by test
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and tax matters. You may get general advice on this from your bank manager. The best person to help with detailed advice is an accountant but, as with legal advisers, good detailed opinions do not come cheap. Ask for an estimate of their charges or hourly rate before you begin.
Getting Further Help
Local reference libraries usually have a large number of reference books such as A & C Black's Writers' and Artists' Yearbook which contains lots of information which will be of use to you from the business point of view. There are also books in the 'How To' series that can help you, for example:
How to Start a Business from Home, Graham Jones, 3rd edition 1994. Managing Your Business Accounts, Peter Taylor, 4th edition 1998.
Checklist
1. Have you made arrangements to keep proper records?
2. Have you decided on a name for your business?
3. Do you have a stock of business stationery?
4. Has the title of the book been decided?
5. Have you applied for an ISBN?
6. Are your tax affairs under control?
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4
Designing and Producing Your Book
Many arrangements will have to be made to convert the edited script into a tangible 'product' ready for the marketplace. These can often take rather longer than originally anticipated, and you will need to plan ahead some months to be properly organised. This chapter considers the following:
countdown to publication
designing your book
typesetting and proof reading
indexing
printing and binding
using local suppliers
deciding the selling price.
Countdown to Publication
The Best Time to Publish
The best time of year to publish is from the beginning of October until Christmas. This is the time of the year when the public buys most books, so that your book, to have the most sales success, should be ready for sale at least by the start of October. It might be just as well to get on with the process of making the book as soon as possible, even if it means that it will be ready well before October. After Christmas and the beginning of a year book sales drop considerably. Many bookshops are involved in annual stock-taking, and are more interested in returning unsold copies to publishers than in adding to their stocks.
Planning Your Schedule
Once you have decided the ideal time to publish, you should work back to devise a timetable to ensure you achieve this, allowing sufficient time for the various stages of writing, editing, design, typesetting, printing, binding and delivery. If it is very important for you to stick to a particular
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date or month of publication, you are urged to plan your schedule well in advance, allowing plenty of time for sorting out problems along the way. So many things could knock your schedule off course, for example:
delays in finding a typesetter able to use your word-processing disk
alterations in design
problems in deciding the cover design and completing the cover artwork
holiday periods
unexpected financial or legal problems
loss of important material in transit (eg artwork or proofs).
Lining Up Your Suppliers
These are the suppliers you will probably need:
Illustrator/photographer
____________________
Designer for book and cover
____________________
Proof reader
____________________
Indexer
____________________
Typing/WP bureau
____________________
Typesetter
____________________
Printer/binder
____________________
Stationery supplier
____________________
Making Contracts
Many of the arrangements which you will have to make will involve legally-binding contracts. Agreements to pay cash in return for goods or services can be strictly enforced by the courts. Above all, remember:
Contracts do not have to be in writing, so be careful what you say to customers or suppliers. The courts will give effect to a verbal agreement if there is enough proof of the parties' intentions.
Never sign a written agreement unless you have read it carefully and really understand it all. It may contain small print which commits you to obligations which you never even thought about. Estimates from printers often contain 'standard conditions' on the back.
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STAGES OF BOOK PRODUCTION
Script
Complete by (date)
Finish writing and editing
Obtain illustrations
Obtain permission to reproduce any copyright material
Type or WP script in readiness for typesetter
_________________
_________________
_________________
_________________
Design
Obtain competitive estimates from designers
Design the cover
Design the insides of the book ('specimen page')
_________________
_________________
_________________
Typesetting
Obtain competitive estimates from typesetters
Order typesetting
Check proofs
Prepare index entries
Check index proof
Ensure typesetting corrections all carried out
'Camera ready copy' of insides then ready
_________________
_________________
_________________
_________________
_________________
_________________
_________________
Printing and binding (book and cover)
Obtain competitive estimates for printing book and cover, and binding
Decide quantity to be printed/bound
Place order for printing/binding
Delivery
_________________
_________________
_________________
_________________
Accounts
Receive and pay suppliers' invoices
Keep accounts records
Keep all correspondence/estimates
_________________
_________________
_________________
Fig. 13.
The stages of book production.
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If in doubt, see a lawyer. But watch the cost of professional advice, which can often be in the range £80 to £150 per hour.
Keep copies of all letters and other documents in case of disputes later on.
Royalty Contracts
An agreement for royalties is the most usual form of arrangement between publishers and authors. Of course, if you are publishing your own book, you will not need to make a contract with yourself. But if your publishing venture involves someone else's creative efforts text, artwork, design you would be strongly advised to draw up a contract which covers most eventualities and which could avoid expensive and embarrassing problems if things don't go according to plan.
A copyright is itself a form of property 'intellectual property' and may be licensed (rather as if it were being rented out), bought and sold. An author may sell his copyright outright for example in return for cash payment. This sometimes happens in the case of very short publications (eg a pamphlet) or expensive illustrated books where obtaining high quality artwork may be more important to the publisher than the accompanying text.
