1. I barely use a computer except to surf the web and all of my writing is in longhand, can you accomodate me? You bet. If you have
handwritten your manuscript or used a typewriter, contact us for
information about shipping the paper pages - or copies of them - to
us. We have a fax that shares one of our voice landlines so we
can accept fax'ed manuscripts as well. You need to warn us in
advance you are going to use our fax since we''ll need to load it up
with more than the normal two or three sheets of blank paper. If
requested, we'll also fax our edits and proofs back to an author for a
slight additional charge above that for our internet communication method.We
at SPG are very computer literate, and will transcribe the pages we
receive onto our electronic systems for editing/review, formatting and
pre-press conversion. 2. How long does the publishing process take? The answer to this
question depends on a lot of things, including the quality of the
original manuscript as well as the preparation and forethought an
author has expended before contacting us. Some services we
perform have lengthy scheduling queues of weeks or months, including
ISBN registration and bulk printing/binding. We make every effort
to minimize those waits. As examples: e-books might be released less than 24
hours after we begin, printed hardcover books require as much as a
year of prep and production. We can best answer this question when we know more about
your project. 3. How much royalty can I expect when my book is published? This is another question
with a complicated answer. Traditional publishers pay 6% to 9% of
the list price as royalty on the first 15,000 books sold minus any
repayment of
an advance, and as much as 15% of list price on any additional copies.
The rest of the money customers spend for a book goes to the publisher, printer, distributor,
and retailer.
Unless requested otherwise, we do not handle the distribution
and retail of our clients books, thus the author receives increased
royalties and we get little or nothing. We will
estimate the royalties you'll receive once we know more about your
project. 4. I already have the perfect photo for the cover of my book. Is it okay to use it?
If you have a photo or artwork you prefer for the cover of your
book, we will use it provided that you have acquired the rights to
publish the picture and have collected publishing release forms signed
by any people appearing in your photograph. We can provide release forms to you. We can also
help confirm your rights to use someone else's photo or artwork.
