Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) |
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Q.1) What is print-on-demand (POD)?
Q.1) What is print-on-demand (POD)?
Basically, POD is a new technology in book printing that allows the books to be printed as many as needed (from a single copy to thousands of copies) at any given time. That eliminates the traditional way of offset printing in which you have to invest thousands of dollars and print hundreds or thousands of books in the hope of selling them all. In the POD process the electronic files of your book is stored in a large data base in print shop and is ready to be used to print as many books as necessary at any time. The speed of printing is fast enough to produce hundreds of books in just few hours. Q.2) What book sizes do you accept for publishing? We accept black and white interior books in cut sizes of 5 x 8" (203 x 127 mm), 5.5x 8.5"( 216 x 140 mm) and 6 x 9″ (229 x 152 mm) paperback or hardcover, as well as 8.25 x 11″ (280 x 210 mm) paperback. The covers are color. The insides are black and white, with either white or creme paper. You also have the option to offer your manuscript as an e-book as well. That is, letting the buyers download your book as text for a fee, determined by you. Q.3) How does the publishing process work? First, you send us the manuscript that you want to publish it as a book in any text format, preferably in Microsoft Words. Second, we will review your manuscript and verify if it is acceptable for publishing in terms of quality of writing, like spelling and grammatical error, etc. (We do not publish materials witch contains hate material, or anything that may disturb and harm readers) We will contact you and try to remedy any problem if applicable. Third, we will discuss about your book cover. If you have your own, that is fine. If you need help to create one, we will work with you on that. After the manuscript (text) and cover of your book is ready and you have paid the publishing fee and understand your rights as the copyright owner of your book as well as our rights as the publisher, your book publishing process will start immediately. In order to make sure that the book looks exactly like you anticipated, you need to order an initial copy before it is finalized and distributed. If you decided to make any changes, there will be a fee because the print setup has to be changed or redo entirely depending on the changes you would like to make. Together however, we will make sure that the first submission is free of error and is exactly what you expected. We will then start the process of distributing your book internationally through Ingram, the world’s largest distributing company. It will take few days for you or any wholesale or retail customers to be able to order your book from Indo-European Publishing, and as little as few weeks for your book to be available at major retailers like Amazon.com, as well as several other international booksellers. The interested libraries can also order your books through our distributor. You will start earning royalties from the sale of your books as soon as your book is published and ready to sell. Q.4) What are the fees associated with publishing?
-POD setup for black and white interior $295 Ordering a proof is optional, but highly recommended. You want to make sure that the actual finished book is free of any error and is what you expected before we start distributing. There will be charges for changing either the cover or the text, depending on the change. However there will even be more charges after it has gone through the distribution channels, if you decide to change anything. -Ingram Catalog Listing $60 Even if you don’t list your title in Ingram monthly one time catalog your book will still be distributed internationally. Our personal opinion is you don’t really need this service. You can use the $60 in more productive ways like buying some copies of your published books for your friends and family, etc. However, the decision is ultimately yours to make. Penalty fees -Changes after electronic proof $75 However, at times you may need a professional to work on your book cover for instance, or you might need a professional proofreader. In these special cases we either work on your project, charging you a fee depending on the project, or you may decide to do the necessary adjustments yourself, or hire someone else to do the job. In our experiences, if you have a well written manuscript and provide us with the book cover, there is rarely any need to these service fees. Generally most authors pay the $295 POD set up cost and the yearly $12 file hosting fee. You need not worry about book cover charges either, since if need be, we will help you create your book cover free of charge with our Professional BookCover Software. The cover of your book is very important in terms of promotional value as well as esthetic look of your book. If you have the knowledge of programs such as Adobe InDesign or QuarkXPress, and of-course the programs themselves, you should be able to create an appropriate cover that will enhance the look and value of your book. There are also book cover creating softwares that are easy to use and do not require any technical knowledge or a big investment. If you wish to create a professional and easy to make book cover yourself, we recommend that you spend some time researching and comparing various softwares in order to find an appropriate book cover software that works for you.
