Book Publishing Services

Ready to get your book published? We can help! Following are the services included with our Book Publishing Packages or offered individually (à la carte). Don’t see what you need listed here? Contact us to find out if we can help!

Published by YOU, no middleman: We like to think of our services as “Ghost Publishing.” Ghost Publishing is just like ghostwriting—but with your book’s publishing! A ghostwriter takes your ideas, crafts a manuscript, hands it back to you, and you take all the credit. You have all the control and the final say. No one even needs to know your book is ghostwritten (unless you’re a celebrity or politician, of course!). With Ghost Publishing, you hand us your finished manuscript, and we get it into final book form. And you take all the credit. Throughout the process you have total control, final say, and everything is registered in your name. You become an independently published author who looks traditionally published—the “done-for-you” easy way! Go ahead. Let us do the work. We’ll even let you take the credit for a fantastically produced book.
Strategy Session: Before getting started on your project, we set up a 30- or 60-minute phone call with you to answer your questions about the publishing process and discuss your needs and unique vision for your book. You’ll receive an overview of the process and what to expect as we work together, and you will hang up excited about your project and with the clear direction you need to get your book published!

Formatting & Design

Multiple Format Options and Trim Sizes: Your book will be produced in softcover or hardcover format with either a matte or glossy cover, plus you’re able to choose from a wide variety of trim sizes.
Copy Editing: Our professional editors will copyedit your manuscript for spelling, grammar, punctuation, continuity, and consistency. This type of editing keeps your original content intact while giving it a polished look. Our editors use the Chicago Manual of Style, the primary style guide for books, and the changes are tracked so you can see exactly what the editor has done.
Custom, Professional Cover Design: Our professional book designers understand that a book’s cover should be created 100% from scratch to match the unique content you have written and to draw readers’ attention in the marketplace. Instead of using a template that makes your book look like it’s part of someone else’s series, we only offer custom, professional book cover designs based on your unique vision and preferences, and include the front cover, back cover, and spine. Your custom design includes the use of stock imagery or we can use your photos or artwork. We understand you may want to fine-tune and make changes to the color, text, layout or images on your cover during the design process and include revisions to your cover for this purpose. Our Basic Cover Design option includes 1 concept, 1 round of revisions, and the use of 1 stock image, while our Full Custom Cover Design option includes 3 concepts to choose from, up to 3 rounds of revisions, and the use of up to 3 stock images. Custom illustration is available for book covers for an additional cost.
Custom, Professional Black and White Interior Formatting: Traditional publishers understand how the pages between the covers look is equally as important as the cover design. To keep consistency in the branding for your book, our book design team will lay out a fully custom interior that matches your cover and flows nicely to make it pleasing to the reader’s eye. We’ll take your plain, messy word processing document and make it look beautiful! We understand you may need to make changes to the text, formatting, or images in your book’s interior along the way and include revisions to your interior formatting.
Custom, Professional Full-Color Interior Formatting: Cookbooks and children’s books are common examples of full-color printed books, which often feature images, artwork or photos the author wishes to reproduce in color. Taking your supplied high-resolution artwork or images, our book design team will create a knockout full color design for the interior of your book. Full color books cost more to print than those with black and white interiors, so keep in mind the higher the page count, the more expensive the book will be for buyers to purchase.
Image or Graphic Insertions: Depending on your Publishing Package, up to 30 images or graphics that you provide will be inserted into the interior of your book where you want them to appear. Images and graphics must be of a high enough resolution and adhere to the printer’s guidelines.
Stock Images: We can find and acquire the use of appropriate stock images for your book cover or interior.
Image Editing: Our art department can edit photos, stock images, or other images so they look just right on your cover or inside your book.
Children’s Book Illustration: If you need custom artwork for your children’s book, our talented illustrator, Joe Eckstein, will bring your book to life! You can view samples of his work here.
Custom Graphics & Illustration: Do you need custom tables, diagrams, or illustrations for your book? Let our art department create them for you! We’ll create appealing graphics and artwork according to your instructions and specifications.
Indexing: Our book designers can create and format an index for your book from a list of terms you provide.

Printing & Distribution

Printer Account Setup in your name: We recommend a specific printer for most books and will handle the application and account setup process for you—in your name. We will schedule a one-on-one training session to walk you through your printer account back office to track sales, order books, drop ship orders anywhere in the world, and more.
File Setup with the printer and distributor: We will handle submitting the high-resolution files of your book to the printer for you. Many things can be done wrong in the initial distribution setup process, and sometimes it can be confusing. By letting us handle it for you, the crucial points of your book’s setup will be done accurately by a professional.
Hardcopy Proof: You will receive a hardcopy proof from our recommended printer for you to review and approve before your book is released.
Distribution to over 39,000 global booksellers, libraries, and online retailers: Including Barnes and Noble and Amazon, our recommended distribution system is the best in the world. It is the same system through Ingram Book Group and Baker and Taylor that the big publishing houses use and enables your book to be ordered from online and retail stores around the world.
Bookseller’s Return Program: Only one of the requirements to be stocked on bookstore shelves, every book we set up is guaranteed returnable. Vanity publishers have been known to offer this “service” for over $800 per year! We understand you want to maximize the marketability of your book, which means all your books are set up properly without ridiculous additional annual fees.
Author Discount for Books: Using our recommended printer, you will be able to order as many books as you want at a large discount to give away or resell at a profit.

