What can a self-publishing company do for me?

Most of the effort and responsibility can be taken off your shoulders when you hire the services of a self-publishing company. They will take care of the cover design, typesetting, scanning and manipulation of any images you supply to them, acquisition of an ISBN and a bar code, and printing. Most self-publishing companies are not printers -they won’t print your book themselves. But they will be familiar with the best printing firm to do your kind of book and will act on your behalf in arranging the printing for you.

There are, however, printing firms that offer selfpublishing services as a sideline. The company I used to co-run was a sideline to a mainstream publishing business, so we were able to offer our spare capacity and skills to self-publishing authors. Every book project that came along was different. We offered authors the opportunity to create books in any size and format, on any subject, any print run. There were so many variations in what an author might require that we had to quote for every job individually. In contrast, some self-publishing companies offer very few options in an attempt to simplify and standardise the process, which also has

WHAT CAN A SELF-PUBLISHING COMPANY DO FOR ME?

a cost benefit. Be sure that this approach won’t compromise your book’s chances of commercial success before going down this route. A generic cover design that’s also on the front of dozens of other books, all unrelated except for the use of the same self-publishing service, might not do you any favours.

Whichever company you use, don’t think you can just leave it to them and sit at home until your beautiful books arrive. Some self-publishing companies are run by people with little experience of commercial book publishing and they get away with producing books that are poorly typeset and badly designed because most authors are so blinded by the thrill of seeing their name in print that they don’t notice.

This is why it’s important to look at examples of previous books that they have produced on behalf of self-publishing authors and to check for the layout problems listed later in this book.