommending either of them at this point

We can do Createspace, Kindle, iBooks, Kobo, Nook, and Scribd for free at this point. I’m not sure at all that the additional $400 (for both packages) is worth the money. However, one of these days we’ll have a good option. It may well be Draft2Digital. But that’s just my opinion—which in this case is only a guess.