How long is a piece of string?
(It is all down to customer expectations)
One of the most noticeable differences between the content inside a paperback book and an e-book is obviously the lenght. People who pay £6-£7 for a book in a store will expect it to be longer than 40 pages, even though that is the minimum number of pages for a perfect bound book.
Where as you would happily pay $47 for a 50 page e-book the same is highly unlikely to be true for paperbacks. If you are selling a technical or IT related book the book price expectations go up and the page numbers become less relevant. You can sell a 120-140 page book quite easily for £8-£9 on amazon, but at £10, you'll only receive £4 from Amazon per book sold as their advantage program demands a 60% discount.
With lightning source and lulu you set the discount but you still have to justify the price more than what you have to when you sell just an ebook. Which is another argument to use people like them rather than anyone else to get into the traditional book selling channels.
One of our books is a 124 square paged paperback and we sell it for £12.99 simply because we are the only one's providing relevant information from market insiders to this particular niche.
someone I know and respect posted on his twitter the other day that the easiest way to make $60,000 is to sell one item of something for that or more to someone desperately willing to pay that for what you have.
So the page count is really a calculation based on what your customers would expect and what sort of profit you would like to command on sales through the regular book channels.
I should say that lightningsource have told us that if you publish with them you can set the discount rates you are willing to offer to the distribution channels, and as such would not be at the mercy of the Amazon Advantage terms.
How true this is I don't know and I can only speculate on how this would impact your sales volumes.
Price
I suppose you have gathered by now that page numbers and minimum price is closely related. A 140 page book will cost £3.66 to print after the 28th of October. If you want to make say £3 profit on every book sold then that gives you a minimum wholesale price of £7.26 and then you'd need to double that to get the suggested retail price. £7.26 includes the 20 percent profit commission that lulu so graciously charges and in this example, it accounts for 60p.
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
Book Distribution channels
Book distribution is structured very similarly to how you sell your e-books.
There are publishers, wholesale distributors and retailers in both. If you compare paperback distribution to how ebooks are sold through clickbank there are quite a few similarities.
Putting your book on clickbank gives you access to more retail outlets (websites) and using Gardners or Bertrams similarly gives you access to more bookstores. Some bookchains even insist on using only one wholesaler and you would not be able to get your book in there unless the wholesaler took on your book. The same way clickbank takes a cut of every sale, the wholesaler will want to take their share of the profits too.
However that is where the similarity ends between the wholesalers.
The book wholesaler will insist on a higher discount than any retail outlet will ask for. Paperbacks will need to give a 55% to 60% discount (the book industry's version of "commission") before they will be accepted into the wholesaler's database. The wholesaler will tell YOU what discount you will give them where as YOU tell clickbank what the discount is. They hold the books physically in their storage. Clickbank simply diverts the sale to YOUR storage on your server.
Clickbank manages payments and pays you within 14 days of making a sale of your ebook. The book wholeseller will usually pay 3 months after the invoice date for any books they have bought. Although most notably, Amazon will pay you within 30 days for any books they have sold within a specified calendar month.
WH Smith operates their own wholesale operation, or at least used to, and buy books in large quantities all at once. It should be a priority for you to get into their systems. MBS titles work well for their airport range (Mind, Body, Spirit).
Now, the steps to get books distributed to begin with are pretty straight forward although there are country specific variations.
First of all you must have an ISBN number on your book.
If you use your own you have more control over the distribution than if you use one from Lulu.
Secondly you have to register the book information with a book database for your area. In the UK the Nielsen PybWeb Database is the "go to" place.
Their website is http://www.nielsenbookdata.com/pubweb/PubLogon
This is their service to add or edit your book information. You can register from that page too by downloading a registration form and emailing it to the address on the form. You can also receive orders through this system if you select to self distribute.
If you go for printondemand-worldwide then self distribution is really the better choice although they do fulfillment too.
The next step that most publishers do is to provide an Advance Information Sheet or AIS. This is the "sales page" that the publisher sends out to all the bookstores. Now this is not a place to include your typical “website sales letter”. The AIS sheet simply includes the factual information about the book. This means it has an image of the book cover, the suggested retail price & discount rate, the ISBN number, the name of the publisher and how the book can be ordered.
You should also include marketing information that is relevant to the bookstore. Why should THEY stock the book? This part of the AIS is still very brief and maybe a paragraph or two. If you can describe why a bookstore should stock your book in a single twitter message then that is the perfect length. This marketing part can include details of any traditional marketing initiatives to drive people into bookstores to buy the book as well as existing sales results from other outlets, customer feedback and if you have received press attention/reviews include that too.
Press Attention
We always try to get press attention BEFORE we send out the AIS for one simple reason - You can't add press reviews until you've received some! This fact seems to escape quite a few small publishers. If you have media contacts, use them.
The best place to start is your local paper. Most of the larger city papers or regionals actually syndicate their articles and on the back of one interview in the Portsmouth news we have had one piece in a ladies weekly, two articles in the broadsheets and three in the tabloids and we were approached by a publication in Belgium for an interview with our non-existent writer (that's the risk of pseudonyms for you)
If you are approaching the newspaper, make sure you tell them about something newsworthy. At the moment that would be that you have turned the financial crisis into an opportunity and has decided to publish books etc etc. Take the human interest angle as my wife would say. And that is as much publicity advice as can give.
Beyond this all you have to do is apply your ebook marketing aptitude to generate more book sales.
There are publishers, wholesale distributors and retailers in both. If you compare paperback distribution to how ebooks are sold through clickbank there are quite a few similarities.
Putting your book on clickbank gives you access to more retail outlets (websites) and using Gardners or Bertrams similarly gives you access to more bookstores. Some bookchains even insist on using only one wholesaler and you would not be able to get your book in there unless the wholesaler took on your book. The same way clickbank takes a cut of every sale, the wholesaler will want to take their share of the profits too.
However that is where the similarity ends between the wholesalers.
The book wholesaler will insist on a higher discount than any retail outlet will ask for. Paperbacks will need to give a 55% to 60% discount (the book industry's version of "commission") before they will be accepted into the wholesaler's database. The wholesaler will tell YOU what discount you will give them where as YOU tell clickbank what the discount is. They hold the books physically in their storage. Clickbank simply diverts the sale to YOUR storage on your server.
Clickbank manages payments and pays you within 14 days of making a sale of your ebook. The book wholeseller will usually pay 3 months after the invoice date for any books they have bought. Although most notably, Amazon will pay you within 30 days for any books they have sold within a specified calendar month.
WH Smith operates their own wholesale operation, or at least used to, and buy books in large quantities all at once. It should be a priority for you to get into their systems. MBS titles work well for their airport range (Mind, Body, Spirit).
Now, the steps to get books distributed to begin with are pretty straight forward although there are country specific variations.
First of all you must have an ISBN number on your book.
If you use your own you have more control over the distribution than if you use one from Lulu.
Secondly you have to register the book information with a book database for your area. In the UK the Nielsen PybWeb Database is the "go to" place.
Their website is http://www.nielsenbookdata.com/pubweb/PubLogon
This is their service to add or edit your book information. You can register from that page too by downloading a registration form and emailing it to the address on the form. You can also receive orders through this system if you select to self distribute.
If you go for printondemand-worldwide then self distribution is really the better choice although they do fulfillment too.
The next step that most publishers do is to provide an Advance Information Sheet or AIS. This is the "sales page" that the publisher sends out to all the bookstores. Now this is not a place to include your typical “website sales letter”. The AIS sheet simply includes the factual information about the book. This means it has an image of the book cover, the suggested retail price & discount rate, the ISBN number, the name of the publisher and how the book can be ordered.
You should also include marketing information that is relevant to the bookstore. Why should THEY stock the book? This part of the AIS is still very brief and maybe a paragraph or two. If you can describe why a bookstore should stock your book in a single twitter message then that is the perfect length. This marketing part can include details of any traditional marketing initiatives to drive people into bookstores to buy the book as well as existing sales results from other outlets, customer feedback and if you have received press attention/reviews include that too.
Press Attention
We always try to get press attention BEFORE we send out the AIS for one simple reason - You can't add press reviews until you've received some! This fact seems to escape quite a few small publishers. If you have media contacts, use them.
