Transcripts
1. Course Welcome: Hi, I'm Vanessa S. O'neill and welcome
to my course, self-publishing to the
industry standard. Writing can be exhilarating explicitly if you have
aspirations to publish. However, over 60% of
the manuscripts that are submitted to traditional publishing
houses are rejected. And there are various
reasons for the rejection, not all attributed
to the writer. However, a rejection
as a rejection, self-publishing has increased in its acceptability
is becoming one of the industry standards for new publishers
and new authors. However, not all
self-published works make it to bookstores or gift
shops, even online sales. And the reason for that
is because the book, although it might be an excellent topic of
interests too many, the book itself does not
meet the industry standard. You can self-publish, but just self-publish work
has to be up to the same specs of the industry's traditional
publishing standard. In this course, we're going
to discuss step-by-step, how to get your manuscript ready and in shape
for publishing. As well as how to get it into
bookstores and libraries with all the components
needed to make it a respectable viable work. In the publishing industry. We're going to cover all of
the components necessary to include editing the PCA, IP block, PCA in interior
design, all of it. So if you're ready, I'm ready. Let's get to it.
2. Intro to Course: There are several components
to the publishing process. The first start after you
have completed manuscript. In this course, we're
going to look at each component as an
individual lesson. And the lessons are in the order in which you should
complete the task. I've also provided
you with assignments. These exercises will help you to understand the
process at hand, the overall process
to publishing. Even though you can skip the
lessons and move forward. My suggestion is to
start looking at all the lessons one-by-one and then complete the assignments. I think it will help
you better if you understood the process before trying to complete the
process, but it's up to you. The course is available
to you to work however, makes you happy to get to
the point of publishing. But I would take my advice.
3. The Barcode Block: Right next to the ISBN number on every book should
be the barcode. Barcode is a machine
readable code in the form of numbers and a pattern of parallel lines
of varying widths. And it's printed on and
identifying product, in this case a book. So what you'll have is you'll
have your ISBN number. And then I know
you've seen this, the ISBN number and
then you'll see lines, and then you'll see a bar code. All of that creates
your ISP and block. If you look at any
book at the bottom, back cover on the right, that's where it normally is. You'll see a combination of
the ISBN and the barcode. Both the ISBN and the barcode
are critical to the books. Livelihood. In the self-publishing and traditional
publishing industry. This is what gets your books accepted to be in
bookstores and libraries.
4. The Copyright : Copyright registration, also
known as the copyright. This is the protector
of your work. This is the identity
of your work to you. And this is the
legal statute that says this work belongs
to you and can not be used or copied or sold by anyone
else except for you. Now this is a
registration process. You have to go into the Electronic Copyright
Office registration system and create an account. Once you create the account, you will be able to
submit a registration. The registration cost $45
for one written work, but you can do multiple. Let's take a look at the
system itself so that you can see what applying for
registration looks like. In order to submit a copyright registration
for a literary or art work, you must go to the
copyright.gov website, which is the US
Copyright Office. I'm going to show you how to access the registration portion, as well as provide you with
a glimpse at the components that you will find once you
register to use the website. So the copyright.gov, US Copyright Office
landing page is, as you see here, a
lot of information. So it would behoove you to
just peruse at your leisure. But to register your work, you want to access
by clicking here. Register your work, learn more. This is going to take you to
the registration portal here where it states login to the Electronic Copyright
Office registration system, also known as eco. You want to click on this
button to gain access. Now if you don't already
have a registration, you're going to have to
register for the site. Once you've registered
for the site, then you'll be able to
access the information that you need to register
the actual work. I have already
registered for the site. And I'm taking you directly to what this will look
like once you log in. So this is the
registration portal. Once you register
the copyright site, this portal is going
to remain fluid. Whether you register
one work or whether you register several
works over time. Let's look at some
of the components. So to register a work, this is your section. Register a work
standard application. Now, if you have more than one work and you're trying to register them
all at the same time. You can register up to ten. And it's now a group work. But all of the definitions
are inside the site. What I want you to take
a look at is this. Once you click on standard
registration and you start, the registration
process, is going to take you through a
series of questions. Once you answer all the
questions relating to your work, relating to the publisher, relating to whether
or not there are additional writers in the work, all of the pertinent
information, then you will have a registration
process that has begun. There is a fee based on the type of work you're
trying to register. Once you pay the fee, then you will see this information here
in this section here. Matter of fact, before
you pay the fee, if you don't pay the fee
and you save your work, you'll still be able to
see the information here. And then you can just pay at your leisure to submit the
registration for the work. It's very simple to
create a registration. You can follow it through from
the beginning to the end. Once you submit the
registration request, you will receive an
email notification stating that your request
has been submitted. And then once your registration
starts to process, you're getting
notification of that too. However, you will not
receive a hard copy of the actual copyright until approximately six
to eight months after you submit
the registration. And this will be sent via United States Postal Service or the postal service
of your choice.