Registrations

ISBN Registration in your name: If you want any retailer to sell your book, you must have an International Standard Book Number for the identification of your title in the retailers’ databases. This 13-digit number is unique to your book and allows distributors, retailers, printers and readers to accurately find and order it. We will handle the registration of your ISBNs for you—no nitty gritty paperwork! (*Purchase of new ISBNs is $125 for 1 or $295 for 10)
LCCN Registration in your name: A Library of Congress Control Number makes your book accessible to more than 8,000 U.S. libraries. It is used by the U.S. Library of Congress to catalog books and share bibliographic and other information about your book with libraries across the country. Your package includes the registration work done for you as well as the required fulfillment of one copy of your book to the Library of Congress.
Bowker Books In Print Listing & Registration in your name: Books in Print is the main database bookstores use to access information about your book. It is an essential part of the publishing process, so let us handle the registration process for you.
U.S. Copyright Registration: We handle the registration of U.S. copyright (where applicable) for you upon your book’s release. This registration gives you additional protection under copyright law if anyone should use your work without your permission. We will file one copyright registration application in the author’s name and send the required copies of your book to the federal copyright office in Washington, D.C. as the last piece of the publishing process. It typically takes 6 to 12 months for you to receive your certificate, but your book content is protected as soon as it is published.

E-Book Format

E-book File Formatting: Our design team and computer programmers work together to format an e-book version of your book that will flow cleanly, read well and be a professional reflection on you. This e-book will be readable on the Kindle, Sony Reader, iPad and Nook, as well as multiple mobile devices. Children’s books, cookbooks, and other books with special layouts require additional programming to retain their appearance on e-book readers and may entail an additional cost depending on length.
E-book Distribution Setup: We will handle the account registration and setup of your e-book with one of the major e-book distributors. Your e-book will be available with major e-book retailers including Kindle Store, iBooks Store, Kobo Store, and Nook Store.

Marketing

Marketability to brick & mortar stores: If you want your book stocked on bookstore shelves, it must meet certain requirements set by the retailers. Other publishing systems may offer access to bookstores in this way, but only with thousands of additional dollars out of your pocket! The I Am Published! program makes sure those doors are open to you, enabling you to compete a little easier with the big guys.
Pricing Market Research & set your own retail price: We will analyze the market for your book and give you three pricing recommendations (low, mid-range and high) with a breakdown of your profit margins. You are free to choose any retail price for your book, and with this additional knowledge you will be able to make a solid, informed decision.
Bookland EAN Barcode: We add the industry-standard Bookland EAN barcode containing your book’s ISBN and pricing information to the back cover of your printed book. Bookstores require this barcode for automated scanning and to sell your book.
Cover Images: We provide you with images in JPEG format of your book’s cover at various sizes for you to use in the marketing and promotion of your book.
3D Marketing Graphics: Market research has concluded that products like books sell better from websites when presented as a 3D graphic. Our graphic artists will create high-resolution 3D graphics of your book you can use anywhere in print or on the web.
Book Signing Kit: Many independent retailers require you to provide your own signs and marketing material for your book signings. Our Book Signing Kit will give you custom-designed printed materials to conduct a successful book signing! The Kit includes: 10 full-color laminated 11 x 17 posters, 1,000 full-color, heavy-stock, glossy invitation-style postcards, and 250 glossy half-page size, two-sided fliers.
Publicity Kit: We understand you don’t do 100% of your marketing online because people in the offline world need to hear your message, too! With the Publicity Kit, you will be able to effectively reach those masses. The Kit contains custom-designed printed materials including: 500 each of full-color, heavy stock, two-sided business cards, postcards and bookmarks.
Custom Press Release: We will write a custom press release promoting your book. You will have the opportunity to review the release and request changes.
Custom Media Kit: We will design a customized, attention-grabbing media kit that you can share with others who need to know about your book, from journalists and media contacts to retailers and bookstore managers. Also known as a press kit, it includes a press release we will write, any reviews and endorsements about your book, a description and information about your book, the author’s biography and photo, suggested interview questions, and contact information. This information is carefully edited by our team, and the design of the media kit is customized to your unique book in order to present a professional image and elicit a lasting impression. We supply the media kit to you in PDF format so you can give it out and make it available on your website as an essential aid in promoting your book.
Custom Logo Design: Need an eye-catching logo for your company or book’s imprint? For an additional cost, we can create a custom logo to represent your brand that you will be proud of!

Looking for more? Contact us to see if we can help you with your other publishing needs!

Specific services available and pricing are subject to change. See information below or contact us for details.