The best place to start is your local paper. Most of the larger city papers or regionals actually syndicate their articles and on the back of one interview in the Portsmouth news we have had one piece in a ladies weekly, two articles in the broadsheets and three in the tabloids and we were approached by a publication in Belgium for an interview with our non-existent writer (that's the risk of pseudonyms for you)
If you are approaching the newspaper, make sure you tell them about something newsworthy. At the moment that would be that you have turned the financial crisis into an opportunity and has decided to publish books etc etc. Take the human interest angle as my wife would say. And that is as much publicity advice as can give.
Beyond this all you have to do is apply your ebook marketing aptitude to generate more book sales.
Monday, October 13, 2008
The Scary monster that is ISBN
Before today I would always have insisted that an ISBN is required to publish a book. In my publishing business we have always assumed that ISBN's are a legal requirement for books.
However. There always seems to be one of those around when you don't expect it. However, this point is one that has made this project worthwhile to my OWN publishing business. ISBN numbers are NOT a legal requirement to publish a book.
According to the PPA, an association for publishers and media suppliers and ISBN is simply a product number used in the book industry for ordering, listing and stock control purposes.
It offers NO copyright protection. It is just a number to help you sell your book.
Each version of a particular book is represented by its own 13 digit number and is issued by the Standard Book Numbering Agency.
There is some confusion as to how to assign a number to lets say a revised issue, or say if the hard back or the paperback should have a different ISBN number.
All I have to say is that imagine you went into a car dealership and you ordered your BMW 316i. The salesman writes in 316i in the product code box in the order form and asks you for your money.
But how do you know that you'll get a left hand drive? With Air conditioning. And in black?
Because they have a product code for all those things so that when your order enters the system, they know you want a black, left hand drive, air conditioned 316i.
It's the same with books. Look up “Harry Potter and the deathly hallows” on Amazon and you'll see a perfect example of what I mean. That book comes in two versions an adult one and a child edition, where the only difference is the binding and the cover art. And they have separate ISBN's to make sure everyone involved in selling those books knows exactly if you want the child edition or the adults edition.
The ISBN number serves a couple of purposes. It identifies a particular publisher and it also allows the publisher to identify a specific edition of a specific title in a specific format within their output.
So if you are going to sell a cookbook in paperback format as an upsell or bonus with your ebook and you will only ever sell it from your website...
The ONLY time you will need an ISBN number on your paperback book is when you want to sell your book through the normal channels like Barnes & Noble, Waterstones, Amazon and any other bookstores.
So why should you limit yourself and not put an ISBN number on your book?
I can't think of a good reason really. Distribution is the key to volume sales so why limit yourself.
For the cost of under £11 per project you get access to a distribution network if you add the barcode and ISBN number to the back of your book.
And once you have the ISBN numbers you can register on Nielsen book data and add the details of your book to their lists.
Now, adding your title to their database is not enough to get your books into the stores, but it means that it will end up on Amazon and a raft of other well known bookstore websites. The basic free option is only letting you put basic information on there, but if you pay you can increase the visibility of your book.
But ISBN number or not, in the UK there is one legal obligation you have to subject yourself to:
Library deposits.
In the UK you are legally obligated to send ONE copy of your book to the legal deposit office of the British Library in Wetherby and FIVE copies to the legal deposit agent in London. The addresses are supplied in the resources section at the end of the book.
Buying ISBN numbers for your own use is pretty straight forward. Lulu charges around £80 to sell you 10 numbers, but rather than doing that I'd suggest you buy directly from the source.
The UK ISBN Agency is Nielsen Book data on
www.isbn.nielsenbookdata.co.uk
I'm also having to address the practice of buying ISBN's from others.
First of all, if you do use someone elses ISBN (like lulu) then they should make you aware that the publisher listed would be them, and not you. Resale of already purchased ISBN's is not legal as the number includes a unique identifier for each publisher. You are in effect the author then of a book published by them.
If you want to build your own back catalogue (a fancy word that means all the other books you have published) to build the value of your own publishing business then you should only use your own ISBN numbers.
Some companies are authorised to sell US isbn numbers which are of no real use to you if you are in the UK as the publishing country would be wrong. Not a great problem but could cost you sales.
So all in all, ISBN is quite simply a way for the book industry to assign a “product number” to each and every book in a standardised way.
However. There always seems to be one of those around when you don't expect it. However, this point is one that has made this project worthwhile to my OWN publishing business. ISBN numbers are NOT a legal requirement to publish a book.
According to the PPA, an association for publishers and media suppliers and ISBN is simply a product number used in the book industry for ordering, listing and stock control purposes.
It offers NO copyright protection. It is just a number to help you sell your book.
Each version of a particular book is represented by its own 13 digit number and is issued by the Standard Book Numbering Agency.
There is some confusion as to how to assign a number to lets say a revised issue, or say if the hard back or the paperback should have a different ISBN number.
All I have to say is that imagine you went into a car dealership and you ordered your BMW 316i. The salesman writes in 316i in the product code box in the order form and asks you for your money.
But how do you know that you'll get a left hand drive? With Air conditioning. And in black?
Because they have a product code for all those things so that when your order enters the system, they know you want a black, left hand drive, air conditioned 316i.
It's the same with books. Look up “Harry Potter and the deathly hallows” on Amazon and you'll see a perfect example of what I mean. That book comes in two versions an adult one and a child edition, where the only difference is the binding and the cover art. And they have separate ISBN's to make sure everyone involved in selling those books knows exactly if you want the child edition or the adults edition.
The ISBN number serves a couple of purposes. It identifies a particular publisher and it also allows the publisher to identify a specific edition of a specific title in a specific format within their output.
So if you are going to sell a cookbook in paperback format as an upsell or bonus with your ebook and you will only ever sell it from your website...
YOU DON'T NEED AN ISBN!
The ONLY time you will need an ISBN number on your paperback book is when you want to sell your book through the normal channels like Barnes & Noble, Waterstones, Amazon and any other bookstores.
So why should you limit yourself and not put an ISBN number on your book?
I can't think of a good reason really. Distribution is the key to volume sales so why limit yourself.
For the cost of under £11 per project you get access to a distribution network if you add the barcode and ISBN number to the back of your book.
And once you have the ISBN numbers you can register on Nielsen book data and add the details of your book to their lists.
Now, adding your title to their database is not enough to get your books into the stores, but it means that it will end up on Amazon and a raft of other well known bookstore websites. The basic free option is only letting you put basic information on there, but if you pay you can increase the visibility of your book.
But ISBN number or not, in the UK there is one legal obligation you have to subject yourself to:
Library deposits.
In the UK you are legally obligated to send ONE copy of your book to the legal deposit office of the British Library in Wetherby and FIVE copies to the legal deposit agent in London. The addresses are supplied in the resources section at the end of the book.
Buying ISBN numbers for your own use is pretty straight forward. Lulu charges around £80 to sell you 10 numbers, but rather than doing that I'd suggest you buy directly from the source.
The UK ISBN Agency is Nielsen Book data on
www.isbn.nielsenbookdata.co.uk
I'm also having to address the practice of buying ISBN's from others.
First of all, if you do use someone elses ISBN (like lulu) then they should make you aware that the publisher listed would be them, and not you. Resale of already purchased ISBN's is not legal as the number includes a unique identifier for each publisher. You are in effect the author then of a book published by them.
If you want to build your own back catalogue (a fancy word that means all the other books you have published) to build the value of your own publishing business then you should only use your own ISBN numbers.
Some companies are authorised to sell US isbn numbers which are of no real use to you if you are in the UK as the publishing country would be wrong. Not a great problem but could cost you sales.
So all in all, ISBN is quite simply a way for the book industry to assign a “product number” to each and every book in a standardised way.
Sunday, October 12, 2008
Getting the manuscript ready
One of the things that I haven't really covered in great detail so far is how to get the manuscript ready for the paperback. The reason for this is that it is not all that complicated and mostly a case of copy and paste.
But there are a few things to remember, even if you have done the layout of your own ebooks. So let me share a few tips with you. I'll base this on the experience I am having with setting this book up on Lulu.
Unlike me you will have the written material ready so this first part is alot quicker for you.
Basically, go to their website and grab the template file you want to use based on the size of book that you want to publish and save it to a book publishing folder for your book project. Open the file and paste in the book content. Next you have to write in the front matter.
The front matter pages go at the front and are usually organised in this order: 1 - Title page, 2- copyright, disclaimers and publication data page, 3- index pages and 4-foreword pages. If you have any other pages that needs to go in the front matter like advertising, a list of your other books etc, then put that between 2 and 3.
