FOR SMALL PUBLISHERS

 Questions we will ask you when beginning your book project:
(and we'll help you answer all of them!)

1 )     Have you ever published a book before?

2 )     Where are you in your process?   Is your manuscript in its final draft?   Has it been fact-edited, style-edited and copyedited?   If needed, is bibliography or index complete? Author bio?   Is it in Word format?   It’s best not to apply style formatting at this stage – keep the manuscript simple with one standard font, normal margins, no wingdings, etc. Formatting will be applied in the book design software.

3 )    Do you have a budget? We can help you make one.

4 )   Have you thought about the size of your book?  (5.5" x  8" is the smallest soft cover we’ve seen offered by POD printers,  8" x 10" the largest.) Soft or hard cover? Page count? (if POD printer is used, must be divisible by 2)

5 )  Do you have someone lined up who can cast the manuscript into pages via InDesign or a similar program?   Is this person familiar with preparing documents as PDF’s for POD printers? If not, Day'sEye Press and Studios can do this.

    
     6 )   Do you have all your photos or illustrations in hand, and permission obtained if
          they are not your own?   Someone to tweak, color correct, convert to CMYK?               Images must be at 300 DPI resolution at the final printed size for POD printer to             accept them. Again, Day'sEye can do this.

      7 ) Do you have a cover design?   If not, have you seen books you'd like to use as             models? Someone who can prepare this in InDesign or Illustrator to be placed              on the POD company’s cover template? Day'sEye can do this, too.

 8 )     Have you chosen a name for your publishing company?   Have you searched to learn whether this name is already in use? Registered this with your county of residence?   Completed the local publishing requirement? Do you have a logo?

 9 )   Have you thought about how you will market your book?   Who your audience is and where they can be found?   About how many books you are likely to move in a six-month period?

 10 ) Have you chosen a publishing date?   Advance copies of books should be available to send to reviewers 10-12 weeks before the official pub date. Some reviewers will refuse to consider a book that is “already published.”

11 ) Have you purchased your ISBN(s)?   (Block of 10 is much more economical than buying one at a time.) No need to purchase bar codes unless you go with a printer that does not provide this service. LightningSource and CreateSpace both offer bar codes free of charge.

12 ) After purchase of ISBN, have you set up your title?  At this point, you will need to provide title and sub-title, genre or category of writing to which your book belongs, author and co-author, author of preface or foreword if any; credits for illustrations and cover design, an exact page count, trim size, price, publishing date, etc. After the initial title setup is completed, you can go back later and change things . . .

13 ) Have you chosen your printer?  Print on Demand is probably the best way to go unless you are sure of a buying audience of at least 1000-2000 people – in that case you’re better off with an offset printer.

14 ) Do you want your book to appear on Amazon and Barnes & Noble and be listed in Ingram’s?   Do you want potential readers to be able to “Look Inside the Book”?

15 ) Have you considered who you will approach to review your book?  Will you have blurbs and endorsements from other authors or experts in your field on the back cover /first inside page?   Are they ready?