Service providers, book packaging services, printer and publishers

Service providers, book packaging services, printer and publishers 1. Service providers. These are the people or companies that can provide services s...
Author: Oswald Nelson
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Service providers, book packaging services, printer and publishers 1. Service providers. These are the people or companies that can provide services such as editing, graphic design, conversion of manuscripts to the appropriate digital format, finding printers, etc. Having work done by a service provider may or may not be less expensive than have a POD publisher do the work, but it probably gives you more control over the process and the final product a. Editors b. Graphic Designers c. Print Brokers d. Publishing consultants e. Manuscript conversion services 2. Book packaging services. Book packagers or book producers are services that will handle the editing, design, file conversion, and other tasks related to getting a book ready for submission. 3. Publishers. Most well-know POD publishers today are one-stop shopping malls for book publishing. They will usually handle all aspects of publishing your book (for a price.) Some offer low cost printing of books. Others are little better than the worst subsidy publishers of yore, only interested in milking the most money they can out of authors. The following publishers 4. The following is a list of regional companies that may be of interest to you. A company’s listing here in no way constitutes a recommendation. a. University of Alaska Press b. Epicenter Press c. Aftershocks Media d. Publication Consultants e. Todd Communications f. Alaska Print Brokers

Questions to ask when looking for a POD publisher for your self-published book I. Book sizes and formats. Does the publisher print the type of book you want published? Most publishers offer books with similar cut sizes, similar paper choices, color and black & white options, and different bindings. However those choices may be offered in different combination. The combination you want may not be available from a particular publisher. A. B. C. D. E. F.

II.

Book cut size Paper selection Color or Black and White Standard or higher quality color Binding choices Calendar format

Services A.

Does a publisher allow you to submit “camera ready” PDFs? 1.

If you can, is there a set-up fee?

B. Does publisher require you to purchase a “package” of services? Some publishers have different levels of service, with higher levels including more services (and costing more). C. If you will be purchasing a “package” of services, does the package include all the services you need? D. What extra services are available and how much do they cost? 1.

Are extra services available ala carte, or must you upgrade to a pricier package?

E.

Do you want to go with in-house services or have the services done elsewhere?

F.

Is there a yearly maintenance fee to keep your book in the system?

1. If having services such as manuscript formatting done elsewhere, will the job be done to publisher’s specifications? 2. Services done elsewhere will probably be less expensive.

III.

Submission of files A. What sorts of documents are allowed: printed manuscripts, CDs, computer uploads, e-mail attachments, Drop Box retrieval? B. What sort of graphics can be submitted: actual photographs or line drawings, CDs, computer scans?

IV.

Time constraints A. B.

If the publisher will be designing and formatting your book, how long will that process take? If the publisher is doing any editing how long will that take? 1.

C. D.

V.

VI.

Does the book need extra editing for syntax, voice, content, etc.?

How long does proofing process take: Once book goes into print, how long does it take to print the book

International Standard Book Number (ISBN) A. B. C. D. E.

Does publisher require and ISBN? If you want to use an ISBN, must you to use publisher-supplied ISBN? Does publisher sell ISBNs? Can you provide your own ISBN? WWW.SELFPUBLISHEDAUTHOR.COM

A.

Does author or publisher set the retail price?

Pricing 1.

B.

If publisher normally sets the price, it may give author the right to do it for an additional fee.

If the author is setting the price, make sure you study the market. 1. Remember that your book will be competing with off-set printed books that probably have a much lower printing cost that your book 2. Don’t over-price your book. Overpricing means people will not buy. 3. Don’t underprice (at least by too much) Remember, your book will be discounted to distributors and stores. Underprice by too much and you won’t make a profit.

VII. Royalties A. B.

What is the royalty spread of different distribution channels? How are royalties determined? 1. 2.

C. D.

Are royalties based on retail price or net profits? Are any fees taken out?

How are royalties paid? How often are royalties paid? 1.

Does the amount in your royalty account have to reach a minimum amount before royalties are paid?

VIII. Ownership of files created by publisher. This has to do with the portability of your book—the ability to take it to a different publisher if you have to. A. Are files created by publisher owned by the publisher or you? B. If the files belong to the publisher, can you buy them when the contract is terminated or would you have to start all over again?

IX.

Access to distributors and bookstores A. What sort of distribution program does publisher have? Most of the large POD publishers are affiliated with companies with book publishing or selling ties: Createspace and Amazon, Lulu and Barnes & Noble, Lightning Source (Ingramspark) and Ingram Book, etc. Because of this the distribution plans offered may vary. B. Will book appear in Books In Print? C. Does publisher allow return of unsold books? 1.

X.

Is there an extra fee imposed to allow return of books?