Now the fun part begins (or so my wife insists.) as at this point you have all the pages that will go into the book. Now you have to do the typesetting / layout which means you have to line up all the chapters, paragraphs and sentences so they look nice on every page.
You'll have to start every chapter on a new page. It's up to you if you want to start them on the right hand (odd) pages as you still have to pay for the blank pages. I would also suggest that you change the font at this point to something basic like times new roman as this will make sure the pdf process will run smoothly.
Chapter Titles and headlines are often best changed to Arial or some other basic Sans Serif font.
And you have to do this from page 1 - page for page - until you've reached the end. Fun. The final page number has to be dividable by 4 so if you end up with an "uneven" number like for instance 49 you have to decide if you're either adding stuff to 3 more pages or if you have to edit the spaces you have added to reduce the page numbering until you have a page number you can divide by 4.
Some of the providers don't mind and will just add the right number of pages to make up the difference, but if you are submitting a print ready pdf it is likely to get rejected if it has the wrong number of pages. Ok, so several hours later the book file is finally ready.
It is at this stage that you would go to the printer ( lulu in this example) and upload the content file in the correct format.
The next stage would be prepare the cover images. The ideal solution would be to pay someone to do it for you but if you are on a budget, use Photoshop to create the book cover.
I'm sure you've got a fair idea what to put on the front, but don't forget the back! If you're stuck for something to put there, use some of text off your sales page and the testimonials for the book information.
Make sure to follow the instructions in the templates if you do decide to do it yourself, but I would suggest that if you can't afford to pay for having a paperback cover done on elance you should seriously consider if your ebook is worth converting to a paperback in the first place! Unless you haven't made the ebook available for sale already of course.
But there are a few things to remember, even if you have done the layout of your own ebooks. So let me share a few tips with you. I'll base this on the experience I am having with setting this book up on Lulu.
Unlike me you will have the written material ready so this first part is alot quicker for you.
Basically, go to their website and grab the template file you want to use based on the size of book that you want to publish and save it to a book publishing folder for your book project. Open the file and paste in the book content. Next you have to write in the front matter.
The front matter pages go at the front and are usually organised in this order: 1 - Title page, 2- copyright, disclaimers and publication data page, 3- index pages and 4-foreword pages. If you have any other pages that needs to go in the front matter like advertising, a list of your other books etc, then put that between 2 and 3.
Now the fun part begins (or so my wife insists.) as at this point you have all the pages that will go into the book. Now you have to do the typesetting / layout which means you have to line up all the chapters, paragraphs and sentences so they look nice on every page.
You'll have to start every chapter on a new page. It's up to you if you want to start them on the right hand (odd) pages as you still have to pay for the blank pages. I would also suggest that you change the font at this point to something basic like times new roman as this will make sure the pdf process will run smoothly.
Chapter Titles and headlines are often best changed to Arial or some other basic Sans Serif font.
And you have to do this from page 1 - page for page - until you've reached the end. Fun. The final page number has to be dividable by 4 so if you end up with an "uneven" number like for instance 49 you have to decide if you're either adding stuff to 3 more pages or if you have to edit the spaces you have added to reduce the page numbering until you have a page number you can divide by 4.
Some of the providers don't mind and will just add the right number of pages to make up the difference, but if you are submitting a print ready pdf it is likely to get rejected if it has the wrong number of pages. Ok, so several hours later the book file is finally ready.
It is at this stage that you would go to the printer ( lulu in this example) and upload the content file in the correct format.
The next stage would be prepare the cover images. The ideal solution would be to pay someone to do it for you but if you are on a budget, use Photoshop to create the book cover.
I'm sure you've got a fair idea what to put on the front, but don't forget the back! If you're stuck for something to put there, use some of text off your sales page and the testimonials for the book information.
Make sure to follow the instructions in the templates if you do decide to do it yourself, but I would suggest that if you can't afford to pay for having a paperback cover done on elance you should seriously consider if your ebook is worth converting to a paperback in the first place! Unless you haven't made the ebook available for sale already of course.
Saturday, October 11, 2008
Introducing... Printondemand-worldwide.com
Introducing... Printondemand-worldwide.com
These guys print our books for us because we've been doing our own distribution and we just use them for short print runs (up to 250 copies). They also do print on demand where you can order up to 25 copies at a time. In addition to black and white printing they also do full 4 colur printing suitable for childrens books and photo rich books, plus they are one of only a few print on demand suppliers that offer carbon neutral printing options.
They will accept word documents for the content file by the way.
If you are going to convert an ebook cover to the real book cover there's only 3 things to remember. Firstly, the cover file has to include the whole cover jacket (front, back and spine) Secondly, you (or your designer) have to use the spine width calculator to calculate the exact width of the spine. Thirdly you have to make sure that any images going in the cover file has to be tiff image file type and 300 to 600dpi.
These guys are readily available by phone and will happily talk any small publisher through the process or send your details to Fast-print.net if they think you need the type of help that self publishers usually ask for.
POD-WW are just printers. They do not have anything to do with your royalties, your marketing or your rights. You have to provide the ISBN's, the book files and hold on to the copyrights.
If you are on a very restricted budget should you use printondemand-ww?
These guys print our books for us because we've been doing our own distribution and we just use them for short print runs (up to 250 copies). They also do print on demand where you can order up to 25 copies at a time. In addition to black and white printing they also do full 4 colur printing suitable for childrens books and photo rich books, plus they are one of only a few print on demand suppliers that offer carbon neutral printing options.
Short run publishing:
Cost per copy(100 page book): £1.95 per copy if you buy 50 copies in a short run special deal
Setup Charges: Nil. They charge £15 for sending out a proof copy which is just loose leaf (but ask any proof reader it is alot easier to proof loose pages)
Other short run options will include various setup charges adding up to £55 and then 5p per page, with production costs running to £0.95 per cover and a penny per page. For a 100 page book the setup charges would then be £60, and then £1.95 per copy thereafter.
Print on Demand:
Cost per copy(100 page book): £1 for the cover & a penny per page = £2
Setup Charges: £17.50 and £10 annual maintenance charge
What I should say as well is that these guys offer an comprehensive service for authors which includes help with layout, cover design, proof reading, ISBN servicing, marketing packs and pretty much everything else an author would want to get his book created.
The sandwich list of things that they can offer on http://www.fast-print.net is pretty lenghty and it may be an option if you want to self publish. But as this material is about turning all your ebooks into real life paperback books for your budding publishing business, I will not go into any further detail about their service. If you want to, just check out their website and submit a request through their website and they'll be in touch. They do deliver quality.
Layout Help:
It would certainly help but there is less need for knowing special software as they will convert word documents for you. They operate a pdf printing process and although adobe is preferred they do suggest alternative PDF programs that work.Plus they don't insist you submit a pdf file, you can also submit word documents.
Cover Artist Help:
If you're not very familiar with doing designs then you will have to use help to get the cover done for this print on demand company too.
Editorial & Proofreading:
If you're not very familiar with doing designs then you will have to use help to get the cover done for this print on demand company too.
Editorial & Proofreading:
With the risk of repeating myself I will just say that editorial and proof reading assistance will improve the quality of your material. This applies regardless of who you let print your book in the end.
Choice of Binding:
Standard binding is perfect bound (paperback) or case bound (hard cover) but they can also offer bespoke solutions like saddle stich, spiral
Book sizes available:
Standard, Demy, A5, Royal & A4, but all book sizes can be done for you as a bespoke order.
The printondemand-ww publishing process - How it works.
You should start this process by downloading their Guide to Book Printing, Self Publishing and Marketing which is available from their book printing page. It is an 84 page manual that gives you all the things you need. You only need to read pages 11 to 21 to understand the printing process and 40 to 49 for the prices.
Next you need to register on their website
After you've completed the initial project information you'll receive a quote and have to pay before your book goes through a file handling and proofing process before it is printed and finished. If you have opted for the print on demand contract you will at this point also be offered access to their distribution network which is not as comprehensive as lightning sources, but you you get good access to the UK and US markets.
Next you need to register on their website
http://www.printondemand-worldwide.com/online-ordering.html
where you can proceed to place the order online.After you've completed the initial project information you'll receive a quote and have to pay before your book goes through a file handling and proofing process before it is printed and finished. If you have opted for the print on demand contract you will at this point also be offered access to their distribution network which is not as comprehensive as lightning sources, but you you get good access to the UK and US markets.
