Services for Indie & self-publishers

There are plenty of turnkey services such as CreateSpace that can help authors get into print, but for a savvy self-publisher they can be costly and consume a chunk of the very narrow profit margin on POD (print on demand) books.

We aim to give you an advantage with creativity and personal service (the big sites tend to be somewhat automated) plus an opportunity for greater earnings with print-on-demand publishing through Lightning Source International. We can help you with editing, design, and production.

Editing is huge!

The single biggest mistake self-publishers make is not engaging a qualified editor to make sure their book is professional in craft and storytelling.

Don’t just take it from us. See what bestselling author M.J. Rose (once a self-publisher) says in this excerpt from an article on the Huffington Post.

And here’s advice from the author of How to Make, Market and Sell Ebooks – All for Free.

It doesn’t have to be us that does your edit, but it is a mistake, a big one, to publish a book without editing.

There are two kinds of editing:

Substantive/Developmental We call it “story editing.” Especially valuable in fiction, it includes attention to and coaching on plot, characters, and craft. Learn more here.

Copyediting This kind of editing looks after your p’s and q’s to make sure your narrative is grammatically correct and clear. We have a copyeditor associate that we recommend--we don’t have a financial arrangement, but she copyedited one of our novels.

Plug for our copyeditor associate, Laurel Robinson

Polishing prose for more than 30 years, Laurel can fix grammar, punctuation, and spelling errors; catch inconsistencies in logic and flow; and help you present your writing in its best light.

NOTE: We are not competitors in that she doesn’t (says she can’t) do the substantive editing that we do, and we are not as sharp on the copyediting side as Laurel is.

For a novel, you’ll get the best result with both of us, but the developmental side probably should come first so that the revisions you make can be checked by the copyeditor after you’re through.

Production

Ebook formatting: conversion of your manuscript into the .mobi (Kindle) and epub (Nook, Sony, others) formats. $50 per format.

Amazon Kindle publishing: Navigating Amazon’s publishing process for a Kindle book can be complicated. I can help with setting it up, uploading files, formatting your manuscript, etc. $50 per book (does not include cover design or editing).

Lightning Source account set-up: you can publish your print-on-demand book through Lightning Source International, a subsidiary of the Ingram Book Company.

Lightning Source is not as user-friendly as outfits like CreateSpace or iUniverse--it does not provide design or editing services, just book production and distribution--but you keep a lot more of your profit.

Included in the Ingram database: 30,000 wholesalers, retailers and booksellers in over 100 countries can order your book

Includes distribution to Lightning Source online bookseller partners worldwide, including Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble, Baker & Taylor

Fee per book: $100. This includes LSI’s $75 set-up fee, we fill out the forms, upload cover and content files, deal with revisions.

ISBN number: ISBN numbers cost $125. If you want assistance in navigating the system, we will set up your ISBN number and will provide a graphic file of your ISBN number for print usage. $25 + cost of number.

Note that the ISBN number assigned by services such as Createspace, Lulu.com, iUniverse and others list them as the publisher, not you.

LIbrary of Congress control number (for print publication): we will set up your Library of Congress account and submit the information needed for a Library of Congress control number. $25

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