SECTION 2 – PRINTING & PUBLISHING YOUR BOOK

SECTION 2

PRINTING & PUBLISHING YOUR BOOK

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PRINTING OPTIONS FOR SELF-PUBLISHERS

When submitting your file to a book printer, you will need to supply your document as a 'print ready' pdf, complete with crop and bleed marks. A printer's requirements can vary considerably, so check with them what else they will need, for example; colour bars, bleed. The weight of the paper, and whether you use cream or white paper will depend upon the book you want to publish and how many pages it has. The weight of paper is expressed in grams per square metre. The heavier the paper the better quality it will be, although this will affect costs. Standard book papers range from 52 gsm to 80 gsm. Binding also needs to be considered. Paperbacks usually have perfect binding, which is often used a popular hardbacks too. Sewn books are produced for hardbacks when the publisher wants a more permanent binding, or the quality of binding needs to be higher. Cover finish can be gloss or matt. A gloss has a varnish applied that makes the cover shiny, as well as providing additional protection against spills, fingerprints etc. Don't forget, on top of the price per book run (quantity of produced printed at the same time), you will need to factor in delivery costs, and have somewhere to store your stock.

Offset printing

The first rotary offset printing press was created in England in 1875 by Robert Barclay. Paper is fed into the press one sheet at a time. At the end of the press, the paper is cut into individual sheets and bound. Offset printing is used for most mass market paperbacks as it offers high-quality reproduction and a range of sizes and types of paper. To use offset printing, you will generally need to order a minimum quantity of books, which differs from printer to printer, so shop around for the best prices for the quantity you require. Pros of offset printing:

 Lower cost per unit  Higher quality

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Cons of offset printing:  Upfront investment  Increased risk if you can't sell all your books. To decide if offset printing is best for you, you will need to think carefully about how many books you can reasonably expect to sell, and where you are planning to sell them. Also factor in giveaways and review copies too.

Digital printing / Print On Demand

Digital Printing uses a computer-driven high-speed copying and binding equipment. Books can be printed very quickly, for example, Amazon will deliver a Print on Demand KDP paperback in just a few days after it has been uploaded and accepted for publishing. If you order a Print on Demand paperback from Amazon, and have Amazon Prime, it will generally be delivered the very next day. Phenomenal logistics! This is because digital printing is designed to create one copy of a book at a time, whereas with offset printing there are various stages and therefore only efficient when producing many copies at a time. Apart from individuals self-publishing their book, Digital Printing is now used by the majority of small presses, poetry publishers, and publishers of niche titles.

Pros of digital printing:  Can print small numbers at one time.  You can see a single copy before having more printed, which you can then check for errors, formatting etc.  You can edit, amend or add to your manuscript and cover, and reupload it at any time.  Much less expensive that having a large numbers printed via an offset press. Cons of digital printing:  More expensive for large quantities  Slightly lower quality that offset printing.

BOOK PRINTERS

Acutrack - www.acutrack.com

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Book Printing UK - www.bookprintinguk.com Book Empire - www.bookempire.co.uk Bookempress Limited – www.bookempress.co.uk Books and Catalogues – www.booksandcatalogues.com Burnett Print Group - www.burnettprintgroup.com Catford Print – www.catfordprint.co.uk CMP – www.cmp-uk.com DeHart’s Media Services - www.deharts.com Dot Graphics - www.dotgraphics.net Epic Print Solutions - www.walker360.com ImprintDigital – iwww.imprintdigital.com InstantPublisher – www.instantpublisher.com Kopa – www.kopa.eu Lorna Johnson Print - www.lornajohnson.com Mixam – www.mixam.co.uk Print Pond – www.printpond.co.uk Printed Word Publishing – www.printedwordpublishing.com PrintMedia Books - www.printmediabooks.com Pulsio Print – www.pulsioprint.co.uk Southwest Offset Printing - www.southwestoffset.com The Choir Press – www.thechoirpress.co.uk

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SELF-PUBLISHING PLATFORMS

Amazon KDP

The most popular free-to-use platform for self-publishers is Amazon KDP (also known as CreateSpace). Once published, your book will currently be listed on Amazon websites in twelve countries: USA, UK, Germany, Canada, Sweden, Australia, France, Italy, Spain, Japan, Poland and Netherlands, with more countries planned. The delivery time for someone in one of the above countries ordering your book is between 24 and 96 hours. As a Kindle, your book will be listed in all the above Amazon websites plus; Brazil, Mexico and India. Because of this international logistical and distribution service, most self-publishing companies and small traditional presses now use Amazon KDP as their publishing platform. You can upload your manuscript to your Amazon KDP account in either a pdf or Word.doc, which you also edit, amend and re-upload your book at anytime. Amazon KDP also has its own free front and back cover templates. Amazon KDP also supplies you with a free ISBN, however as mentioned earlier, this is ISBN is specific to the Amazon platforms – bookshops and book distributors won't (or can't) order books with an Amazon ISBN. However, Amazon KDP does offer an extended marketplace option whereby your books can also be listed by other online retailers. You can, of course, supply your own ISBN to books published on the Amazon KDP platform, and Amazon will generate a barcode and QR Code for you too. You can order up to 999 author copies at a considerably reduced cost and have them delivered straight to your door. You can also buy your books at cost price, and then sell them privately, and have them sent directly to the buyer in any of the twelve countries (mentioned above) served by Print on Demand. As well as paperback and Kindle, Amazon KDP have also started offering Print on Demand hardcovers.

