IP now offers authors the option of selling their titles
by a print-on-demand (POD) subscription program (YBW).
IP uploads print and digital content to its POD partner Lightning
Source,
which is a division of Ingram Book Group, one of the largest book distributors
in
the world.
Headquartered in the USA, Lightning Source also has a major plant in the
UK, which gives it access to the European markets.
Once up on Lightning
Source’s
server,
a
title
can
be
ordered by wholesalers or retailers world-wide. Lightning Source
can
produce single copies, or up to 500 copies or more. The quality of POD
publications is similar to books printed conventionally. Clients
living in North America and the UK pay local freight rates and receive
the goods much more quickly than if they are shipped from Australia.
Once a title is with Lightning Source it is archived and remains “in
print” indefinitely.
You can also opt have your book distributed as an e-book for download onto
computers, iPods or 3G phones.
Authors who sign up to the program pay a one-off set-up charge (currently
US$50) when Lightning Source receives their title, plus an annual
maintenance fee (US$12). IP converts titles
to Acrobat pdf files to Lightning Source’s specifications and
then pays the author royalties in accord with our normal publishing contracts.
IP also offers other independent publishers and self-publishers
the chance to make their title available world-wide through TBW without
having to invest thousands
of
dollars
printing
copies
that may sit in storage for years. You can order stock as you need
it for little more than the cost of printing larger quantities in Australia,
or you can simply refer buyers to Lightning Source.
Independent publishers and self publishers can apply to IP for registration
in the YBW program. To be eligible, you must submit a complete digital
copy of
the
manuscript
to IP with
an non-refundable registration fee of $195 (GST-inclusive). Normally, your
title must be recommended for publication by a recognised agent or a professional
assessment
service
such as IP.Assess; however
this requirement may be waived if our editors view your manuscript as being
of publishable standard.
If we judge the manuscript as suitable for YBW, we’ll
send you the specifications required for preparing a press-ready
pdf. Or you can ask
us to do this for you for a fee set in advance. We’ll
then send you a contract detailing our services, any costs involved
and the royalties
you can expect.
Titles accepted for YBW publication will be promoted under one of our imprints.
Read on to see what you need to do to your book before sending it to us for YBW.
Your Book to the World Guide
If you have the right software and know how to work with
it, you can streamline the process of publishing in our YBW program, and save yourself money!
1. WORD-PROCESS YOUR MANUSCRIPT
Prepare a polished file in Microsoft
Word. We recommend having the manuscript assessed and edited BEFORE
you prepare your final copy in Word.
Ensure that you have obtained an ISBN from Thorpe Bibliographic
and a Cataloguing-in-Publication entry from the National Library of Australia.
These need to be entered on the imprint page, generally one of the first
pages in the prelims of your book. IP can arrange these for you, and also
produce a barcode for the back cover, for a modest fee.
2. DESKTOP IT
Once you’re happy
with the manuscript, it’s time to desktop it. You’ll need a
professional software package like InDesign or QuarkXpress, or you can
engage a designer to desktop your manuscript.
You’ll need to choose a book size from the options offered by Lightning Source. These are, in millimetres:
203 x 127
198 x 129
216 x 140
229 x 152
234 x 156
244 x 170
254 x 178
Most books fit well into the 216 x 140 or the 229 x 152 size, but you may have special requirements. Talk to us about it BEFORE you brief your designer!
Lightning Source (LS) offers four colour reproduction for your cover and for some jobs requiring colour on the inside pages. To determine the layout of your cover, use this formula:
width of the front cover + width of the spine + width of the back cover + 10mm for bleeds = total width
height of the cover + 10mm bleeds = total height
What’s a bleed? Generally most printers require you to send them artwork with an extra 5mm on all sides. These bleeds will be trimmed off at the end, so ensure that nothing important comes within 5mm of the bleed area.
How do you calculate the spine width? Easy. Go to Lightning Source’s home page, click on Resources, click on Book Designers’ Resources, then click on Calculate Spine Width. You’ll have to choose your book dimension from the list above, then click on Calculate.
Remember to prepare separate files for your cover art and for your internals (body text).
Note that LS requires that books be AT LEAST 80 pages in length. If your book is shorter than that, LS will make up the difference with blank pages. Or you can choose to put something on the extra pages like a blurb about your previous books or details about your upcoming reading tour of the United States.
Also note that your total page length needs to be a number
divisible by 4. If it isn’t, LS will round up to the nearest number
that IS divisible by 4 and add extra pages to make up the difference. So,
if your book is 82 pages long, LS will add another two pages to equal 84.
3. PREFLIGHT AND PACKAGE
YOUR BOOK
You have a couple of options here. If you have Adobe Acrobat Professional (version 7 or later), skip what follows about packaging in InDesign or
Quark.
If you don’t have Acrobat Pro, you’ll need to get InDesign or Quark to package the file for you. What this does is to create a folder containing not only the desktop file but also any fonts, images or links you used in preparing the DTP file.
Before packaging the file, you need to PREFLIGHT it. Go to File/Preflight under InDesign (Quark users should check your Guide for similar instructions). InDesign will find any broken links, missing fonts or artwork in RGB rather than CMYK format. You’ll need to fix these.
Once you’ve got rid of thse annoying little yellow
warning triangles, you can package the file, simply by going to File and
clicking
on Package.
Burn the resulting folders to CD, labelling them Cover and
Internals, and then ship it to us, along with a hard copy of everything
that going to LS.
4. CREATE A COMPLIANT PDF
If
you’re really with it and have Acrobat Pro, you
can go the final step, which is to first create a Postscript file then
distill it into a pdf using LS’s required preset. (If your eyes are
glazing over at this, you should get us to do this for you!) The Printer
should be set to Postscript, and the PPD (printer description) to Adobe
PDF. If your printer prints the file, you’ve done something wrong!
You need then to distill the file using a program aptly named Distiller. Select the PDFX1a (2001) preset, get Distiller to open your file (which will have a .ps suffix), and voilá, you have a LS compatible pdf!
Do this for both your cover and your internals and then email the files to us.
If you’re not very clear about this and need us to
do it all or part of it, help is just an email away! Obviously, the more
you can do yourself, the less you’ll have to pay us to prepare your
files for LS. On the other hand, if you are computer and/or software challenged,
you might be better off paying a pro to do it for you.
Gemma Barlow
Assistant Editor, IP