5. ISBN: International
Standard Book Number, also known as the ISBN. This is a 13 digit number. This is like the social
security number for your book. Once you have an ISBN, your book is associated
with that number. And so anyone around the world, if they submitted
the ISBN number or if they were
looking for your book, having this number
would lead them to who the book belongs to,
the publishing company. If you're the publishing
company, the author, when the book was published, all of this information, this is a standard number. Now, one reason that
self-published books are not seen or viewed as professional or
industry standard is because they're
missing this number. The importance of this book to you is that it's
in print form. The importance to the
industry is that it's connected to this ISBN. A book without an
ISBN number cannot be sold to bookstores, to publishing houses
won't take them up, nor can you get them
into libraries. So this ISBN number is 13. Digit number is more important, is more critical than you think. You should give it
a lot of attention. In order to get your book into
bookstores and libraries, this number must be present
and affiliated to your book.
6. Library of Congress: There are three sections
that should be in your book that are related
to the Library of Congress. That is the PCA IP block. The PC and number
and the copyright. Now, the PC and number. This is a pre-assigned control
number that is provided to you for free by the
Library of Congress. And what this number does
for you is it sets aside, it creates a space
for your work. When you receive this PC in the Library of
Congress is saying, okay, we have this book that we know is going
to be published. And this is the space
that we've created. It provides a as almost like
holding a space for you. The purpose of the
pre-assigned control number enable the Library
of Congress to assign Library of Congress
control numbers, the LCC. And you'll see that in
advance of publication to those titles that may be added to the
library's collection. The publisher prints the
LCC n in the book and thereby facilitates cataloging and other processing activities. The PC and links the book
with the Library of Congress, other libraries, bibliographic, utilities,
or book vendors. This is the place holder for your book to be entered into
the Library of Congress.
7. PCIP Block: Another section which
is critical to a book being accepted into a library or bookstore is the publishers
cataloging and publication, also known as the PCI p block. This is the texts that's on your copyright page that has the Library of
Congress call number. It also has to do with
classification number. This is all of the
information that is needed for libraries to place the
work into their catalogs. Here's an example of what
a PCA IP block looks like. Notice all of the information. The Library of
Congress subjects, the headings, the summary, and all of the information
necessary for making it easier for booksellers and
librarians to process, shelf, and or sell each book. If this information is not
included in your book, your book will not be
accepted into bookstores, nor will it be accepted
into libraries. The PCA IP block is another section in which
should be outsourced. This information
should be created by a librarian or a
library professional, someone who has experience
with cataloging for libraries, because this is really a
library service and it must be stated on your copyright
page in your book.
8. Editing Essentials: Now here's where the fun
begins when it comes to starting the
process of publishing. After the manuscript
is completing. Totally completed. Meaning there are
no more revisions. There's nothing else to add or to remove from
this manuscript. The very next thing for you to do is submitted to edit it. Understand the difference between editing
and proofreading. We're not talking about spellcheck or what you
can do with Grammarly. We're talking about editing. And yes, this is a
service that you should outsource unless you know someone that is really and truly very well versed and
experienced in editing. Proofreading is looking at
the periods and commas, mechanics of a sentence. The tax that's proofreading. Editing is being able to
take the manuscript from the first word to the last word and then making sure that
everything connects. Making sure that the sentences
are structured properly, making sure that
everything that is stated in the
manuscript makes sense. The editing can change
words and it can change the dynamic of certain areas of the book while still
keeping the sentiment. But an editor is who does this? This is a service that
is extremely important because you want
to make sure that if you say on page eight, for instance, we're going to discuss this in
a later chapter. The editor is going to make sure that whatever it
is you stated you we're going to discuss is in a later chapter and be
able to identify it. The editor goes a
little bit deeper than proofreading because
they're looking at the content overall, not just the
mechanics of grammar. The editor will
make suggestions on how to make a statement, a sentiment, or part
of the story better. And the editor will normally
give you that information. So when they're going
through your manuscript, they're going through
and they're stating, this could be said better
or this is a little hollow. This really isn't understandable and they will make
those changes. It's up to you to
accept the changes, but they're making the
changes for you to make your work stronger
and more viable. So editing is not
an area to skip. Now. As a writer, yes. Grammarly and spell check. All of these things
are great and you shouldn't use them
as you're writing. You should keep up with
your periods are commas, semi-colons, your prepositions,
your vowels and nouns. All of these things can be done by you while you're
writing the book. But the editing is the heart of making sure that the
story is strong. And this is not an area
that you want to skip. The editing should come directly after the
manuscript is completed. Once the changes are
made in editing and you have the story
that you want, then you can move on
to the next phase.