Amazon KDP pays royalties monthly by electronic funds transfer (EFT), a month in arrears, for example royalties on sales in July will be calculated in August paid at the end of September. EFT has no minimum payment threshold and is the fastest, most secure way to receive your royalty payments. EFT payments are mostly made in USD, GBP and Euro, but are also available in a number of other currencies including the India rupee and Japanese yen. Some countries, however, don't support electronic funds transfer, and for these Amazon will pay by cheque on reaching a threshold limit. Cheques are in USD, so you will need to be able to bank USD cheques in your country. If you

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are self-publishing via Amazon KDP, and you don't live in the UK, USA, or Canada, it is important that you search KDP Payment Options on the KDP website for a complete list of countries, payment methods and currencies, as it could be that even though you can publish with KDP, you might not be able to receive your royalty payments. Amazon KDP also offers a number of incentives to authors through its KDP Select programme. Kindle Unlimited is a subscription program where customers can read as many Kindle e-Books as they like, and keep them as long as they want, and you get paid on the number of pages read. Your books will still be available for anyone to buy in the Kindle Store, and you'll continue to earn royalties from those sales. There are certain conditions with KDP Select, including a minimum 90 availability period where you cannot offer your e-book on other platforms other than Amazon. Search Kindle Unlimited for further details.

As previously mentioned, all books with ISBN numbers are automatically listed on Amazon, but if you have published a book in a country not served by Amazon, (for example South Africa), your book will not be listed as it couldn't fulfil the order. Also, even if your self-published book in South Africa does have an ISBN, bookshops around the world will still find it almost impossible to order a copy, and so one way authors overcome this is to publish two copies; one copy for distribution within the country or region they live, (for example South Africa), and a second version via the Amazon KDP platform for international distribution. However, this can only be facilitated if Amazon supports your bank account for royalty payments (see above). Amazon KDP - www. kdp.amazon.com

Smashwords

Smashwords is one of the largest distributors of self-published e-books and distributes to most devices except Amazon. It is a free service, but takes a small cut of your sales. However, you cannot list your book with Smashwords if you have selected the KDP Select programme. Smashwords - www.smashwords.com

Lightning Source

Owned by Ingram Content, Lightning Source is a popular self-publishing platform that uses your own ISBN, and has connections with retailers, libraries and book distributors worldwide (their website says over 39,000). There are various print book types to choose from, including hardcover or paperback, as

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well as trim size, paper, and cover options, and their e-books are compatible with all major online retailers, such as Amazon, Apple, Kobo, and B&N. You can manage your files from a single platform and take advantage of e-book conversion services but, like Amazon KDP, your country and bank details must be compatible to their payment platforms. Lightning Source – www.ingramcontent.com

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PRICING, CATEGORIES & KEYWORDS

Pricing

The list price for your book would be based upon a number of things, including what similar books are priced at. Pricing too low may suggest lower quality, too high will negatively affect sales. You will need to consider the cost of producing your book (worked out to per copy), and factor percentages taken from retailers and distributors (more on retailers and distributors below). Most self-publishing platforms, for example Amazon KDP, will tell you the cost of production and printing so you can immediately see the amount of profit per sale. Kindle and e-books are generally priced lower than paperbacks, but production costs are lower so the margins should be around the same as paperbacks (depending of course, upon how much you charge for your book). There is also an option to change your price on most self-publishing platforms, so you can reduce the price as part of a promotion, or if a book isn't selling at its original price. Poetry chapbooks sell for around £5.00 - £6.00 (GBP) / $6.00 - $8.00 (USD), with full collections around £10.00 – £12.00 (GBP) / $13.00 $15.00 (USD), giving self-publishers margins of between £3.00 – £4.00 (GBP) / $4.00 - $5.00 (USD) per book sold.

Categories

It is essential to put your book in the right category to enable readers to find your book. This applies to online platforms like Amazon, as well as when sending your information to a distributor, wholesaler or directly to retailers. Some subcategories for poetry can include: Romantic poetry, European Poetry, African Poetry, Fantasy Poetry, War Poetry etc. Self-publishing platforms will offer you a complete list to choose from. There are a large number of categories and sub-categories, so choose carefully according to your readership. You can list in more than one category too, for example; the primary category could be Poetry, with a subcategory Fairy tales, fables, and folk tales.

Keywords

You will also need up to seven key words used for searching titles, so ensure you use the relevant keywords for your title. For example: Love Poetry, Urban Poetry. You can also use short phrases too, for example: Poetry about Manchester. Keywords are essential for people looking for your book. Make a list of all the keywords and phrases that are associated with your book, and then check their usage in search engines. You can also use these keywords in a blog post title, or as part of your website.

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