They will accept word documents for the content file by the way.
If you are going to convert an ebook cover to the real book cover there's only 3 things to remember. Firstly, the cover file has to include the whole cover jacket (front, back and spine) Secondly, you (or your designer) have to use the spine width calculator to calculate the exact width of the spine. Thirdly you have to make sure that any images going in the cover file has to be tiff image file type and 300 to 600dpi.
These guys are readily available by phone and will happily talk any small publisher through the process or send your details to Fast-print.net if they think you need the type of help that self publishers usually ask for.
POD-WW are just printers. They do not have anything to do with your royalties, your marketing or your rights. You have to provide the ISBN's, the book files and hold on to the copyrights.
Why choose printondemand-ww?
The profit margin is the greatest when you use them. You'd have to balance this with the level of market access you could be offered by other providers. If you already know where to meet your buyers and you are happy with the level of sales this will give you, marketing and distribution help from your printer is not required. If you want to sell more copies (for less profit per copy) then you have to consider alternatives, even when selecting their print on demand service. They are easy to use and you can also contact them very easily if you need help with anything at all.If you are on a very restricted budget should you use printondemand-ww?
Not really. You can self-publish with Lulu much easier, cheaper and faster. The only reason to use POD-WW in a restricted budget situation is when you have £200 to spend up front and want to maximise your profit over time.
Friday, October 10, 2008
Introducing... Lightningsource.co.uk
This is the other major print on demand provider with a global presence. Just like lulu, they do exactly what you expect. They also offer access to the entire Ingram distribution network which is really valuable. But this comes at a cost. So let's look at the financial part first.
Cost per copy(100 page book): £1.70 doesn't look so scary, and at £1.28 less than lulu, lightningsource should win hands down, right?
Setup Charges: £42 suddenly evens the scores abit, but this is paid for with less than 40 copies sold.
Additional charges: £7 distribution charge per year and up to £21 per paperback proof copy. You can also get your book announced on publication with the Ingram advance program (£28) and you will also need to spend £105.75 on ISBN numbers (the current cost for 10 numbers from nielsen bookdata)
In pure financial terms, if you expect to sell more than 200 copies of your paperback book then Lightningsource will cost you less per copy than Lulu.That should be your yard stick.
The other essentials:
Layout Help:
Would be extremely useful as lightningsource insists on adobe distilled pdf files only, or quark, InDesign or postscript files for both the book block ( the content) and the cover. Help is readily available for this online, but beware that the cheapest guys are not the best. The lightningsource templates are not exact templates but rather design keys that describes how the book needs to be laid out.
Cover Artist Help:
Lightningsource provide a cover generator that you can use to create the pdf that you need to upload to their servers later. You should still consider to use help for the graphics. You don't need any help with the ISBN barcode as Lightningsource will automatically put one on the cover file when you use the cover generator.
Editorial & Proofreading:
As with all the other print on demand providers you still need to consider getting some help with this part. It would also speed things up with the publishing process.
Choice of Binding:
Perfect binding is really the main choice, but if required there are other options available for hard cover books or really small books.
Book sizes available:
The sizes vary from 5x8 (inches) up to A4 size.
It takes 3 days to set up the book and then a few more days to get the proof copy. You then have to take the time to read that and make sure mistakes are corrected and the new file uploaded to their servers. For the purposes of this project this obviously rules out lightingsource, and lulu beats them there.
As I mentioned in the introduction if you expect to sell more than 200 copies of a one hundred page book then overall the profit you make will be greater if you choose lightningsource. But if you are confident you will sell 200 copies, and you already know who they are, there's an even better choice coming up in the next chapter.
So is the process easy to use? Well relatively. Their setup encouraces you to use freelancers to do the things you don't know how to do. The cover is pretty straight forward do deal with, but the laying out does need expertise to complete.
If you are on a very restricted budget should you use lightningsource?
Not very user friendly setup but incredible distribution access could make the difference if you want to sell more books but do not quite know who your book buyers are. Lightningsource insists you use your own ISBN number. If this level of book market access is what you want then get someone to help you with the layout and the cover design. You can not use Lightningsource to self publish yourself.
Cost per copy(100 page book): £1.70 doesn't look so scary, and at £1.28 less than lulu, lightningsource should win hands down, right?
Setup Charges: £42 suddenly evens the scores abit, but this is paid for with less than 40 copies sold.
Additional charges: £7 distribution charge per year and up to £21 per paperback proof copy. You can also get your book announced on publication with the Ingram advance program (£28) and you will also need to spend £105.75 on ISBN numbers (the current cost for 10 numbers from nielsen bookdata)
In pure financial terms, if you expect to sell more than 200 copies of your paperback book then Lightningsource will cost you less per copy than Lulu.That should be your yard stick.
The other essentials:
Layout Help:
Would be extremely useful as lightningsource insists on adobe distilled pdf files only, or quark, InDesign or postscript files for both the book block ( the content) and the cover. Help is readily available for this online, but beware that the cheapest guys are not the best. The lightningsource templates are not exact templates but rather design keys that describes how the book needs to be laid out.
Cover Artist Help:
Lightningsource provide a cover generator that you can use to create the pdf that you need to upload to their servers later. You should still consider to use help for the graphics. You don't need any help with the ISBN barcode as Lightningsource will automatically put one on the cover file when you use the cover generator.
Editorial & Proofreading:
As with all the other print on demand providers you still need to consider getting some help with this part. It would also speed things up with the publishing process.
Choice of Binding:
Perfect binding is really the main choice, but if required there are other options available for hard cover books or really small books.
Book sizes available:
The sizes vary from 5x8 (inches) up to A4 size.
The lightningsource Publishing Process
I must admit that even though we have an account manager with them, I don't fully understand how their process works. In essence it is all the same as all the other print on demand providers in that first you lay out the book block (that's the content to you and me), then lay out the cover ( a single file this time) and upload the files to the book project you have created on their servers when you registered.
I understand the mechanical steps and I think you are beginning to get the idea too, but I have no idea exactly how much everything will eventually cost me.
It doesn't help that the account options you have available to you depends on if you are a publisher, or an author. In fact if you are an author and not a publisher, lightningsource will turn you away.
I would say that on the website the most important links are "tutorials", "File creation" and "Book Design Essentials". For the purpose of this book that's all you really need to know. The best option if you insist on going with Lightningsource is to use professional layout artists that knows how to do book layouts for the lightningsource system.
Why Choose lightningsource?
In a word, Distribution. The vast Ingram distribution network is available to you with lightningsource.It takes 3 days to set up the book and then a few more days to get the proof copy. You then have to take the time to read that and make sure mistakes are corrected and the new file uploaded to their servers. For the purposes of this project this obviously rules out lightingsource, and lulu beats them there.
As I mentioned in the introduction if you expect to sell more than 200 copies of a one hundred page book then overall the profit you make will be greater if you choose lightningsource. But if you are confident you will sell 200 copies, and you already know who they are, there's an even better choice coming up in the next chapter.
So is the process easy to use? Well relatively. Their setup encouraces you to use freelancers to do the things you don't know how to do. The cover is pretty straight forward do deal with, but the laying out does need expertise to complete.
If you are on a very restricted budget should you use lightningsource?
Well that depends. £202 will hardly break the bank, but you if you are confident you will sell more than 200 copies and you already have the buyers lined up you then there are better and cheaper alternatives out there.
Not very user friendly setup but incredible distribution access could make the difference if you want to sell more books but do not quite know who your book buyers are. Lightningsource insists you use your own ISBN number. If this level of book market access is what you want then get someone to help you with the layout and the cover design. You can not use Lightningsource to self publish yourself.
Introducing... Lulu.com
Lulu is one of the main print on demand services and offers exactly what you think - a service to print and distribute your book when a copy is sold. What ever it is that you want publishing, they can handle. The have also moved beyond simply text books, but also offer photographic and design solutions as well as digital media.
You have the choice to publish your projects as personal projects, marketplace projects or distributable projects. The last option will use a Lulu owned ISBN number. Read on to see what this means to your back cover design.
NOTE: Lulu has just made Lulu - Published by You available to the UK for a setup fee of £79.95. This lets you use your own ISBN number on your book.
The essentials:
So the first thing to do is to grab the template file, doc or RTF file. Next you need to paste in your ebook content. Make sure to change the font to a serif font like times new roman as it reads better on paper than a sans serif font.