9. The Interior Design/Typesett: Okay, so now you have the manuscript edited
and you have your title. You have your barcode, you have your ISBN. You also have your PC in and
your PC IP block, correct? You have all of this. Now. It's ready for interior design. Now the interior design,
also called typesetting, is where you submit your
book to have it laid out. This is the interior
pages of the book. The interior pages
should be laid out specifically for your book. Now, there's some
creativity here. You can determine how you
want the letters to look, how large you want the letters. You can determine how, what kind of designs you want in on your pages themselves. You can determine what you want your numbers to look like, where you want your
numbers placed. This is the area of creativity. This is the soul of your book, is not just the cover, it's the interior design. So if you look at a book, take two or three books and just look at how
they're laid out. When you read them. What do you notice? The creativity
level is high here. You can determine that you want your book to
be very creative, very modern, very chic. You want it to be very retro. This is the area for that. You can have swirly lines are
straight lines or arrows, whatever you deem
necessary for your book. It doesn't just have to
be words on the page. You have to make sure though, with the interior design, that not only are
you getting what you want as far as whatever the size and the
dimensions of the book. But you have to make sure
that you notice a few things. One is, in interior design. The pages have a methodical
way to be laid out. Every chapter should start
on a right-side page. Chapter one starts on
a right-side page, chapter two on the
right side page. That starts your chapter. You also have to determine how you want certain
things stated. For instance, what if
you have quotes at the beginning of each chapter? Do you want the quotes
on the left side or above the start of the
paragraph for the chapter. These are things
when you're looking at the interior design. These are things to think about. What type of characters
do you want? Do you want them to
be written there? And I'm talking about
the text itself. Do you want the text
to be standard? Times New Roman? Or do you want them? And something fun,
like fimbriae. This is all up to you. How you want your book to
look from page one to the n. There are a few things
that you must have. Page numbers, chapter
titles, chapter numbers. All of these are things
that you should have. If you have it's sectioned off. You want to show the section. Now, mind you, when you
give your manuscript to the typesetter or
the interior designer, they're not going to know what you want unless
you tell them. They're not mind readers and, nor should they have
the responsibility of determining what your
book is going to look like in the interior pages. So my suggestion to you is to look at a few different books. Go to the bookstore and
just pick out books, or just look at books online. But look at different books. Several of them. See what you like and
see what you don't like. I, for instance, don't like
a lot of images on books. Like I don't like a
lot of characters, I don't like a lot of
lines or anything. I like clean sheet modern. That's my standard. But what's your standard? You have to identify
these things. I understand that
this is a service that you're going to have
to outsource of course. But you have to go in knowing
what you have an idea of. They are not going to tell you. They will help you, but understand where the
assistance turns into them. Creating your interior design. If you don't have an idea and
you say whatever his bass, then that's exactly
what they're gonna do. It's not going to
fit your personality or it's not going to fit
what you're looking for. Do your research first. This can be a very fun process, is the interior of your book
and you want it to replicate the sentiment of the book
as well as your creativity. So take this seriously
and understand that this part of it is
an extension of you. Do your research.
