Your book is done!

You have labored long and hard - writing, editing, rewriting and re-editing... Done!

But is it Ready to Print?

As you look at your book does it look exactly as you want it to print? If your book is going to print at 5.5” x 8.5” are the page margins, header information and page numbers placed correctly? If you are using photos or line art are they correctly created? Is your book in an acceptable format that we can print from?

How much of the layout and design work do you want to do on your project? Remember, the more you do, the less you spend. Network Printers offers complete layout and design services but we are also happy to have you do it.

The Body of Your Book

If you haven't really laid out your book yet, go to your bookshelf, library or bookstore and get some ideas of what you like about the appearance of other books. You will want to consider type styles, sizes and spacing, header treatments, chapter starts and the placement of page numbers. Remember that they should reflect the character of your work. Make photocopies of those that you like and refer to them yourself or share them with your designer. We would urge that you use no more than three named type faces in your book.

Your Cover

Consider your cover design carefully. It must be readable and appealing and of course it should communicate some of the tenor of the book. Once again, gather artwork or photos that you like and you feel reflect the meaning of your work.

If you have the professional quality tools and the ability to use them to create a complete cover design by all means, use them. On the other hand, if all you have is Powerpoint or Paintshop or any of the many graphics packages that create lovely greeting cards or edited photos please resist the temptation. Cover files created with these types of programs often have to be rebuilt completely to yield quality printed covers.

ISBN Numbers

As a self-publisher you will need to contact ISBN.org and order an ISBN number for your book. They are issued to publishers in minimum groups of 10 and cost about $260. (We can set the UPC barcode of that number and place it in your file for you.) If you are not planning to sell your books through bookstores or web vendors you may not need an ISBN number. It can take weeks to get your ISBN numbers unless you are willing to pay rush charges so plan ahead.

Copyright

Copyrighting your book is not difficult but it is important to protect your rights. Go to copyright.org to learn all about it.