Contract A. Does author retain all rights? Retaining all rights is preferable. If publisher want some of those rights, what is it offering in compensation? Everything is negotiable. B. Is the contract exclusive or nonexclusive? Can you publish elsewhere at the same time? C. Can the contract be terminated at any time? If you don’t like the job the publisher is doing you probably want to take the book elsewhere. D. What is the procedure for terminating a contract?

XI.

Cost of copies to author A.

XII.

Is the cost of books sold to the author based on actual printing costs or is it a discount from the retail price.

Shipping costs A.

How do shipping costs compare to other companies?

XIII. Support. What kind of support is available? Phone – email – user forum – assigned representative? XIV. Proofing your book A. B. C.

XV.

What is the proofing process? Are only on-line or downloadable digital proofs available? If print proofs are available how much do they cost?

Corrections to proof copy. If corrections are necessary after your book reaches the proof stage: A. B.

What is the process for making corrections Will corrections incur additional costs?

XVI. Corrections or changes to book after printing has commenced A. B. C.

What is the process for making changes? Will changes incur additional costs? How long will book be out of print while changes are being made?

XVII. Images . If you are going to include images make sure you know the publishers specifications. A. Make sure the image is at least 300 DPI and optimized for print. B. Make sure that photographs have been screened (halftones) C. If you go with the packages a publisher offers, you can usually insert a certain number of graphic images for free. After that there is a charge for each insertion. 1. 2.

How many images can be inserted for free? What is the charge for each additional image?

Designing your book A quote I read on-line - “Self-publishing your book means you don't have to conform to someone else's view of what your book should be. Instead, your self-published book will reflect your vision, which is the only one that counts.” ?!!! (only if you don’t care whether your book sells) If you want your book to sell it needs to be well-designed and conform to the expectations of the intended audience. One of the issues to be aware of is the use of positive and negative space on the page. The negative space (the non-printed area) is very important. One of the most common mistakes in self-published books is not having a balance between the positive and negative space. I. II. III. IV.

Know the traditional parts of a book. A successful book needs the necessary parts assembled in proper order. Is book in the proper format for your genre? Is book the proper size for your genre and is it formatted to that that particular size? Is book properly numbered? A. Do not put a number on first page. B. Left-hand pages – even numbers, right-hand pages – odd numbers. C. Front material usually gets Roman numerals, Body gets Arabic numerals. V. Does book have running header at top of pages identifying book title and/or chapters? VI. Have you chosen appropriate fonts? A. Serif fonts for body, sans serif for headings and titles. B. Use traditional fonts and fonts specifically designed for books C. Don’t use “overworked” fonts. D. Don’t use fonts that mimic hand lettering or handwriting E. Font size normally ranges between 8 and 12 points. Smaller cut-sizes usually use smaller font sizes. F. Font families vary in size, so two different fonts, even though they say they are the same point size, will vary in the amount of space they take up on a page. VII. Books are formatted in “spreads,” which are left- and right-facing pages. A. Set your publishing program to show spreads. In Word select “Mirror Margins” B. Left- and right-facing pages should look like they go together.

VIII. Does book uses columns, use proper line width, and have proper number of words per line? A. Readability is increased if you have 10-12 words per line. Anything over that confuses reader. Anything under that and you might have problems justifying text, or, if using ragged-right text, text blocks that are too ragged. B. Based on this, line width will be affected by font choices and use of columns C. If you use columns, the space between columns (the gutter) should probably be about ¼”. IX. Will your book use justified or ragged-right text? A. Justified text is traditional in book publishing B. Justified text allows more word per page C. How well your justified text looks depends on the publishing program you are using. D. It is better to have good-looking ragged right text than bad-looking justified text. X. Will you use hyphenation? A. Hypenation makes ragged-right text look less ragged. B. Hyphenation makes justified text look better. It helps avoid “rivers of white” running through your text block. C. Avoid too many hyphens in a single paragraph. XI. Avoid widows and orphans XII. Set the proper margins. There are exterior margins (top, bottom and outside edge of page), and inside margins (the “gutter” closest to the spine). A. There are no standard margins. An average margin for a 6” x9” book is about .75” for outside and top margins, .815” for gutter, and 1” for bottom margin. B. Margins will vary by book cut-size, smaller margins for smaller book sizes C. Top margins are traditionally smaller than bottom margins, but they can be equal. D. Inside margin (gutter) will be larger that outside margin E. Size of recommended gutter will vary based on number of pages. Avoid a too-small gutter that swallows up words on inside edge of page. Your particular publisher will probably have guidelines for gutter size XIII. Cover design. Same basic principles apply, except inside and outside margins should generally be the same. A. You will need about 80 pages in the book to get printing on the spine. B. Spine width is dependent on thickness of paper C. The bottom of the back cover is reserved for ISBN bar code and price bar code.

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