10. The Title Process: So one of the first
things people tend to do when
they start writing their book is to
give it a title. And normally the title
that you start with is not the title that you
actually end up with. A reason for this. Because in the beginning, when you start with the title on what you're doing
is you're saying, okay, this is what I
think the book is about. And you give it this
really snazzy title. But then after you
finish the work, you find that the title
either doesn't fully represent what you're
trying to convey in a book or it's too much. There's a couple of
things to note when it comes to a title. One, you don't want the
title to be too lengthy. Having a lengthy
title and then having a lengthy subtitle just kind
of creates a convoluted, long drawn out title
is not catchy. I think one of the
things I would say is that people want, as they're writing,
they want you to know what the
whole book is about. So when you try to create
a title and you're adding the guide to how
to watch television. The ultimate guide to
how to watch television and how to use a remote
at the same time. That is a lengthy title and it really isn't trying to
say anything to anyone. Basically what you
wanna do when you are creating a title is you
want to look at the subject, but you also want to
capture the sentiment of the book in the title with the least amount
of words as possible.
11. Cover Design: The current design. All my gosh, when I say
that the cover design is the most fascinating
part of the process to me, because this is the
only area outside of writing the book that you really truly get to be creative. Unless you're a graphic
designer artists, I will suggest soliciting
someone to create your cover. I also suggest that you have an idea of what you
want for your cover. Now. Sometimes less is really
and truly Jess more. But you want to make sure that the cover matches the title. An example of this
is if the title is learn how to cook with
a slow cooker and 15 min. You might want to have a slow cooker and some kind of a timer
device on the cover. The two match. If the title
is how to learn how to jog. And 30 steps. A jogger and a path to jogging or something that reflects jogging
should be on a cover. What you don't want to
do is have a disconnect. You, what you don't want
to do is have the title and the cover design.
Not match up. When you don't
want to do is have a cover design
that so convoluted that you can't determine
what the title is. I had a title attaches
to the book itself. This is very common. Very, very common. I had a book once and
I loved the cover. I thought the cover
was wonderful. It fit the title. It was nice. And someone said, it reminds me of a romance novel that you
buy at the supermarket. Okay. I didn't see that as
a good comment, but okay. But the title the
title of the book, the title and the
book Connected. Somebody didn't like it, but it connected. Now. Is your cover design going
to be appealing to everyone? No. However, the Jaccard
design meet your title? Yes. What you want to do
is to make sure that the cover design is
encompassing the title. But it's also a work of art. Think about it. When you're walking past books. Of course you see the title. But what do you see first? The cover? Understand that the
cover design is going to be dealt with in two parts. The common design
is the front cover, the spine, and the back cover. But there's two
pieces of information needed for your cover design. One is the dimensions
of the book where there's long as
you're being filed by five, by eight, by 56 by
nine or some other. Also the number of
pages in the book. This is why it's helpful to have the cover design created
after the interior design. If not, what's going
to happen is you're going to have to have the
interior design created. The cover design is created. But now you have to go back to the cover design
artists and say, this is how many pages the book is so that they can
adjust based on spine. The reason why is
the cover design, the front and the back
cover is just one aspect. The second aspect is
how thick the book is, which is the spine information. So if this is a
let's say 20 pages, you know that the spine
is going to be smaller. And the cover design artist needs to know that
because they need to be able to fit the
information on the spine. But you won't know
this information until the graphic design artists
completes the interior design. So there's one or
two ways to do this. You can have the interior
design completed first. This way you know the
specs of the book, as well as the number of pages. And then have the cover design
artists create the cover. Or you can have the cover design artists
create the cover, send it to interior design. And then go back to the cover
design artists and say, this is how many pages it
is so that they can adjust. Most covered design
artists deal with this all the time so they
can do it either way. It's just a matter of which
way you want to do it, which is more
comfortable for them, and which is more
comfortable for you.
12. Print and Ebook Defined R: There are two different types of books you have printed and you have books once you have
a completed manuscript. Once you have the interior
design and once you have the cover you are ready
for both print book. The only difference between
book is that you have to have the manuscript converted
for book distribution. It's just an
additional step to get that book ready for ebook
distribution and download. This is, of course,
an additional charge, but this is going to provide you the opportunity
to sell your book from your website or distributed by other
book distributors. You have control of
your distribution. Once you have this book
converted for ebook sales, you can submit it
for distribution worldwide to include
Amazon, Barnes and Noble. Walmart, to name just a few. You can sell it on your website. You can sell it
through Ts, Shopify. You have control of
your book distribution.
