If you’ve heard of Elite Authors, you are probably wondering if they are right for your book. This company has years of experience writing and editing manuscripts – but is Elite Authors legit? Or is it a scam?
In this full Elite Authors review, we will take a look at what the company is, what services they offer, and real customer experiences with the company, so you can decide if you want to move forward with them or not.
We want you to make informed decisions when it comes to how and where to invest your money. That’s why our mission is to help educate authors on the various self-publishing companies and services that are on the market today.
Our reviews are meant to be unbiased, 3rd party reviews, but we will speak up if there is a scam or a clearly better option.
What is Elite Authors?
Elite Authors is a company that offers editing and publishing services. They started as a writing and editing firm in 2008 and began to partner with self-publishing companies when they saw their authors needed more assistance.
In 2018, the company partnered with book cover designers and book interior designers to offer a full suite of services to their clients.
Is Elite Authors legit?
Many writers have had a good experience with the company’s services. So is Elite Authors legit? Unfortunately, as you will see in reviews below, a lot more writers have had issues with them. Some have even gone so far as to call the company a fraud.
If you want to work with Elite Authors, proceed at your own peril.
Elite Authors services
Elite Authors offers a full suite of writing and publishing services for authors. These include:
Book Reviews
The company offers a package of five Amazon book reviews to get your book started. This can help to boost your book’s credibility and visibility online. Of course, five reviews really isn’t that many, and reviews only come with the company’s premium package.
If you want to buy five reviews a la carte, you can do so for $449.
Book Editing
Elite Authors offers four types of book editing, including developmental editing, line editing, copy editing, and proofreading. You can choose to buy just one round of editing or can invest in three or more.
Developmental editing services start as low as 9 cents per word and line editing will run you 36 cents per word.
Book Cover Design
The company has partnered with professional book cover designers to bring you a beautiful finished product for your manuscript. You can choose a simple or complex book design service. Cover design services start from $429.
Book Marketing
The company’s book marketing services include book reviews, marketing copy, back cover text, and an optimized Amazon book listing.
These services can be purchased a la carte. Back cover text costs $299 while an optimized book listing will run you $349.
Book Formatting
Elite Authors offers professional interior formatting services which include page and paragraph layout and font choice. These interior formatting services start at $599.
Ghostwriting
Last but not least, the company offers professional ghostwriting services. If you don’t want to write your book on your own, you can pay one of the employees at Elite Authors to write it for you.
The company specializes in nonfiction, business books, memoirs, self-help books, and how-to guides. The ghostwriting services do not have a cost listed online, you will have to contact the company to request a quote.
Elite Authors costs
In addition to offering their services a la carte, the company offers 4 different packages for their services: Essentials, Deluxe, Premium, and Build Your Own.
Essentials
The Essentials package is the most basic and includes line editing, copy editing, book formatting, and a book cover design.
Price: $2,329
Deluxe
Deluxe includes everything in the Essentials package plus back cover text, a KDP upload service, and an optimized Amazon listing.
Price: $3,279
Premium
The Premium package is the company’s most complete publishing package. It contains everything in the Deluxe package plus proofreading, 5 book reviews, and a marketing 3D cover image.
Price: $4,379
Build Your Own
The build your own package allows you to mix and match the services the company offers, from editing and formatting, to design and marketing.
Price: Custom
Pros and cons of Elite Authors
Here are some of the pros and cons of working with the company:
Pros of Elite Authors
Build Your Own package: You can create the package of services that suits your precise needs.
Native English speakers: Writers and editors are from the USA and can understand the nuances of your story.
Cons of Elite Authors
Lack of communication: Multiple clients have had issues with the company ghosting them or taking a long time to respond to queries or concerns.
Poor formatting: Customers have received books with formatting that doesn’t work for the platforms they want to publish their books on.
Limited book reviews: Book reviews are only offered with their Premium package, and they only provide 5 book reviews, which won’t do very much for your book.
Poor follow through: At least one customer is taking the company to court to try to receive the services they paid for.
Other Elite Authors reviews
Now let’s take a look at some Elite Authors reviews from customers so we can understand the user experience. First is a positive Elite Authors review:
As you can see, some people have a good experience with the company. Unfortunately, that doesn’t seem to be the majority. There are many other reviews from disgruntled users:
This is a terrible review. The user is planning on taking the company to court since they haven’t delivered on the services that were already paid for. This is a major warning sign. And this isn’t the only negative review of the company. One person couldn’t even make contact to use the services!
Maybe it was for the best that the company didn’t respond. At least that person didn’t lose any money like in the review below:
As you can see, there is some serious concern about the company taking your money and ghosting – or just never responding to you in the first place. If you’re trying to publish a book, you want a team that is extremely helpful and responsive, and this team just isn’t it.
Elite Authors vs selfpublishing.com
There may be some confusion between Elite Authors and selfpublishing.com. That’s because selfpublishing.com has a program called Author Accelerator Elite, and anyone who goes through the program is called an Elite Author. This has nothing to do with the Elite Authors company.
Elite Authors at selfpublishing.com receive way more help with the publishing process. Not only is the team extremely responsive, you receive 100 book reviews instead of 5, and also receive category and keyword selection for Amazon KDP.
On top of that, the Author Accelerator Elite program comes with one-on-one coaching and workshops, plus everything they promise at Elite Authors, including editing, formatting, book cover design, marketing, and more.
Our final verdict
Overall we would give Elite Authors a 2 out of 5 stars. It does appear that they can deliver a really nice product, but that’s if they choose to deliver a product at all. We couldn’t, in good conscience, recommend a company that could take your money and run with it.
If you are looking for ghostwriting, editing, or marketing services for your book, you are much better off working with a reputable company like selfpublishing.com. Our team has helped thousands of authors to write and publish their books – and you could be next!