How to prepare for your BookPUBLISHER consultation

The next step on your BookPUBLISHER journey

After making an enquiry about one of our BookPUBLISHER packages one of our team will be in touch to organise a phone call with you. This call is your first BookPUBLISHER consultation – and this is your guide to making the most of it!

For us to be able to give you the best possible information and accurate quotes during your BookPUBLISHER consultation, we do require you to have a few things prepared in advance. Here we explain what they are and run through a few frequently asked questions to help you feel ready.

How close to completion is your manuscript?

Prior to your consultation it is essential to have your manuscript ready, knowing the page count will help you and us determine the outcome of a variety of factors, such as the calculation of the spine for the book.

What will be the cost of your book?

If you are hoping to use your consultation to primarily find out rough costs of book printing, you may find our BookWIZARD calculator a quicker way of getting your initial prices.

If, however, you have a more bespoke request then we will be able to offer further advice and costings during a BookPUBLISHER consultation. For us to provide accurate quotes, please ensure you know your final page count because this is what determines costs.

Who owns the copyright?

YOU own the copyright. Just because we help you to produce the book, this does not take ownership away from you. We can also provide ISBN numbers for your book too – if you require this additional service, we can run through how it works for you during your BookPUBLISHER phone consultation.

Do you need your book cover designed?

The cover design is important to the success of the book, contrary to the adage, ‘never judge a book by its cover’ because, put simply, we do judge the books we buy by their covers. Getting your cover design right is a critical step in marketing your book.

If you are confident that you can design a professional cover or have sourced your own freelance graphic designer, then great. But if you don’t have the skills, or don’t want to research reliable graphic designers, then we have design templates and a bespoke graphic design service available for you. We can discuss this more during your consultation.

Do you have any additional images/illustration for inside your book?

Firstly, the most important thing to check if you are not using your own work, is that you have the right permission to use your graphics and they are good enough quality for insertion.

Again, depending on whether these are in colour or not will determine whether there are additional costs.

What is a Creative Commons license?

Artists can choose to put their work in the public domain, with the view of having their work shared, built upon or just used – a Creative Commons license determines if an image has been permitted by the artist to be reused, repurposed or shared. If you are choosing an image you want to use, please make sure it has the right commercial license, or is from a royalty free site. Please be mindful of obtaining the right image resolution if you use these types of graphics.

Remember we have an onsite design team which can work with your image if you are unable to. For more guidance, this is a useful resource.

How can you ensure the quality of graphics is right?

We require a high resolution of 300 dpi (dots per inch) for the quality to show in your book. Please make sure that any images you have for the cover and any for inside the book have this covered. For more tips on this, please visit our resources page. You can learn more about what DPI means in our Glossary.

How do you want your book to look and feel?

With a choice of binding styles and gloss or matt lamination, as well as many other types of finishing touches you might want some guidance on what works best for your book type and what is affordable. To find out about our offerings, visit our capabilities page.

What type of paper is best?

Depending on the type of book you wish to produce, your paper choice might not be as standard as you’d imagine. For example, a colouring book would need thick paper, such as 100gsm Bond. But don’t worry if you have not thought this far, we can help guide you during your consultation.