Advice Desperately Needed -- looking for a new publisher

I am part of Mt. Zion Ridge Press, and we are having more and more problems with Lightning Source.

We started out with IngramSpark, but migrated over to Lightning Source — same company, different division — because AT THE TIME, LS had better customer service (as in live people and faster response time) and they charged less for shipping. That has changed. Now it takes a week for AI to acknowledge our request for help, and longer than that for a human being to respond.

The latest major screwup? We are getting charged for the Global Connect part of the distribution options — averaging about $600 a year, to make about $60 in book sales. My partner asked them to remove Global Connect from our distribution — LS’s dashboard won’t give the option of doing it ourselves.

Within days, ALL our books were taken out of distribution. EVERYWHERE. Amazon, B&N, US and overseas. We have a lot of authors in a panic, especially the ones who are about to launch their books.

We had to go to an industry arbitrator to get faster action from LS - their response: Well, we’re going to charge you that fee anyway, if you use Global Connect or not. Do you want your books put back in distribution with or without Global Connect? (Why couldn’t they tell us that when we requested the change?)

We want to find a NEW printer/distributor, who can get us into bookstores and the online vendors. Any suggestions? Anyone you’ve worked with who have actual human beings who respond within a day or two? Any place that offers improved terms because they KNOW they’re not the only game in town anymore?

Help???