How To Publish A Book - Part 2: Production
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FriesenPress - We make a better book.
One of the most appealing features of self-publishing is that the author maintains full control over their book – which is why it's important to familiarize yourself with the process and components of book production.
Word-length
Self-published books are only printed to meet the demand at any given moment. In the print-on-demand world, word-length and page count play an integral role in determining the price of your published book. If one book is ordered, one book is printed. As the page count increases, the price of the book increases.
For black-and-white books, a word-count between 30, 000 and 70, 000 is a good guideline. This roughly translates to a page count between 80 and 200, ensuring your book price will be competitive with other titles.
Editing
Having your manuscript professionally edited ensures that your book will stand up to those that are traditionally published. A professional edit goes beyond a proofread, or your neighbour's edit. Whether seeking content editing and guidance, or a copy edit to catch all those pesky typos and grammatical errors that Word misses, professional editing will raise your book to a higher calibre.
Authors who have a professional edit have 13% more sales.
Image Quality
People will judge a book by its cover, so it's important consider and research how you'd like your book to look. Browse the aisles (or the web) of your favourite bookstore and get an idea of what cover style is popular for your genre. If you need to find a cover image, two popular websites for royalty-free and copyright-free images are Shutterstock and iStock.com.
Many authors put a lot of time and effort into locating and scanning images. Images need to have a DPI (“dots-per-inch”) of 300 or higher and be in JPEG or TIFF format (not embedded in the manuscript). An image with a minimum of 300 DPI will have 300 dots of ink per square inch when printed.
Remember, you need permission to use images in your book, whether inside your book or on the cover of your book.
Get Ready to Publish Your Book!
FriesenPress is an assisted self-publisher, which means you don't have to be a previously published author, or know all the “ins and outs” of book publishing to work with us. We are happy to assist you in self-publishing your title and answer any questions and concerns you might have throughout the process.
That said, it's very important that, as a self-published author, you're ready to actively participate in the publication of your title. We are always happy to assist and guide you throughout the process, but this is your book and you retain creative control.
Be sure to check out Part 3 of this blog post on promoting your book!
Read Part 1 of this Blog series : How to Publish a Book - Choosing a Publisher.
Written by: Kathie Allen
Edited by: Julia Dillon-Davis
