Self publishing FAQ

How long does it take?

We will send you a quotation within 48 hours, showing you the cost of creating the ‘master’ artwork for your book, the cost of printing each book, and any recommendations we have about book size and design concepts. Once we get going, the creation of the book will take 10-20 working days. We are flexible to each author’s working methods so it’s good to discuss the overall project time at the outset and how you like to work. Once approved by you, the book will take between 5-10 days to appear on Amazon and other book retailers’ web sites, at which time it will also be available for small print runs for your own copies, and purchase by bookshops.

What about copyright?

You retain copyright. We don’t ask you to sign a contract. We do ask you to sign a letter attesting  that the book is your work and that it is doesn’t contain anything that breaks any laws.

What are the costs to the author?

The cost of designing and creating the ‘master’ artwork for your book is the main cost. As a rough guide, a 150 page 6×9 inch book will cost NZ$400-NZ$500 when created from a standard word-processor file, including a few photos or illustrations. This design and setup fee pays for the entire publishing process that puts your book on sale worldwide. It includes interior and cover design, and proofing until you are happy with the internal pages and the cover. If you want us to edit your book before typesetting, ask for this separately and we’ll quote a fixed price based on the number of words in your manuscript. If you have a complex graphic design, get in touch to discuss and we’ll provide a turnkey quote. 

How do I make money from my book?

When you self publish, you set the recommended retail price and the percentage discount to grant booksellers. If you set your book price at NZ$30, you are likely to earn about NZ$10.00 per copy sold through the book trade. Having paid e.g. NZ$500 for the setup, you’ll therefore need to sell 50 copies to break even. After that, each NZ$10.00 is profit. When selling via the book trade (Wheelers, Waterstones, Amazon, Barnes and Noble etc.) Into Print deals with order fulfilment so there is no financial outlay from you to fulfil these orders and and you can’t lose any money by publishing your book.

How do I get paid?

You invoice us on receipt of your sales income statement and we pay you via direct bank transfer. You pay us for our services in the same way or by bank draft/cheque as appropriate. As each book is printed to fulfil a customer order, the fixed income from that sale is recorded on your sales statement – recording the month of sale and the territory where the sale was made (e.g. UK, USA, Australasia or in the global network of partner factories).

Do you edit the manuscript?

We receive most of our author manuscripts as ‘final manuscript’ ready for us to typeset into book pages. If we notice that some editing is required, we will alert you. If you want us to edit your manuscript from scratch, send it to us for evaluation and we’ll explain how much work we think is involved and quote a fixed cost (we are very competitive) per 10,000 words.

Can you print in colour?

We can produce softback and hardback colour books suitable for children’s stories, graphic novels, text books, travel books with photography and artists’ catalogues. Just specify colour in your quotation request. Colour reproduction is excellent.

Can I really print just one book at a time?

Our Just One Book (JOB) service means that an individual copy is printed and sent out to a purchaser in a bookshop (high street or internet). If you want copies to send out for review or to sell directly e.g. from a craft stall or from your own web site, it’s economical to think in terms of 10+ copies at a time to keep down the carriage charge. We’ll print your own copies in the factory nearest you geographically e.g. for New Zealand, that’s in Australia; for Spain, in the UK; for North America, in the USA etc.

What can I have on the cover?

We will advise on cover design but you are free to have anything you want to supply. We will advise on purchasing stock photos or illustrations. You should supply your own title, subtitle (if any), author name, and quotes from any reviews already received. You should supply a ‘blurb’ to sell the book, and possibly an author’s biography,  for the back cover. We put it all together, add an ISBN, barcode and spine, ready for printing.

How do I present my work to you?

Send us your wordprocessor file(s) and any notes on the layout of the book. Use headings and subheadings consistently and the usual bold and italic style, lists and tables. We’ll pick these up in our typesetting. If the intended layout is not represented in the wordprocessor file then you can instruct us or send a sample we can work to. Send us your pictures as digital files via email or DropBox/OneDrive/Google Drive etc. If you have hard copies, get them scanned at your local copy shop. Check with us to discuss scan settings.

Do I format like a book?

You don’t need to try to make your document look like a book. We recommend preparing your book in a wordprocessor with automatic page numbers. Don’t add page numbers manually or try to format text manually; use the wordprocessor’s formatting capabilities or leave everything as simple text and tell us how you’d like it to look. When you have pictures, you can include them in the wordprocessor document or you can simply mark in the document where they should appear. It’s best to send your pictures separately even if you’ve included them in the document. Retain the highest resolution. Number the picture files in sequence and provide captions where required.

Should I send PDFs?

We work with text and images but there are some circumstances when you may have  created a sophisticated layout with tables and images in a word-processor or other software that will be difficult or expensive to recreate for print. We can take your PDFs in the size you’ve created your document and match them to a book format that we print. We offer free, no obligation, advice on the best ways to prepare and submit your work so feel free to get in touch with editor Mark Webb +44 (0)1604 832149.

Do you accept typed manuscripts?

No. We work from digital materials. If you have a typed manuscript in the cupboard then seek out a local copy typist to input your manuscript to a standard wordprocessor such as Microsoft Word, Open Office or Apple Pages. Typists use technology such as audio transcription and optical character reading as well as touch typing. Ask them to use grammar and spell checking to produce a ‘clean’ text file you can send to us.

How much does it cost to produce an e-book?

If you instruct us, we will publish e-book versions from the approved print edition of your book at a cost of NZ$100. We send the e-book file and data about the book out to the e-book seller platforms so that they can sell it. When your e-book is purchased for download (access limited to one user by digital rights management) you receive payment just as with the printed copy. We publish Kindle versions for sale on Amazon and EPUB versions for sale via Google PLAY, with optional Apple iBooks and Kobo. We incorporate a hyperlinked contents page, in-line illustrations and test the e-book to check that it flows properly on different e-readers, smartphones and tablets.

When is a good time to publish?

The book trade works around various key sales periods. We will advise on timing, how to contact your local bookshops for launches and signings, and how to publicise your new book. Christmas is always a key sales period and there’s nothing like giving your own book as a present.