You will also have to add all the layout pages that goes in the front matter. Do you remember what that means by the way? It describes the first pages in a book, before the "good stuff" starts. Then after the front matter, you put the content into the book file. You or someone you pay then make sure everything is laid out properly and proof'ed.
Note that one of the troublesome things you have to contend with is page numbering. Traditionally the page numbering should be in the outer corners which means the numbers are left justified on the even pages and right justified on the odd numbered pages. I avoid all that hassle by simply placing the page numbering in the centre.
So once you have proofed the content, you can create your project and upload the file to lulu.com. You can register on the site at this point just to make sure you have continued access to the project.
This next bit is important...
Now you have to create TWO MORE FILES: the FRONT COVER and the BACK COVER. These are also available from the FAQ's template section. That gives you the outlines and exact sizes that you need to work to. The templates show where everything needs to go and also where the cover ends and the bleed begins. If you don't know what this means or where to begin, get a graphics designer on elance to do it for you.
All of this cover stuff is easy to do for someone that knows what do to. You can find those sorts of people on elance if you don't live with someone that can do it for you. (lucky me!)
The covers have to be submitted as gifs or photo shop files by the way, but the templates are in those formats already.
All in all you have to create three files to actually publish a book on lulu, but the wizard guides you through all that on their website so it isn't as complicated as you might think. In fact I think you may begin to see that it is actually pretty easy.
Can I temporarily distract you with a note about ISBNs at this point?
If you go for the distribution option for your book, lulu takes the non exclusive publishing rights and will need you to leave a space on the back cover for them to add the ISBN number. Their Book FAQ's and the template information pages have everything you need to know about this and exactly where you need to leave the "white hole" for the ISBN & Bar code.
Publishing with lulu is easy: 1. create the content, 2. create the two cover files, 3. upload. Each copy created is pretty cheap and postage is usually just £3.50 for a single item delivered to an EU or UK address. Comprehensive Book FAQ information makes the job a breeze and this is the cheapest way to produce a book without paying a setup charge.
You have the choice to publish your projects as personal projects, marketplace projects or distributable projects. The last option will use a Lulu owned ISBN number. Read on to see what this means to your back cover design.
NOTE: Lulu has just made Lulu - Published by You available to the UK for a setup fee of £79.95. This lets you use your own ISBN number on your book.
The essentials:
Cost per copy(100 page black & white paperback book): £2.98 (after the 28th of October)
Setup Charges: No setup fees.
Layout Help: very beneficial to get help.
Cover Artist Help: Requires skill to complete, so I would strongly suggest you use someone familiar with the process.
Editorial & Proofreading: Personal preference, but no content is added, suggested or offered in any way by lulu. Copyright statements, in copy library filing details etc will have to be included by you as part of the front matter in the book content file..
Choice of Binding: perfect bound, saddle stitch or coil boud
Book sizes available: Loads. They have trade sizes, paperback size, letter sized, square and more. By far the biggest choice of sizes so far.
The Lulu Publishing Process - How it works.
When you start a publishing project with lulu the best thing to do is to go to their FAQ section. The help information is very good, but that is also where they have all their templates. This book for instance is being blogged on blogger, but also copied into their paperback template.So the first thing to do is to grab the template file, doc or RTF file. Next you need to paste in your ebook content. Make sure to change the font to a serif font like times new roman as it reads better on paper than a sans serif font.
You will also have to add all the layout pages that goes in the front matter. Do you remember what that means by the way? It describes the first pages in a book, before the "good stuff" starts. Then after the front matter, you put the content into the book file. You or someone you pay then make sure everything is laid out properly and proof'ed.
Note that one of the troublesome things you have to contend with is page numbering. Traditionally the page numbering should be in the outer corners which means the numbers are left justified on the even pages and right justified on the odd numbered pages. I avoid all that hassle by simply placing the page numbering in the centre.
So once you have proofed the content, you can create your project and upload the file to lulu.com. You can register on the site at this point just to make sure you have continued access to the project.
This next bit is important...
Now you have to create TWO MORE FILES: the FRONT COVER and the BACK COVER. These are also available from the FAQ's template section. That gives you the outlines and exact sizes that you need to work to. The templates show where everything needs to go and also where the cover ends and the bleed begins. If you don't know what this means or where to begin, get a graphics designer on elance to do it for you.
All of this cover stuff is easy to do for someone that knows what do to. You can find those sorts of people on elance if you don't live with someone that can do it for you. (lucky me!)
The covers have to be submitted as gifs or photo shop files by the way, but the templates are in those formats already.
All in all you have to create three files to actually publish a book on lulu, but the wizard guides you through all that on their website so it isn't as complicated as you might think. In fact I think you may begin to see that it is actually pretty easy.
Can I temporarily distract you with a note about ISBNs at this point?
If you go for the distribution option for your book, lulu takes the non exclusive publishing rights and will need you to leave a space on the back cover for them to add the ISBN number. Their Book FAQ's and the template information pages have everything you need to know about this and exactly where you need to leave the "white hole" for the ISBN & Bar code.
Why Choose Lulu?
I think the most important reason to choose lulu is that you can have your book distributed to other book stores without using your own ISBN's, and the process to get the book published is pretty quick and easy.
You also have an impressive choice of booksizes and decent binding types available to you which means you can print books from 4 pages to 740 pages. And that gives you quite a scope.
You also have an impressive choice of booksizes and decent binding types available to you which means you can print books from 4 pages to 740 pages. And that gives you quite a scope.
You may also want to use lulu if you don't mind using companies that have just laid off a quarter of their staff! (a whopping 24 people!)
If you are on a very restricted budget should you use lulu?
If you are on a very restricted budget should you use lulu?
yes. There are no set up costs unless you want to use your own ISBN numbers. If you can afford your own ISBN numbers you should however hold off and use one of the next two companies I am about to review as they are cheaper per copy and also provide better distribution opportunities.
Publishing with lulu is easy: 1. create the content, 2. create the two cover files, 3. upload. Each copy created is pretty cheap and postage is usually just £3.50 for a single item delivered to an EU or UK address. Comprehensive Book FAQ information makes the job a breeze and this is the cheapest way to produce a book without paying a setup charge.
Thursday, October 9, 2008
And another thing about Blurb
I forgot to mention the image requirements.
You can put in images in any size you want in the book and the software lets you shrink and move them any way you want within the image place holder.
If you want to have a full page image on the pages you need to make sure it is of a very high jpg or png file quality. When you ask your cover artist to make a background image, or when you buy images you need to make sure they are of a 300DPi resolution and large enough to fit the size of the book.
You can put in images in any size you want in the book and the software lets you shrink and move them any way you want within the image place holder.
If you want to have a full page image on the pages you need to make sure it is of a very high jpg or png file quality. When you ask your cover artist to make a background image, or when you buy images you need to make sure they are of a 300DPi resolution and large enough to fit the size of the book.
Introducing Blurb
Introducing... Blurb.com
This is a pretty unique concept that I found on facebook the other day. First of all I have to mention that you have to add /uk behind the main URL to actually get to the UK site - I've not found ANY other way to get off the US site.
Mainly, this website will let you add pictures and text to their 70+ design layouts in over 12 categories and will send you the finished paperback or hard cover book within 14 days of your order. You can also sell your book in their bookstore.
You download their booksmart software, build the book file with all the layout elements including the cover, front matter and content and submit the book for publication when you are done. If you want to include an ISBN number you have to get a jpg made and put it bottom and centre on the back cover page and this has to include the barcode and the ISBN and EAN numbers.
ISBN is not required by the way. If you don't add one you are unable to distribute your book to other bookstores. At the moment blurb does not offer any distribution services so the only place you can sell your book is via blurb, but you can promote the book EXACTLY the same way you promote your clickbank ebook. You only have to direct the buyer to your blurb store.
The lush and very luxury look to the books make them perfect for photographs. Wedding, cookery and photography topics are perfectly suited to this publishing format.
Let's say you are promoting the plr ebook on low carb recipies, if you have relevant pictures then you can set up a blurb book to go with the ebook. Once you have the ebook order you can then place the order on blurb and ship the finished book to the customer.
If you are on a very restricted budget should you use Blurb?
Blurb is great for fast printing luxurious feeling prouducts and perfect for wedding, photography, cookery and other photo intensive projects. You can write your manuscript directly into the book lay out software for an even faster turnaround than just pasting in exisiting content. When pasting in information, do it bit by bit as it may crash the software otherwise. ISBN not required and your customers can choose the binding.