Under normal author-publisher contracts, the author continues to own the copyright in the work (which was his by right as a result of the act of creating the work). The author then licenses the publisher to produce and market the work, paying royalties in return. In general, if the publisher ceases to do this for any
reason, that licence normally expires, and the author would be free to license some other publisher to produce and sell the work. But the details of this are a matter of negotiation and agreement between the author and the publisher at the outset.
Unless it can be clearly proved that an author has sold his copyright outright (eg by a letter of agreement stating this), it should be assumed that the copyright continues to belong to the author.
A royalty is an agreed percentage of the retail or wholesale price of a book. The exact terms vary from publisher to publisher and from book to book: ten per cent is not unusual. Royalties on educational books or paperbacks may be less; royalties for best-selling authors can be considerably more. The contract may state that the royalty rate varies with the number of copies of the book sold. It should also contain the following clauses:
length of the book (eg 25,000 words)
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date of delivery of the manuscript
time for payment of royalty (eg 31 December each year)
whether the author or the publisher is to have the copyright
circumstances in which the arrangement will come to an end (eg when the book sells out, or after two years)
what happens if the publisher goes out of business
responsibility for the preparation and cost of indexes, illustrations, etc
the handling of overseas and subsidiary rights including films and broadcasting
publication of future editions.
Designing Your Book
Before your book can be printed it must be designed. Decisions must be taken about page size, typography, layout, illustrations, type of paper, and similar matters. A printer may be able to give you some advice about this, but you could also use a professional designer. The designer can be the most useful person you come into contact with. An experienced one can advise you on the best proof readers, typesetters and printers. But first obtain a written estimate of how much he is going to charge you for his services, which will include:
designing the inside of the book
choosing a typeface for the book
choosing the right paper
obtaining or drawing any illustrations ('artwork') required
monitoring the quality of work obtained from the printer
designing the covers.
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Book Sizes
In theory books can be made to more or less any size, but the best value will be had from sticking to traditional book sizes such as demy octavo (about 215 x 135mm like this book) or As (210 x 148mm). Various smaller and larger sizes are available, designed to offer best value from the printing and binding equipment.
Binding Styles
You will need to decide what style of binding would be most suitable, hardback ('casebound') or paperback ('limp').
Printing and binding are two separate processes.
Paperback
These may be:
'perfect bound' not sewn, but glued using a thermoplastic process. Likely to fall apart with heavy use, but cheap. Used for most popular paperbacks.
'sewn limp' which lasts much longer. Used for more expensive paperbacks.
'wire-stitched' really just a couple of staples, only suitable for cheap booklets.
Hardbacks
Hardbacks, as you can well imagine, are much more (75150%) expensive to produce than paperbacks. The decision is up to you but by all means ask for quotes from printers for both types. We cannot conceive of many situations in which an amateur publisher can justify the cost of a hardback edition. Public libraries often buy paperbacks nowadays.
Hardbacks may be:
'jacketed' where the plain imitation cloth boards ('cases') are protected by a printed book jacket (sometimes known as a dustwrapper).
'paper case' where instead of having a separate jacket, printed paper covers are pasted directly onto the boards.
Hardbacks can result in more extra frills than paperbacks, for example:
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(a) endpapers (including printed and/or coloured endpapers)
(b) decorative headbands (and tailbands) coloured thread visible at the top (and bottom) of the book by the spine
(c) silver or gold blocking on the spine and front cover
(d) coloured top or side edges of the pages (eg in red or blue wash).
Most hardback publishers are busy cutting costs these days, and such extras are probably only of interest for special purposes such as limited editions, very high price books, centenary editions and the like.
Design of covers
A good designer will give much thought to this as it can be a very important selling point. If you look at the local books section in a bookshop you will spot immediately the books which have professionally designed covers.
These are some points to keep in mind when designing covers:
1. The actual words of the title could be a more important sales factor than the design itself so keep a sense of perspective when wrestling with design decisions, and don't lose sight of your budget!
2. Colours. Printers may use one, two or four colour printing machines. If you want to use a colour photograph, this will mean four colours actually four special colours from which full colour pictures are made up (magenta, cyan, process yellow and black). This is the most expensive option.
3. The spine is particularly important, because most books in bookshops are only visible by the spine. Make the lettering stand out clearly.
4. You may want to include a barcode on the back. It only costs a few pounds to arrange this, and may encourage bigger computerised bookshops to re-order.
5. Keep the design itself reasonably simple. Avoid over-decoration and embellishment. This should cost you less, and result in a more pleasing appearance.
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6. The design concept should be shown first as a 'rough' or sketch of what is intended. When you have agreed this, it will be turned into finished artwork, ready for the printer to process. The artwork is usually presented on a sturdy sheet of card, with each colour often being shown on a separate overlay sheet ('separated artwork').
7. You could ask to see a colour proof of the cover, though this can be expensive and should be unnecessary if you have approved the design and the covers are printed satisfactorily. You may be offered a 'cromalin' proof or 'machine' proof. The former is really a form of photograph print, and the colours may not be a true match for what you require. The machine proofs are much better, since they are made using the actual colour plates, but because plates have been made the proofs are more expensive. Ask for quotes for the cost of these before you begin, if you think you might wish to see them.