We discussed two major players in the self-publishing
industry that can help bring your family history writing to reality, Createspace and Lightening Source.
As the ebook industry continues to grow and the need for services expands more and more options will become available to the family history author, and it's hard to stay ahead of this changing industry. I am at that point.
As family historians, many of us are busy
researching and writing, and no one comes to the publishing industry knowing the
process or which path is best for them. I recognized that there might
be others out there like me. As I
carefully weigh my options, and move through the process, I felt I would share
my newfound knowledge and my self-publishing journey with you. You can see my other self-publishing rants here.
I’ve decided to create a spreadsheet, laying out the various
companies and the options they offered, giving you the power to make an
informed decision too. I will share that
with you in an upcoming post.
As I learn about
another publishing and or distribution company that can help us in our self-publishing endeavours I will layout what they have to offer, so we can compare apples to apples.
When you’re finished writing and ready to publish, you
should be able to clearly establish who is going to handle the publication of your
book.
This week I want to add another player to the list – BookBaby
BookBaby claims to pay the highest payout rate in the eBook
distribution industry. You pay them a $99.00 start-up fee (a current promotion, it is normally $149.00) and this gets your book converted to e-pub or mobi format
and delivered to their retailers.
Your basic package includes:
·
Basic formatting check
·
Conversion from your supplied file (Basic conversions require submission
in one of the following formats:
.doc, .docx, txt, .rtf, .html, or .pages)
.doc, .docx, txt, .rtf, .html, or .pages)
·
Insertion of your supplied cover image
·
Interactive Table of Contents
·
Up to 10 graphic elements (photographs, illustrations, charts, tables,
etc.)
BookBaby - will convert from the following formats
- Word (.doc, .docx)
- · Rich Text (.rtf)
- · Text (.txt)
- · Pages (.pages)
- · HTML (.html)
- · *InDesign (.indd) - Add $39
- · *PDF (.pdf) - Add $39
- · *Quark (.qxd) - Add $39
At BookBaby, authors receive 100% of the net sales revenue
from their retail network. This is after Apple, Amazon, Barnes, Noble, and Sony
take their cut.
Other fees you may incur along the way include an ISBN
number, BookBaby will provide one for $19.00. If you wish to be listed as the
publisher, then you should purchase your own ISBN numbers. Canadian authors keep in mind you can get
yours for free.
No proof is provided to you for the simple reason that
different readers require different formats. Therefore, you don’t have the
ability to see how each formatting will look in each reader. They will not send
you a proof for each format. My suggestion is if you are not confident about
your abilities to convert your word document to the e-pub file then leave that
up to them. You can learn more about how to prepare your book for conversion here.
Perhaps, you have already looked after your book with say
Amazon through Createspace; you can still use BookBaby to capture the Apple,
Barnes and Noble and Sony market. You are not required to redistribute to a
market you have already covered.
Need help with cover design, for a basic package of $99.00
you can get some help, if you want something a little more involved consider
the deluxe package at $199.00. After filling out an online questionnaire and
uploading any graphics you wish to use on the cover, the designers will get to
work and create you a book cover in 3-4 days.
You can make as many changes as you like to the contents of
the book up until you go the checkout. After the checkout, you can go back and
make punctuation and spelling changes for a fee, once per calendar year. Anything more than that constitutes a new
edition, with new ISBN numbers etc.etc.
Once you have gone through the checkout, it will take approximately
take 10 days before your book will be available at the retail level. You can
monitor the process through your account on Bookbaby.
Check out Bookbaby’s Pricing Schedule here.
BookBaby is certainly a company family historians should take a closer look at
for distributing their ebook.