Q.5) What is the royalty rate that I will earn? You earn 30% of cover price (direct sales), and 15 % to 20% of the cover price from sales through distributors and resellers, depending on the number of factors such as number of pages, cover price you wish to sell your book for, etc, which affect the cost of printing per book. It also depends on bookstores and what wholesale discounts we have to offer those bookstores in persuading them to sell your books, typically though, sales from most large retailers such as Amazon.com will entitle you to a 15% of your book’s cover price (retail price). For sales through our distributor, Ingram, typically it takes 90-120 days after the sale for us to get paid (That is the standard in publishing business). For example, if a sale occurs in February, we would get paid for that sale in May, and your royalty will be paid immediately, in you convenient way. We usually send a check to you directly.
Q.6) What is an ISBN? Can I use my own ISBN? The ISBN stands for International Standard Book Number that uniquely identifies your book. According to isbn.org, the organization that manages ISBNs: “The purpose of the ISBN is to establish and identify one title or edition of a title from one specific publisher and is unique to that edition, allowing for more efficient marketing of products by booksellers, libraries, universities, wholesalers and distributors”. ISBNs are not related in any way to who owns the rights to your work. You keep all your rights to your book, including the copyright and in our case the right to change your publisher in the future with 30 days written notice. We provide and assign an ISBN number to each of your books as well as your e-books as part of the publishing package. You do not need to buy your own ISBN number. However, if for any reason you would like to use your own ISBN number, you are welcome to do so. A block of ten ISBNs from isbn.org costs $225.00 with regular processing and $370.00 Express Processing Fee. (As of June 2007)
Q.7) Who are some candidates for publishing through IEP? Well, anyone who has a talent in writing and produces a decent manuscript in terms of quality of writing is welcome to publish with IEP. Exceptions are, as we mentioned earlier, works witch contain hate material, or anything that may disturb and harm readers. Other than that you are welcome to send us your manuscripts. Some of the writers have already published their work through offset printing, and want to take advantage of the new POD technology and re-publish their work without going through the expenses of republishing with traditional offset printing method again. Writers who have something to say in terms of some specific cultural traits or customs that may have been forgotten or are in danger of being forgotten, are very welcome to publish with IEP. We encourage these writers to write about those cultural traits. Once published, those cultural traits will always be remembered and can be accessed by future generation, not only through hard copy books but also as an electronic text data. So, as long as there is the Internet, their work will survive and be available to interested people who wish to know about those cultural traits, or for researchers who would like to know about the culture. We wrote about this rather long in the context of the question! It is because this is in tune with the IEP’s mission, to encourage writers all over the world to write about their cultural heritage and specific traits before they are lost or changed completely with the expansion of globalization!
Graduate Thesis Students who have written their thesis, or are about to write their thesis, are very fortunate in that they already have, or soon will have, a complete manuscript of their hard work, which is already proofread by their department’s thesis committee. They should definitely publish their work for several reasons. First, they deserve to publish their work, since they have worked hard to write their thesis and have earned to be an author. Second, in addition of being an interesting subject to be read by many people, their thesis will be helpful to other students who will write their own thesis in the future based on information in many sources including the published thesis. Finally, after many months and in some cases years of hard work those who finish their thesis deserve a little financial reward, and depending on the quality and subject matter of the thesis, a significant amount of financial reward. An example of a thesis published by IEP is a book called Chinampas: Their Role in Aztec Empire-Building and Expansion, which is an interesting subject for many anthropologists and others who wish to know and or research about Aztecs and in this case specific aspect of Chinampa Agricultural System in Aztec Empire.
We reckon that by now you have a clearer idea about who are some of the candidates who can publish their work through Indo-European Publishing (IEP).
Q.8) How confidential is it to send you my manuscript ? Absolutely confidential; before sending your manuscript with a secured server, you agree to abide by an agreement / contract, which IEP is a party to it. In the agreement IEP is legally obliged to keep your manuscript confidential, until it is published and you become legally the copyright owner of your work. This confidentiality also extends to any and all information about you, such as you name, and e-mail address, etc.
In case you cannot find the answer to your specific question in this section, feel free to contact us with your specific questions.
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