- Can I have just one book printed?
- Can I include photos and diagrams?
- Are there size limits?
- Do the print on demand books look different?
- How do I get an estimate?
- How do I order?
- What royalty can I expect?
- How long does the process take?
- Who sets the price?
- Is there a minimum price?
- How will my book reach readers?
- Do full-colour covers cost more?
- Can you order hardbacks as well as paperbacks?
- Do I need an ISBN?
- Can I publish under my own imprint?
- Can I order books for myself?
- How can people buy my book?
- How does my book get into the shops?
- Why can't I find my book in the shops?
- Does the book have to be published in every country?
- Can I revise my book?
- What's the catch with POD?
- What is digital publication?
- Does the writer get some free copies?
Yes, and no. Once the book is published you or any bookshop
can order single or multiple copies. Orders from wholesalers, bookshops and
online sellers such as Amazon are passed electronically to the print works. If
you are ordering copies for yourself you can still order a single copy but when
you add the cost of delivery it works out almost as cheap to buy it through a
bookshop. We do our sums of sales to you, the writer, based on orders of 25 copies.
Yes. These reproduce well but there are some limits. At present the
technology is only suitable for black & white material. Diagrams and line
drawings work very well. Our designers can work on old photographs to improve
the contrast so they print well on normal, book paper. Colour
is coming!
Books come in many sizes and all the standard book sizes
are available. The decision about size is normally left to the designer but if your book
has to fit into a series we can probably accommodate it. There is also a maximum
and minimum number of pages - at present these are 900 and 48 respectively.
They look exactly the same as books produced using regular batch production
processes. If anything, they are of slightly higher quality, which is one reason that this new
technology is so popular for academic books.
There are
some pages about the
cost of publishing your
book. If you decide to go ahead, just send half the estimated
amount and the material. We will send a detailed quote with the preliminary sketches. You pay the balance when the
proof is approved.
Work out an estimate first then
use the form provided which will tell
us about your book if you think you want to go ahead. If you want to go ahead, you then send us
all the material and half the estimated cost. We will then send the preliminary designs, along with a confirmed
quote to complete the book. You will be asked to approve the design at each
stage. We then talk, or email, to confirm details such as the price and send you
a contract. Every book is different so the process does very.
You need to make an allowance of 30-40% to the retail chain and we agree this with you in your contract.
Royalty payments traditionally are a bit slow arriving - we have to wait up to
90 days for payment through the retail chain - We process the
figures each quarter. This is better than most publishers who pay annually based
on figures that are months old. In practice you will receive roughly 50% of the
cover price and the good news is that any sales discounts come out of the
retailers share, not yours.
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We normally go through 3 stages of consultation over the designs, which is
likely to stretch over a month or more depending on your response time and workload in
the studio. It can easily take a month to get your text in
order and the extra pages sorted out. We
also prefer to leave another 4 weeks before formal publication as it
takes this long for the bookshops to receive notification about your book. This
adds to about 3 months. More
You do, but we will advise you. The price you charge should depend on the market you are aiming at.
A novel would be cheaper than an academic book.
There is a £7.99 minimum for books entering the UK retail
system. If the price is lower, there is not enough margin after the production
costs have been paid to make it worth distributing to bookshops.
There are three channels:
- We distribute through a top UK and world
distributor. They cover 90%+ of bookshops and provide on-line ordering for the shops.
- Our books are in the Amazon bookshops
- But you can also buy copies and supply them to the public at events such as signings.
No. All covers are printed on a colour printer.
Yes, two styles of hardback are offered. The traditional cloth
and jacket combination is available and there is also the 'board hardback', the card and laminated
cover which is suitable for study or reference works.
If your book is going to be sold through bookshops it must
have an ISBN. Only if you intend to your book solely for private circulation should you
do without an ISBN. We provide this and arrange for the various legal deposits as part of our services which is included in the estimate.
About a third of our writers publish under an imprint name of their own. So
it has their logo etc on the cover. However, if anybody trawls the ISBN
catalogue, it will show that it is published by WritersPrintShop. This allows us
to link your book into the distribution network we have set up. This 'duality'
seems to be working well. We also have an academic imprint which operates within
WPS.
We use the term to mean that your book is published and a copy or copies can
be printed whenever orders are received. We use print-on-demand technology so there is no
stock of books sitting around. Digital publication means that we can print your
book in all countries with suitable printers saving on transport and delivery
time. Most of the big publishers are now employing digital publication for their
back-list.
You can order copies of your book at any stage. There is no
minimum order. In your contract we will agree the purchase price (based on the
purchase of 25 copies at a time. You can order fewer, but the delivery costs
mean this will cost more). The price includes an allowance for delivery
but this will obviously vary a little depending where you want the copies sent.
You are the only person we will supply. All other orders must go through the book retails.
Once published, the details of your book are notified to
the book trade. Bookshops use an online index, often updated by CD, to look up books that they
want to buy. The other way to obtain your book is through Amazon.
Once your book has been published, the various
wholesalers are notified. The bookshops use these wholesalers' catalogues to prepare
their orders. It can take some weeks for the catalogue to reach the bookshops. If your book has been well promoted, bookshops might order it for
stock. However, it is more realistic to expect your early readers to order copies
through their favourite bookshop.
There are a number of reasons why you can't find your book.
- Bookshops only order books they think they can sell, or they have specific
orders for. They may not have heard about your book if it has not had
any publicity and you have not sold it to them.
- It might still be going through the digital publication
system. This can often be done in a few days but can take a week or more if
there are special issues.
- It might not have been listed in the book trade databases. Some work on a weekly cycle but others take
longer to update the
information.
- The shop you are in might be waiting to assemble a minimum order value to keep the cost of delivery low.
- It can take a few days for books to be unpacked,
entered into the shop's stock system and placed on the shelves.
- If your book is being revised, it might drop out of the
book data for a few weeks.
The books are published in the UK. However, they are made available for sale around the world.
We can print in the UK and US at present and hope to extend local printing round
the world eventually. London is still the place of publication.
Yes. It is one of the joys of print on demand that you
don't have to pulp the existing stock of books if you want to change the text.
This should not provide an excuse to avoid the discipline of
copy editing and
careful checking. But it does mean that you can update your book if you need to,
although the book has to be digitised again and a new file made, which involves some cost
to you.
There really isn't one. The individual copies are
slightly more expensive but to offset this extra cost there are no storage and
handling costs. Best of all, there is no need to guess the number of books you
will need and lay out your capital in advance.
We use the term to mean that your book is published and a copy or copies can
be printed whenever orders are received. We use
print-on-demand technology so there is no
stock of books sitting around. Digital publication means that we can print your
book in all countries with suitable printers saving on transport and delivery
time. Most of the big publishers are now employing digital publication for their
back-list.
We used to include some copies for the writer but as the marketplace has
become more price sensitive we have taken this out of the costings. However, you
buy the books at cost and can order them whenever you like.