The luxury feel of blurb books are second to none.
This is a pretty unique concept that I found on facebook the other day. First of all I have to mention that you have to add /uk behind the main URL to actually get to the UK site - I've not found ANY other way to get off the US site.
Mainly, this website will let you add pictures and text to their 70+ design layouts in over 12 categories and will send you the finished paperback or hard cover book within 14 days of your order. You can also sell your book in their bookstore.
You download their booksmart software, build the book file with all the layout elements including the cover, front matter and content and submit the book for publication when you are done. If you want to include an ISBN number you have to get a jpg made and put it bottom and centre on the back cover page and this has to include the barcode and the ISBN and EAN numbers.
ISBN is not required by the way. If you don't add one you are unable to distribute your book to other bookstores. At the moment blurb does not offer any distribution services so the only place you can sell your book is via blurb, but you can promote the book EXACTLY the same way you promote your clickbank ebook. You only have to direct the buyer to your blurb store.
The essential details:
Cost per copy (100 page book): £9.95 for the smallest form format in full 4 colour.
Setup Charges: £The cost of your first copy. (They want you to buy a copy in order to make it available in their bookstore, although there is a way around it - just enroll in the profits program anyway! )
Layout Help: Not Required unless you want to be really hands off
Cover Artist Help: Blurb offers over 70 pre-made fully customizable cover templates. Use your own artists if you want to import your own cover design.
Editorial & Proofreading: Personal Preference, but would be beneficial to get it done before laying out the book. If you are importing existing material you MUST proof the book before publishing.
Choice of Binding: Paperback, Hardback with dust jacket or Hardback with Image wrap. Image wrap means cover images are printed directly on the hard back cover
The cool thing though is that you can let the customer decide on the type of cover they want to buy the book in!
Book sizes available: (inches) Square (7x7), Portrait(8x10), Landscape(10x8), Large Landscape (13x11)
The Blurb Publishing Process - How it works.
To be honest the introduction above included the full publishing process. You download their software and all the laying out and publishing is done from within that. Blurb is truly as simple as 1 2 3.
Let me show you. 2 years ago I did an interview with the best bunch in the PLR world. It took me 52 minutes this morning to find the original interview transcript, paste it into the software template (an action that is likely to crash the software, thankfully it autosaves) and do some basic editing ( not much ) and put it up on blurb.com for sale.
What you do have to watch with this publisher is that if no one buys your book, it gets deleted off their systems. You are also likely to upload a massive file to their servers.If mine is still there you can search their market place for "private label profits" . If you do find the book and get a chance to preview it, you can see the formatting is not all that great. This is clearly a result of the fac that I did not do enough proof reading.
You should also watch your URLs. When you paste in content it will not actually paste in URL links and to be honest the lay out process is so incredibly easy with blurb that the most time consuming part of the whole thing is the editing, the spell checking and the finishing touches of the page layouts.
Book delivery takes about 2 weeks though from when you first publish the book.
Why Choose Blurb?
The process is incredibly fast, especially if you decide to write your manuscript directly into their software. It is also very very easy to use, and the only thing that a novice would need help with is to create the ISBN number images to go on the back page of the cover.The lush and very luxury look to the books make them perfect for photographs. Wedding, cookery and photography topics are perfectly suited to this publishing format.
Let's say you are promoting the plr ebook on low carb recipies, if you have relevant pictures then you can set up a blurb book to go with the ebook. Once you have the ebook order you can then place the order on blurb and ship the finished book to the customer.
If you are on a very restricted budget should you use Blurb?
It depends on your market as the produced books are very luxurious. If you are a photographer then this is where blurb really comes into its own. If your target market is a luxury market or one of personalisation then this is the perfect solution. I'll be using them to make Christmas gifts.it is certainly inexpensive to set up. If you want an ISBN number on the book then this is the only obligatory initial expense.
Downsides:
If you want to lay out and do your very own thing then blurb may not be for you. And you would have to comply with the exacting book sizes they operate with.
Shipping costs are pretty hefty. You need to take that into account when you are selling these "indirectly" (like as a bonus with your ebook). A 100 page book is likely to cost you up to $30 including postage. The smallest book is £6.99 but that goes up to around £11 ready delivered to the UK.
Blurb is great for fast printing luxurious feeling prouducts and perfect for wedding, photography, cookery and other photo intensive projects. You can write your manuscript directly into the book lay out software for an even faster turnaround than just pasting in exisiting content. When pasting in information, do it bit by bit as it may crash the software otherwise. ISBN not required and your customers can choose the binding.
The luxury feel of blurb books are second to none.
Tuesday, October 7, 2008
Blurb
One of the ways I wanted to develop this book publishing project to demonstrate how easy it is to do, was to publish the chapters as I wrote them to a blogger blog.
I never realised that what I was doing would trigger the spam blog filters, but there you go.
So, just to reiterate - at the end of this publishing project that will end on the 16th of October, I will publish the resulting material using one of the print on demand providers that I have mentioned so far.
Today I wanted to have a closer look at blurb .com and what they offer as it is pretty unique.
But I will get back to that tomorrow. (if my blog survives)
If you are reviewing this blog, I am genuinely doing this for a project for a group of friends in a forum I visit. I'm not a spammer.
I never realised that what I was doing would trigger the spam blog filters, but there you go.
So, just to reiterate - at the end of this publishing project that will end on the 16th of October, I will publish the resulting material using one of the print on demand providers that I have mentioned so far.
Today I wanted to have a closer look at blurb .com and what they offer as it is pretty unique.
But I will get back to that tomorrow. (if my blog survives)
If you are reviewing this blog, I am genuinely doing this for a project for a group of friends in a forum I visit. I'm not a spammer.
Monday, October 6, 2008
Introducing... CafePress
Cafepress is one of the websites that deal in a range of personalised products. Typically these sites deal with t-shirts, mugs, bags and calendars but cafepress also offers you the opportunity to get your paperback printed.
Cost per copy(100 page book): $10
Setup Charges: $0
Layout Help: Very Beneficial
Cover Artist Help: Required
Editorial & Proofreading: Down to personal preference
They make the 5 most used sizes available (Grocery Store Paperback, Standard Paperback, Comic, Technical Manual and Letter Size) with a choice of 3 bindings. (Saddle Stich, Wire-O or Perfect Bound)
Although I should say not all bindings are available for all sizes.
Things to know about the CafePress Publishing Process
CafePress will insist on you submitting a PDF file that has been created with Adobe Distiller and not any other pdf creator.
CafePress takes a non-exclusive distribution right when you publish your book with them. This means that you can sell the same book content ( using different ISBNs ) from other print on demand providers.
Actually. When it comes to CafePress I’m not going to bother with a lengthy explanation about what you have to do. All the hoops they ask you to jump through are explained in painful detail on their website.
http://www.cafepress.com/cp/info/help/learn_book.aspxAs an education in HOW to lay out a document in readiness for a paperback, it is an excellent read. In fact if you want to learn more about exactly what each part of a book is called and on what page everything should go then their Publishing Learning centre is fantastic.
Just go to the Finalize Book Manuscript category and it will tell you everything you need to know.The worrying thing about this is that it is needed. Just to get the book ready.
Not really. They make it far too complicated.Essentially, all you have to do is grab the correct template for the book size you want, fill in all the pages at the front of the book, paste in your content and format all the pages to your taste. You have to lay out the cover pages separately, but I would strongly suggest you get someone to do the cover for you. A professional cover makes all the difference.
But at the price they charge surely they could do alot more for you. Like why they insist on you sending them the pdf version?Why Choose CafePress?
Now, the good thing about CafePress is the merchandising opportunities that are available. Plus the more than generous affiliate commission that you can add to your royalties.You can create loads of merchandise to tie in with your book publication and you get a store front that you can promote too. Sign up to their commission junction affiliate program and you will get an additional 15% commission on every sale you make.
That MAY make up for all the effort you have to put into getting the book created – until you realize that you can still sell all the merchandise and set up a CafePress StoreFront without using cafepress to print your book.If you are on a very restricted budget should you use CafePress?
Not really. They are cheaper per copy than blurb, and the affiliate commission is generous, but blurb is faster, lulu is cheaper and neither charge any set up fees.
