Amazon will print your book to a very high standard and at a very good price — each book is printed as and when it is bought, which keeps costs down and the printing costs are part of the price you specify. So don’t be taken in by any of the many shysters who will charge you a fortune to do an exceptionally simple task.
There are one or two other ‘print-on-demand services, but very few — and I think all those are in the US — will do it as cheaply as Amazon. And as far as I can tell, all the UK-based firms simply have it done through Amazon themselves. As always, caveat emptor.
Many might ask you to ‘submit your manuscript to be considered for publication’ and, of course, it will always pass muster. Nothing wrong with that, of course, except for the very steep prices they will charge you for ‘publishing’ your novel, memoirs, autobiography, guide to Shanghai brothels, guide to blind sheepdogs in Cumbria or whatever other delight you have spent years writing, only to find no bloody commercial publisher is in the slightest bit interested.
To be fair to myself, I haven’t even started trying to get a commercial publisher interested in my short stories, because, to be blunt, they wouldn’t be interested. Everyone and his hamster writes short stories these days, but more to the point short stories do not sell.
Many might ask you to ‘submit your manuscript to be considered for publication’ and, of course, it will always pass muster. Nothing wrong with that, of course, except for the very steep prices they will charge you for ‘publishing’ your novel, memoirs, autobiography, guide to Shanghai brothels, guide to blind sheepdogs in Cumbria or whatever other delight you have spent years writing, only to find no bloody commercial publisher is in the slightest bit interested.
To be fair to myself, I haven’t even started trying to get a commercial publisher interested in my short stories, because, to be blunt, they wouldn’t be interested. Everyone and his hamster writes short stories these days, but more to the point short stories do not sell.
I did, briefly and some years ago, try to find an agent — in the belief that if an agent thought your work would sell, which is what it is all about, they would put in the work. And if they thought it would not, they would not waste your time or theirs — with a view to getting my novel published. I could raise no interest whatsoever though I only tried three. BTW you can check it out, then ignore it here.
In short, a swift check on the net of how many ‘publishers’ there are who will help you publish our novel — and you will carry all the costs, of course, though they couch it as you ‘contributing’ to the costs — shows that all of them are pretty expensive to bloody expensive (though it is up to you how you spend your money).
In short, a swift check on the net of how many ‘publishers’ there are who will help you publish our novel — and you will carry all the costs, of course, though they couch it as you ‘contributing’ to the costs — shows that all of them are pretty expensive to bloody expensive (though it is up to you how you spend your money).
It can cost you anything between £700 and £2,000 to use their services, and all you will get is about ten copies. Print-on-demand costs might be cheaper, but what with shipping etc, not a great deal. Always do your research.
Remember, all they do is format your manuscript for printing — which does not take long at all (I used Indesign) — then upload a pdf of the formatted manuscript to Amazon KDP. They might also offer your extra services such as designing your cover, editing your manuscript, ‘marketing’ your book, and it is up to you whether you choose to use them.
Some even tell you they will get your book ‘reviewed in the national press’. Bollocks. Here in Britain the nationals get enough books from bona fide commercial publishers to bother considering someone’s memoirs of dear Aunt Jane who baked the most delightful cakes.
I can’t speak for other countries, though I’m certain the large-circulation papers would not be interested.
However, local press, radio and TV might be, because they always need ‘copy’ to fill their papers and programmes — but you can get in touch with them yourself and don’t have to pay some shyster to do it.
Personally I cannot think such editing will be up to scratch, and if your manuscript needs editing, it cannot have been that good in the first place and you would be none the wiser as to how good or bad the editing was.
Oh, and many make a point of saying ‘they will get your book listed on Amazon’ — but that happens as a matter of course with all the books printed by Amazon KDP. (I’ve not looked at Lulu.com for many years and don’t know what promises they make but are not one of these ‘self-publishing’ shysters. They are just a little dearer than Amazon by my no means much at all.
To put the shysters’ charges into perspective, the 100-page slim volume of short stories I am plugging here has a nominal price, listed on Amazon, of £6. Of that the printing costs just £1.70. Furthermore, you, the author/originator, can buy ‘author’s copies’ at cost, i.e. in my case £1.70.
