The Digital Publishing Centre @ IP
A New Deal for Digital Publishing
iPad. Kindle Fire. Smart Phones. Interactive apps. Book trailers. Viral blogs.
How do you get your work into these channels? The specialists at the Digital Publishing Centre can help. Authors accepted for publication by one of IP's selective imprints receive these services as a part of their contract. But select companies, agencies or individuals can also propose projects to us on a user-pay or partnership basis. Here are some options to consider.
The Plans
DPC Bronze
The aim here is to publish via POD (print-on-demand).
Working from your final text, we design an appropriate cover, arrange an ISBN and barcode. We then send you the master in digital form (pdf) for your approval before sending it off to our POD partners. To ensure the highest quality production, IP partners with only the best POD companies such as Lightning Source and CreateSpace.
Once your title is ready for printing, you tell us how many copies you require for your immediate needs and we arrange to have them sent to you.
The beauty of POD is that you can order as few or as many copies as you want at a time, and then top up your stock when you need it.
For no additional charge, we list your title on Amazon via our membership in the Amazon Advantage Program. This ensures that we determine how your title is described on Amazon and other online sites that harvest their listings from Amazon.
You can order stock from us as you need it. The cost per book depends on length and the physical dimensions of the book and whether or not you use colour. Straight black and white paperback books cost about AUD5. per book, delivered, (GST-inclusive) for a 100 page book. Discounts may apply if you order larger quantities, e.g. 100 at a time.
We pay you up to 75% of net revenue from POD sales. Net revenue is what we are paid by the POD companies, less any fees they charge us for making your title available for sale and maintaining it on their server.
DPC Silver
Under this plan, we prepare a master of your title and make it available as an eBook on a dozen global online eBook sites, including:
• Amazon, for the various Kindle® Readers
• iBookstore (Apple) for the iPad / iPhone in ePub and/or Fixed Layout ePub format
• Overdrive, a global open-source eBook distributor. Open source distributors prepare eBooks for a variety of readers, not just the Kindle
• Kobo, for the Kobo eBookstore, and Kobo Readers
• Google eBooks
• Wheelers, a distributor based in Australia and New Zealand with listings of more than 2.5 million titles
The DPC is constantly on the look-out for other major eBook distributors to ensure our authors get the best possible exposure in the global marketplace.
For free, we list your title on Amazon via our membership in the Amazon Advantage Program. This ensures that we determine how your title is described on Amazon and other online sites that harvest their listings from Amazon.
We pay you 40% of net revenue from eBook sales. Net revenue is what we are paid by the eBook distributor, less any fees they charge us for making your title available for sale and maintaining it on their server.
DPC Gold
This provides you with all the services under the Bronze and Silver Plans but at a discount. You can sign up for the Gold Plan at any time before we upload your title to our Bronze or Silver Plan partners. Once your master is uploaded, if you decide to add the other Plan, you'll have to pay the full enrolment fee.
Again, we pay you 40% of net revenue on sales.
DPC Platinum
This adds promotion to a DPC Gold Plan. Our Promotions Team develops a marketing plan for your title and then actively promotes it in consultation with you.
We provide you with a Promotions Guide to help you be a positive force in the marketing of your title to the appropriate audience(s).
A key component in the Platinum Plan is a dedicated mini-site for your title, hosted by the DPC on the ipoz.biz site. This mini-site contains a description of your title, an author bio, key reviews and links to external sites. We update the mini-site regularly based on information you send us.
IP maintains an extensive list of bookshops, libraries and wholesale suppliers in Australia and New Zealand and an expanding list overseas. Under DPC Platinum, we prepare a Sales Kit for your title and circulate it to our contacts here and overseas.
As an extra incentive, we pay you 50% of net revenue on sales. under the Platinum Plan
Editorial Support
The DPC is committed to publishing the best possible work in print and digital form. Publishers who simply offer to publish your work as is are not doing you or your audience(s) a service. Rightly known as "vanity publishers", such companies generally take your money and run.
Other companies may offer you a quick conversion of your title into eBook formats for an unbelievably low price, but generally if the price seems to good to be true, it usually is. If you want your eBook to look as good online as it does in print, you need to fine-tune it after conversion.
Step 1 in the process of being published by the DPC is getting a Short Report of about 2-4 pages on the title's readiness for publication and general advice on how to improve it. This is optional if you've already had the work professionally assessed. The fee for a Short Report is $299, GST-inclusive.
You can also arrange specialist editorial and proofreading support. This includes content (big picture) and copy editing (fine tuning) phases, plus a design proof reading. Editorial packages start at $995, GST-inclusive, with the cost dependant on the length and complexity of the project. Once we complete the Short Report, we'll give you a quote for the editorial and proofreading phases.
eBook Production & Distribution
Once the project is ready for publication, we prepare at least one digital master of it. This can be used for POD publication and for those eBook distributors who distribute optimised pdf files as eBook downloads.
We can also prepare ePub and Fixed layout formats, depending on how widely available you want the work to be. ePubs are the most universally accepted format and will work on almost all reading devices, while Fixed Layout versions work only on Apple devices and are suitable for titles with two spread layouts such as picture books and cook books.
The cost of preparing these eBook formats will depend on how many versions you want and how ready the file is for conversion when we receive it. You can expect to pay from 50 cents a page for ePub conversion up to $2 a page for Fixed Layout.
DIY
If you have the skills and the necessary software, you can prepare your own masters for publication via POD or as eBooks. For a mere $9.99, you can download our how-to Your eBook Survival Kit and get started yourself and potentially save yourself heaps of money.
Obviously, the more we know about your project, the better able we'll be to give you a precise quote. So, the first step is to contact us with a project proposal, a synopsis of the work and a few representative samples. There's no cost for this initial consultation, so what are you waiting for?
Dr David Reiter
Founding Director, IP
Digital Publishing Futurist