In summary:Excellent merchandising opportunities with great affiliate commissions but the book publishing instructions are a little complicated. Does not accept word documents and so is only really a consideration if you want to set up a merchandising shop and want to maximise the return you get from the store. The non-exclusive distribution agreement you have with them will also allow you to publish the book with other print on demand services.
Sunday, October 5, 2008
Getting help from other people
A number of the print on demand websites and the digital printing companies that I will take a closer look at over the next few days insist on the importance of using editors and proofreaders to help you get your book as good as possible.
You may think that because you’ve already published the ebook manuscript there isn’t really any need. Word in print are so much more permanent when they are put to paper I’d strongly recommend you get someone else to look over it with a fine tooth comb if you didn’t get that done on your ebook.
By the way, go and pick up a book. Any paperback will do.
Flick through the first 4–5 pages. The ones BEFORE you’ve even read a single word of the actual book. If the author doesn’t have a back catalogue then the first page will most likely be a title page with not much more than the book title, the name of the author and the name of the publishing company.
Turn the page over and you will have all the copyright statements, ISBN details and disclaimers.
The next pages will have either dedications, chapter lists or an index and a foreword before the book starts… on the right hand page!
Most of the time books and their chapters will start on the right hand side. this is not a hard and fast rule, but it is an easy way to adjust the page numbers to fit into the “by 4” rule that most printers rely on. (that is to say that the final page numbers have to be dividable by 4. )
The right hand side is always on an odd page number by the way, so it is easy to remember. Doing this obviously takes time and makes the final cost of the book more expensive, so this is a rule that is being relaxed. Newer print on demand books generally don’t follow this rule, but if your ebook is targetting a specific niche, those blank pages between each chapter are perfect ad spaces for your own products, affiliate website or you can sell it to advertisers.
The same goes for the pages you may have left over at the end (to make it up to a 4–even number.
Without an experienced print on demand book editor and proof reader ( or me!) you would not have known any of that.
Printondemand-worldwide offers these services to authors using their site (for a fee of course) but you can quite easily find people on Elance or rentacoder to do the work.
Do you know exactly what the difference is between an editor and a proof reader by the way?
A proof reader is responsible for making sure there are no typo’s, the grammar is correct and that’s pretty much it.
An editor will be able to offer ways to improve the script. They will have a brief for how the manuscript should be and will read through and change the manuscript ( or tell YOU to do it) where they feel it needs improvement.
It helps if the editor is familiar with what you are writing about but it is not a problem if they don’t. That’s what those lengthy dedications are for in non-fictional books; all those people have either read the script before publication or offered information or tips that has helped improve the script.
Imagine for instance you are writing a travel book about a district in Italy. English speaking people familiar with the area or people working in the tourist industry would be able to help improve the quality of the content further. And for a free copy and a dedication in the book, most people would be happy to help.
The next 5 chapters will take a very close look at each of the 5 print on demand options I have mentioned earlier because rest of the printing process varies depending on which one of them you go for.
Saturday, October 4, 2008
Pricing Up Your Paperback
Pricing up a paperback book is a little bit more complicated than when you are pricing up an ebook. You’ve got a higher production cost now every time you sell a copy ( to state the blatantly obvious!) and there is also the psychology involved in the cost of paperback books.
You can quite easily find out what the minimum price of the book has to be to cover your costs by starting at the printing cost, add any other sales costs and then multiply by two. At this price you will not make any money at all through the regular book channels, but all your costs are covered.
This is because the book distributors in the book trade are in effect acting as your affiliates, and will demand a 30 to 50 percent commission. In book industry terms, this is the “discount”. The cost to the distributor or book store is called the “wholesale price”. If you want to make a profit on each copy you’ve sold you need to add a profit margin on top of all your costs and then that is your “wholesale price”.
A distributor will usually demand a slightly bigger discount than a book store, but in the UK, hardly any book chains will take in a book directly from the publisher anymore. Certainly not from an unknown publisher with only one book on their catalogue.
A $7 ebook can’t be sold for a profit at that price as a print on demand paperback will cost at least half that just to produce. You’d also have to remember that the prices on some of the print on demand sites and the custom product sites are significantly higher than what you pay per book to a regular digital printer.
For a $7 product you would then have $3.50 left to cover the cost of the postage, but then you will have to rely on your back end products to deliver your profit. If you are after building awareness or a customer database then that’s fine, but you need to charge more if you want to make a profit on each sale.
Let’s look at the pricing examples on the various websites.
# printondemand-worldwide charges £97.50 for 50 copies of a 100 page paperback. This is just under £2 per book (around US$3.50)
# lulu.com has a number of printing sizes available, but if we go for the smallest, which is traditional paperback, black & white printing, they would charge £185 for 50 copies of a 100 page book which is £3.70 (around US$5.50) (after the 28th of October the price changes to £2.98)
# lightningsource prices are not freely available, but according to the UK publishers manual (March 2008 version) a paperback book of 100 pages would cost £1.70 per copy but you would also have to pay the setup charges. For a digital paperback done to the right format this would come to £42. For 50 copies of the 100 page paperback this would total £127
For an additional £7 a year you also get entered into their print on demand catalogue and they have additional advertising options available as well.
# Blurb has a very clear pricing strategy and for a single 100 page book you would have to pay £9.95 to get it printed. That is in full colour and to be honest you are paying for the convenience of getting photos included if you wanted to. The quality of the print is pretty amazing and this is really an option for show pieces.
#Cafepress will also let you print books and according to their website the standard cost for a 100 page perfect bound paperback (the standard paperback binding) is $10 (around £5.65)
This gives you the cost of the books. If you want to distribute your book through the book industry channels you add your minimum profit that you want. Let’s say I go with lightningsource and I have no postage costs. Including the setup costs each copy costs me £2.54. If I set the price to £5.99 then I will give away up to £2.99 as a discount, leaving me with 45p profit per copy sold. That’s fine if the book is your loss leader, but it’s not something that will put dinner on the table.
Now you know why so many people talk up the benefits of selling your books directly. The book chains will have to sell 8 times as many books as you can do directly in this example for you to make the same amount of money from them as from your own efforts.
Maybe I am making this a little more complicated than it should be, because if you are selling a $37 ebook with bonuses, surely you can sell the paperback for the same? Well that is your decision. I would include the bonus books in my paperback book if the paperback book turned into only 40 pages. Although you can quite easily pad out a 40 page ebook to a 60 page paperback just by clever layout.
On a personal note, I always felt that a very easy upsell on any ebook would be to offer the paperback version as part of a bronze “upgrade” offer for the cost of the “postage”, which in this country you could quite easily justify at a minimum of £3.99
Friday, October 3, 2008
Selecting who to print your book
Ok, so when it comes to getting the book printed the first decision that you have to make is not who should print it for you, but how much money you have to spend getting the book printed.
Even if you go for an option like Blurb who has no set up charges at all, there is still the cost of ISBN numbers, cover graphics, editorial and proof reading costs. Some of these may be financial or they may be costly in terms of the time it takes to do, but one way or another you will always have to pay for this.
Then there is the cost of printing. Traditional digital printers will ask you to pay for the print run in advance. www.printondemand-worldwide.com charges only £97.50 for fifty 100 page books.
You also have to consider the add on cost of some of the distribution services offered by for instance lulu.com and lightningsource.com where you get to put your book in the catalogues of the book distributors like ingram that distributes to B&N.
Once you know what you can afford to spend, then the decision of who to use becomes that much more easier. You have fewer companies to choose from and then all you have to do is look at the sizes each of them do and decide which size is the best one for you.
The book industry operates with quite a few standardised book sizes and the range of designs vary wildly. Not only by sizing, but also things like what binding you want. It surprises my wife to no end that there are so few cookbooks with a coil bound spine (spiral bound) as you would be able to lay the book flat and still read the recipe. ( there’s an idea for you!)
To achieve better economies print on demand publishers have a more limited choice available than a digital short print company. Usually your book can quite happily fit, but it depends on how you have laid out your ebook already. Most ebooks are written in word and pdf’ed into a letter or A4 size and for a print on demand printer that should usually not be a problem. There are more limitations on pdf’s being submitted than if you send a word document. This has to do with typefaces (fonts) and how they are translated by the pdf’ing program. Usually it is best to read the instructions from the individual companies and take it from there.
