Congratulations! You’ve written your book and decided to self-publish it. Now you need to find an excellent book printing service to publish the book for you. But what do you look for? Here are seven questions that every author should ask before selecting a book printing service:

1 – How Long Does It Take?

A high-quality book printing service has clearly stated ranges of time (in business days) of how long it will take to print your book once they have received the final manuscript from you. These will likely be estimates based on the type of binding for your book, the number of copies requested, and other services provided by the publisher.

2 – What is Included in the Book Printing Package?

The book printing service should have clearly stated information about what is included and not included in a book printing package. What size book does the price get you? What type of book cover does it include? Does the price include a proof copy of the book? Get an exact description of what you do and don’t get for the price.

3 – What Extra Book Self-Publishing Services are Offered?

For example, most book printing services do not proofread the books submitted to them unless you pay extra for those services. Look carefully to see what services are available and might be helpful along your publishing journey.

4 – What Book Binding Options Are Available?

There are many different book binding options available for books these days. If you are looking for your book to fold flat so it is easier to take notes in it, a plastic comb, plastic wire, or even a 3-ring binding might be best. If you are targeting the mass market trade paperback market, then a perfect bound paperback binding is your best bet. An excellent book printing service provides many options for you to choose from, everything from 3-hole punched paper to leather-bound hardcover books.

5 – Do They Purchase ISBN Numbers for Your Self-Published Book?

An International Standard Book Number (ISBN) is a 13-digit number that is essential to identify the publisher and the book title for book publishers, distributors, and booksellers in order to track inventory. If you do not plan to sell your book in book stores or via a major online site such as Amazon, you don’t need one. Most publishers do charge for this service as a separate service.

6 – Will They Accept Your Camera-Ready Manuscript?

If you are a good do-it-yourselfer when it comes to book layout and design, it might be good to see if the book printer accepts camera-ready manuscripts, or if it requires the manuscript to be formatted using one of their pre-defined templates. Most book printing services accept manuscripts that are pre-formatted as long as they fit into one of their standard book sizes.

7 – What is the Book Printing Service’s Price Per Book?

The best way to determine the price that you will be able to sell your book for at book stores and online book shopping sites is the printing price per book from your book printing service. Some of the factors that impact this price include:

• Size of the book
• Binding
• Black & White or Full Color
• Number of copies to be printed (the larger the number of copies in the print run, the cheaper the cost per book will be)
• Extra services purchased for the book

InstantPublisher is Your Premier Book Printing Services Provider

If you have any questions at all, please give us a call at 1-800-259-2592, fill out our online contact form, or send an email to questions@instantpublisher.com.

The publishing world is constantly changing and with the availability of millions of books at every reader’s fingertips, it is important to know the differences between a “traditional” publisher and book self-publishing services once your book is ready for publication.

What is Traditional Publishing?

Traditional publishing is the name used for anyone who follows the “traditional” process of finding a publisher who produces the type of content you write, finding a literary agent who represents your kind of book, and submitting a book proposal (or synopsis and outline for fiction) to that agent. If that agent agrees to represent you, the agent then submits your book proposal around to the various publishers that publish that kind of book. If the agent makes a sale, they represent you for all of your literary business, negotiating publication rights, advances, and royalty rates. Agents earn 10 to 20% of your total royalties for the duration of the contract.

With the book now in the hands of a publisher, they will ask you to make revisions to the manuscript and will engage their internal marketing group to handle promotion for the book, cover design, manuscript layout, and much more. Except in extremely rare situations, you will not have any influence on the changes, cover design, look, and feel of the book. You won’t even have control over whether you produce a hardcover or paperback book. These are all decisions made by the publisher.

Once the book has been completed, it is put on a release calendar and distributed to major bookstores, and online booksellers, and (in the case of most first-time authors) completely forgotten. This process typically takes at least a year, but more often than not several years before you see your book on the shelf of your local bookstore. This brings us to the 1^st major difference between traditional and self-publishers.

1 – Self-Publishing is Faster

Once you have your book finished you don’t need to go through the tedious process of finding an agent and hoping that you will be taken on as a client, or waiting to be put on a release calendar several years down the road. You can get your book in the hands of your readers far faster than following the traditional route.

2 – You Keep Control of the Look and Feel of Your Book

In self-publishing you have complete creative control over aspects such as the book cover design, the book manuscript format, and length of the book. You can do the design yourself, or hire an expert to create a custom book cover and layout of the book.

3 – You Choose the Publishing Format of Your Book

Traditional publishers are often limited by what their accounting departments determine is an acceptable risk when selecting a format for the publication of your book. They may require a hardcover version of the book (even if your audience probably can’t afford it), or require you to publish only in the form of a mass-market paperback for your first book–in order to minimize the risk on their end. They may decide not to create an audiobook version of your book, an eBook, or publish the book in other languages. With self-publishing, you make every choice for yourself. Want your book to be produced with a leather-bound book binding? Done. Need your workshop’s notebook to have spiral-bound book binding? No problem. You can print your book in as many (or as few) versions as you wish.

4 – You Handle the Distribution of Your Book

Traditionally, this is one of the strengths of traditional publishers. They have connections to major book distributors and chain bookstores that most self-publishers don’t have. But as a self-published book author, you can sell your book however you see fit.

5 – You Handle the Marketing of Your Book

Most first-time authors get no marketing budget from traditional publishers. High visibility book tour and promotion budgets typically only apply to bestselling authors who traditional publishers see as a “sure thing.” As a self-published author, you set your own budget for marketing your book. You can have your own nationwide book tour, or simply promote your book sitting behind your desk, sending out newsletters, and doing podcast interviews about your book. The ways of promoting self-published books are almost limitless.

So, Are You Ready to be InstantPublisher’s Next Author?

Of course, you are. You wouldn’t be here if you weren’t interested in taking complete control of your writing career and literary efforts. And InstantPublisher is always standing by to help you reach your publishing goals. Give us a call at 1-800-259-2592, fill out our online contact form, or send an email to questions@instantpublisher.com to get the process started today.