To put the shysters’ charges into perspective, the 100-page slim volume of short stories I am plugging here has a nominal price, listed on Amazon, of £6. Of that the printing costs just £1.70. Furthermore, you, the author/originator, can buy ‘author’s copies’ at cost, i.e. in my case £1.70.
So those ten copies your ‘publisher’ gives you as part of the £700 to £2,000 ‘service’ cost her/him only £17! As always caveat emptor.
Admittedly, a little work is required to format the manuscript (though then saving it as a pdf takes about ten seconds each time) which is what they will do, but only about an hour or two (depending on the complexity of the manuscript.
For example, earlier this year I published a volume of colour photographs on Amazon KDP — as a trial run to see whether it was any more complex with a colour interior and it isn’t — and what with getting the colour right
Admittedly, a little work is required to format the manuscript (though then saving it as a pdf takes about ten seconds each time) which is what they will do, but only about an hour or two (depending on the complexity of the manuscript.
For example, earlier this year I published a volume of colour photographs on Amazon KDP — as a trial run to see whether it was any more complex with a colour interior and it isn’t — and what with getting the colour right
etc, that did take a little longer (though it was still done in Indesign).
Just last week I ’published’ — that is I formatted and had printed — a slim volume of verse for children called the The Lockdown Poems by a friend and former Daily Mail colleague and although it did take a number of days, the actual work involved was minimal.
But that ‘number of days’ is a tad misleading: every time there was a change, a new illustration was added, a detail changed here and there etc, I insisted on sending Mr Potter (my friend) a new pdf for his scrutiny and approval (to 
make sure if there were any cock-ups, they were not mine). And as emails were not answered immediately, and he made several changes and made several tweaks (as did I, on the monochrome — posh word for black and white — piccies in Photoshop, the whole operation did ‘last’ a few days. But the work I did (and it wasn’t ‘work’ as I enjoyed doing it) was — in total — just a few hours.
. . .
In fact, having written all the above, I might as well offer to do the same for anyone reading this, though I would charge an hourly rate, though it would not total sodding £2,000 or whatever they think they can get away with).
I shall stress: if you know your way around Adobe Indesign, Quark Xpress, Affinity Designer or Microsoft Publisher (which I’ve not used, though) or any other desktop publishing software, you can do everything yourself, and thus it would not cost you a penny.
My offer is for those who feel a bit daunted by the ‘formatting’ and rather doubt whether they could do it or simply can’t be arsed. If that is you, get in touch. With such work vaguely in mind, I have opened a second Amazon KDP account under the name St Breward Press.
Note: you would supply a manuscript as Word doc (and any illustrations as pngs rather than jpegs) and would be emailed a pdf to check at every stage to that the final decision to ‘publish’ — have printed by Amazon KDP — is yours and noting any errors and literals etc are your responsible (although I would correct them according to your instructions.
I shall stress: if you know your way around Adobe Indesign, Quark Xpress, Affinity Designer or Microsoft Publisher (which I’ve not used, though) or any other desktop publishing software, you can do everything yourself, and thus it would not cost you a penny.
My offer is for those who feel a bit daunted by the ‘formatting’ and rather doubt whether they could do it or simply can’t be arsed. If that is you, get in touch. With such work vaguely in mind, I have opened a second Amazon KDP account under the name St Breward Press.
Note: you would supply a manuscript as Word doc (and any illustrations as pngs rather than jpegs) and would be emailed a pdf to check at every stage to that the final decision to ‘publish’ — have printed by Amazon KDP — is yours and noting any errors and literals etc are your responsible (although I would correct them according to your instructions.
A day after posting:To see what’s what, I’ve just uploaded and am having printed by Lulu.com two copies of the third volume of short stories. The process is extremely simple (and all I had to do was slightly reformat my 5in x 8in volume to the 5.5in x 8.5in size Lulu offer (the closest to the original). Lulu do exactly the same as Amazon KDP but are a little more expensive: I’ve ordered two copies at $3.39 (£2.55 at December 1 exchange rate) each and with shipping ($6.41) that is costing me $13.19. Amazon copies were just £1.70.
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