Lightningsource.com and lulu.com are the top two print on demand printers and both offer services on top of simply printing the book whenever it is needed. Lightningsource will also make the titles available to all the major book distributors for about $12 a year per book. This would make your book available even in B&N and on the Amazon websites. Lulu offers a similar distribution service with the addition of access to the Lulu market place.
Lulu does not in fact insist on an ISBN number, but you would need one if you wanted to distribute the book to bookstores and through the book distributors.
Lulu does not appear to charge a setup fee, but Lightningsource does. So when you choose Lightningsource you need to be sure you can make back that investment. ( which is not all that much, depending on the type of book. Usually around £60–£80)
Both of these provide detailed instructions on how they need the books laid out rather than a straight forward “import” service.
If you decide to go with either one of these two, you are likely to reach a larger share of the book buying market than if you use any other print on demand service, but you should seriously consider asking my wife to do the editing, proofreading and laying out of the book for you. It would be much quicker and she has the experience to do it right.
Another service which is quite pricey per book copy but is incredibly convenient is blurb.com (blurb.com/uk for the uk prices) They focus mainly on picture books but are an excellent choice if you want to publish your blog into a book. They insist on users installing a piece of software that you can use to lay out your book project, but it makes the whole project much much easier to manage. They do not insist on ISBN’s, just like Lulu. Their services are very similar to that of Lulu, and if you want them to distribute the book through “normal” sales channels you will need to get an ISBN and a barcode to put on the back of the book.
The ISBN Agency will help you get the barcode for your ISBN as well, but I’ll come to that later on.
For these purposes, the cheapest service per copy will be a short run printer like www.printondemand-worldwide.com who will print you off as few as 50 copies. (£97.50 if the book is 100 pages) With any book printer you will need an ISBN number and barcode, and you need to lay out the cover and manuscript to their exacting guidlines. The cost benefit can quickly be out-weighed by the time cost of doing the work, but Print on Demand WW can help with that too through their fast-print.net self publishing service.
All printers that you are considering should never ask you to give up copyright to your material. Even customised products markets like cafepress.com, zazzle.com and spreadshirt.net (mainly clothing) should not have to do that, although some of them will insist on you confirming that you are the copyright holder of any materials that you provide.
Blurb.com will insist on retaining the copyright of the book layout, but the content you write remain yours to own.
There is some benefit to using pure printers because they are cheaper per copy of these books, but if you for instance want to simply provide a paper copy of your ebook, and you will only ever sell it online, you can get away without an ISBN by using lulu.com or blurb.com/uk. You would also be able to get your book out much faster with these two services - or cafepress or zazzle.
If you want to sell as many of your books as possible then lightningsource seems to have the biggest reach. I should say I know more about them than I do about Lulu. What I do know is that if you want to use your own ISBN numbers Lulu would only help you for $99.50 if you live in the US and territories. The rest of us would have to use their “published by Lulu” service.
I will provide a more in depth review of Lulu, Lightningsource, printondemand-worldwide and blurb.com later on in the book.
Next though, we need to look at how you make sure you make a profit from the paperback book.
Thursday, October 2, 2008
A Brief Note On Selecting The Right Topic
Before we get into the really meaty stuff let me make a point about selecting the right topic.
When I announced that I was writing this report I was adviced that it was not neccessary to include any material on how to select a suitable topic for a paperbased book, but I feel it is such a crucial part of the process that I have to say a few words about it.
The quality of the work that you do in the selection of a book topic has a massive impact further down the line. You need to know the topic is popular. You need to know where the market buys these books and you need access to those outlets.
It is the easiest thing in the world to get a book printed. Anyone can do that. The hard part is getting the book out there in front of people who are interested in reading it.
We did two titles recently. One book had all 3 elements clear cut and easy. It was also less competitive so we could command the price we wanted for the book. It's flying off the shelves.
The second book is a novel and it is the best trashy novel ever written and has the power to change the lives of those that read it - for ever! We were so dazzled by the quality of the writing and the compelling storylines that we went ahead with the project without sorting out all the other parts of the preparation process. We knew where it would need to go. But we could not get it on their shelves. So we try another outlet, and another and another with the same result. Novels are popular, but near impossible to get into the traditional ways. But the subject matter is such, that it would only ever be read on reccommendation. We should have realised that before we printed the first short print run and taken that into consideration. We also had to price the book competitively so the profit is really not there either.
So all I am going to say is this
PICK YOUR TOPICS CAREFULLY
AND
MAKE SURE YOU HAVE
F U L L ACCESS
TO A HUNGRY CROWD
BEFORE
YOU GO AHEAD
The Basics
As I mentioned earlier, the actual tasks to get a book from file to paper is pretty uncomplicated. My wife does all the preparations of the manuscripts and most of the other things on the list that I am about to show you and she refers to it as the exciting and creative stuff (something that as you may recall, I disagree with completely!)
The opportunity to sit down with a raw script and turning it into a finished physical book is in her mind the most beautiful thing. She loves the tweaking and tinkering and searching that she puts into it and most of all the fact that she has no idea when she starts what the end product will look like. The whole experience is completely organic until all of a sudden she discovers she’s finished laying out the book and it is ready for printing.
I would not do it that way. I have a more pragmatic or black and white approach to the whole thing. If this journey from ebook to paperback was a train trip she’d be sitting looking out the window and I’d be the one reading about how trains work (as I wouldn’t be allowed to drive the thing).
Now on to the basics
Let me show you the complete list of what you need to do. This is in effect the finished checklist, and for those who only want an overview, this is where the book ends for you. All you have to do to get your ebook into print is to start at the top of the list and work your way down it.
- Select printer/publisher
- select among the book sizes available from the printer
- Set your sales price & discount rates
- layout manuscript if required by the publisher so the text fits with the book size.
- Use an editor / proofreader / experts to improve your script.
- Obtain ISBN number (your own or someone elses)
- create book cover, front, back & spine.
- Submit finished master files to the printer / POD publisher & pay any upfront fees.
- Register the book on Nielsen BookData (in the UK)
- Start Promoting the book to your target outlets
- Review your proof copy of the book, if you are given one. Sign off any changes required.
- Send library copies to where they need to go ( depends on country)
- then get on with the hard part!
My wife the professional book publisher disagrees with parts of that list by the way. She would argue that the first thing to do is make sure you have enough room in the budget to do what you want. You must of course keep a close eye on the budget, but the choice of printer will also decide if you need to spend alot upfront or to take a smaller profit per book copy sold. If you can’t afford to spend most of your money upfront then that would of course limit your choices.
Now that I have shown you what you need to do the rest of this book is on the HOW.
Wednesday, October 1, 2008
Introduction
So you have made some money selling ebooks and information products, but now the old dream of actually becoming a famous published author of a REAL book has started to haunt you again.
Or maybe you’re being approached by people who wants the paperback version of your book. Familiy members call you and ask you why they can’t find your books in the local bookstore? (by the way, only a minority of “authors” make it into those places these days. )
You’ve heard a bit about “print on demand” and publishing and wonder how easy it would be to actually get a “proper book” created. You may even know of Lulu, Lightningsource and possibly CafePress as someone that can help you get the e off your ebook and finally turn that virtual product into something substantial:
A book that fits on a bookshelf.
The truth is that for someone who knows what they are doing, this stuff is easy, maybe even downright boring. It’s important, but it is a technical “A to Z” process that needs no creative input at all. It’s a list of things to do.
The list of things you MUST and SHOULD do, only come to about 11 tasks in total and some of them are REALLY simple. In my “manuscript to printed book” process one of the tasks simply reads “get ISBN number”.
The difference between us (I presume) is that I actually have some already. When I run out I also know where to get them. That is actually the core point to this whole book and interestingly the whole reason why we got books in the first place. Knowing.
Knowledge and our lust for it. That’s what drives the book publishing industry. Sharing the information that we know. Maybe the desire to share your knowledge was one of the reasons why you started to publish ebooks in the first place (other than making money from them of course).
Over the next few days (or pages, depending on where you are reading this.) my aim is to make sure that you know
– how and who to select as your print on demand partner(s)
– the step by step tasks you need to complete to get your ebook ready for printing.
– The legal requirements of ISBN numbers and where to buy them if you want to own your own ISBN numbers
– what the benefits and downsides are to using someone elses ISBN numbers and why you should never use “resellers”
You’ll also know more about print on demand, digital short print runs, book distributors and where to register your book so that every book store in your country (and even the world) can order YOUR paperback book for that family member of yours that’s been browsing for your titles all this time!
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