What You Need To Know About Working With Book Publishing Services

By Helen Fisher


Aspiring writers should know that the publishing industry has grown increasingly smaller over the years. Apart from a handful of struggling, little literary publishers, there is a very limited number of actual publishing houses. Consolidation has left this industry without a ton of competition. This is one of many reasons why people are opting to work with independent book publishing services instead.

Commonly called print-on demand services, companies like these can print copies of titles according to the level of market demand that they are generating. This eliminates the potential for wasted copies and money when sales are slow. Authors can place new orders for additional copies whenever sales start to rise again and new readers begin expressing interest.

From an author's perspective, this is an excellent way to get a title in print when there are no publishing houses or agents that have expressed interest in this work. It is usually the case that agents and printers only focus on well-known authors who have already established a track record for impressive sales. Breaking into this industry as an unknown author is becoming increasingly difficult.

Working with these companies requires you to understand the differences that exist between their services and the service options that are supplied by more traditional publishers. As an example, you will not get marketing services. Instead, you will be responsible for promoting your book by yourself.

Several services options exist for those who want to add in support for marketing and promotions. These are offered at an additional cost in most cases. When ordering these services, you will be connected with a range of viable contacts for arranging live readings and any other types of events that will foster sales.

Authors are not going to get help with their cover designs when using these services. Creating an attractive and quality cover is a vital part of making sure that your work gets the attention it deserves. It will be necessary to hire your very own cover designer in most instances. This means having to determine how you will compensate this individual fairly, such as whether an upfront payment will be made or if royalties will be shared in part.

Find out how much a publisher is going to charge before deciding to work with this entity. There are a number of publishers that will do this work for a single upfront cost. Others will want to take a percentage of your sales. If this number is reasonable enough, however, the available services and support may prove worthwhile.

See whether digital formatting is available in conjunction with physical printing solutions. This is certainly important to do if your audience is in large part committed to using e-readers for their books. For an added costs, many service providers will handle this formatting and can even distribute the resulting work across a variety of appropriate platforms.

It is always a good idea to find out what other authors are saying about these companies before using them. This will help you determine the quality of the results supplied and the ability to generate profits from the resulting works. When authors are extremely happy or dissatisfied with these services, they often leave a lot of very candid feedback online.




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