13. How to Price the Book : How much should I price my book? What should my books
sell for my price, too high or too low? All of these are
great questions. Here's how you answered them. First off, what type of
book are you offering? What's the genre? Is a self-help. Is it a novel, isn't a memoir. Most of the genre. How many pages does it have? Because you've already
submitted it for editing. Awesome. Is that niche market
or is it broad and general? Okay. Who is it that
you're trying to sell to? Who is your market?
All of these questions should be answered before making a decision on how much
your books at cost. But there's one thing that
you can do to make sure that you're in the
right ballpark. And that's the research. Look at other books
that are similar to the book that you
are publishing. If it's self-help and it's
about a fear of flying. Look at other books that
have been published and that carry the same topic
of self-help, fear flying. What are they selling for? Are the retailing at 24, 95 and they have
200 pages and you have 120 pages for
the same book. Is it a hardcover? Is it a soft cover
or paper back? All of these things weight into how much to
charge for your book. Paperback, hardcover, paperback. Not only cost less
than hardcovers, whether it's a large
book or a small book, 200 pages and 80 pages
is two different things. At page book, of
course it costs less. Whether or not it's a niche book or whether or not it's
a broad topic book. Does the book have a lot of pictures or is it
a lot of texts? Awesome. What are other books in the
same genre and topic area? What do they sell them for? And who is your audience? That's what you have
to look at before making a decision on
the cost of your book. 129-520-4905. What's the difference? What's being offered at 12 95 as opposed to what would
be offered at 24 95. That's how you price your book. That's how you determine. First things first
is, do your research, look at what other
books are selling for and then make
the determination. Now understand this awesome. Just because you
price your book at 24.95 doesn't mean that you can't put it on sale for 1995. What you cannot do is have your book stated as
1995 and decide, I'm selling my book
for far too less. Let me increase the price
that you cannot do it.
14. The "Print" Aspect: When you start looking at the
print aspect of your book, there's a few things that
you want to keep in mind. One, what is the
size of the book? Now you're going to need this
information when it comes to the interior design
and the cover design. Interior design, you have to
know the size of the book, where there's going to be a
five by eight or six by nine, whatever the dimensions
of the book. This is going to
be necessary for the interior designer to create the pages based on the
dimensions of the book. So you definitely have to
have the size of the book. You also want to know
as it relates to printing the type
of paper you want. Do you want whitepaper off
white paper, beige paper. There's so many different
types of papers, but you also want to know
the weights of the paper. One thing to understand
when it comes to the print process is that you have to provide the printer
with a full package. So if you already know who
you want to print this book, get their dimensions
and their specs and their technological information
from the very beginning. So when you provide them with your manuscript and all of the information that
they're requesting. If you have it and
it's all accurate. Because what will
happen is if you don't have the information
as stated by them, they will print the book and
it's not going to be right. So you want to make sure
that whatever they stayed as the guidelines for
the dimensions for the book is accurate. Whatever this signing for the bleed of the
cover is accurate, you're going to
have to work with both your cover
design artists and your graphic design artists to make sure that this
information is accurate. So of course, you
want to identify the printer before you identify, or you want to
identify the printer before you start the
GA process or start the cover design process
because you want to give both the information so
that they can create your manuscript and
your cover properly.
15. Indexing: Indexing. Let's look at an example of indexing
and how index and can be used to
accentuate your book. Now, indexing is
not for every book, is that for novels? Most indexing we'll be
done for books like self-help or memoirs
or biographies. Things that have actual
factual information as opposed to fictional
information. Let's take a look. So what exactly is an index? An index, which can also
be called an indices, is a list of words or phrases, commonly known as headings
and associated pointers, which are locators to wear a useful material relating
to that heading can be found in the document or
the collection of documents. In this case, the book. The index is typically
in the back of the book, and it has stated
headings as well as page numbers to find the information that
you're looking for. The index in a book pretty much acts like
the books catalog. It makes it easy for
the reader if they're looking for a specific
topic to find or subject matter to find where that subject matter
is within the book. The indexing, unless you are a librarian or have
library and training, the indexing really
should be sourced out to someone that knows how to do library catalog
because it's important. Having the wrong
subject headings and titles are having the
wrong page numbers can throw off the
balance of the book. Also know that indexes are only use four books
that have information. So you wouldn't find
an index in a novel. This would be
autobiographies, biographies, research type books, self-help type books,
even cookbooks. But definitely not a novel.
Vanessa S., Graphic Designer & Contributing Artist
