How do I get started and publish my book?
Choose your preferred publishing package on Arts Council funded YouWriteOn.com and then email youwriteon@legendpress.co.uk - click here to view our publishing package choices Add the name of your chosen publishing package in your email e.g. ‘Publishing Package 1, 2, 3 or 4, along with your name, book title and genre in your email.
Our publishing team will contact you to answer any queries you may have and to guide you through the simple process of publishing your book.
Where will my book be available and what are the advantages to publishing my book through YouWriteOn.com?
By publishing your completed book through YouWriteOn.com, you will have access to a new publisher-backed advanced service simply not available elsewhere. Not only do we offer professional type-setting, top industry designers, but media and selling packs tailored specifically for your books, providing you with all the information direct from a publisher on how to make it a success.
As standard, you can choose to have your book available to order through all the major online book retailersand the ordering service of most bookstores in the US and UK. YouWriteOn.com books are also listed in the database of Ingram and Gardners, the largest books distributors, so they can be ordered by most bookstores in the U.S. and UK.
Additionally, for fiction writers who choose to upload their opening chapters, readers who like your opening chapters on the site can click to buy your completed book on online book retailers straight away – earning you royalties for each copy sold. You retain all rights to your work. View Examples of YouWriteOn published books
How much does it cost to publish my book?
To see details of the costs for each publishing package View the Publish Your Book Section on YouWriteOn.com
How Does Self-Publishing by Print On Demand (POD) work?
Each time a customer orders a copy of your book, it is printed, and you earn royalties for each sale made. This is made possible by Print-On-Demand (POD) publishing. For the publishing fee your completed book is digitially stored so that when a customer orders a copy through an online book retailer, or a highstreet bookseller, a single copy is published for each order and sent to the customer. You receive 60% net royalties for each copy of your book sold. Please view our Royalty FAQ below.
After you have paid the publishing fee, there is only a bookseller digital catalogue fee of £10 per year ($20 U.S. Dollars) if you want to keep your book available to view and buy on bookseller websites and order through stores. There are no other charges to keep your book published and available for readers to buy.
What royalties do I earn for each copy of my book sold?
You earn 60% of net receipts for every copy of your book sold. Net receipts are the profits made on each book after printing costs and after bookseller discounts. Bookseller discounts are the profits which booksellers receive as their percentage for listing/stocking the book for sale.
The publishing team will advise on what retail price they believe is most appropriate for the book in the chosen market, though the final decision is yours. Prices usually vary between £5.49 and £9.99. It is important when you make your decision on setting your book price to achieve a good balance between pricing your book at an accessible price for your readers as well as ensuring you maximise royalties received. An example is included below as a reference.
Our 60% royalties are made possible by how we print books. Your book is digitally stored and each copy is printed individually when a customer orders a copy through a bookseller or a high street store ordering service. The royalty rate is significantly higher than offered in traditional publishing, in which publishing companies take all rights and most of the profits because they are taking all the risk of printing an advance print run of your book. Print-On-Demand allows higher royalties as books are printed as and when they are ordered rather than printed before any orders take place and you retain all rights to your book.
Example of royalties for a 200 page paperback book
Below are example of how royalties are worked out for a 200 page paperback book with a 40% bookseller discount on the price. The bookseller discount is the amount that the bookseller - for example - takes as their profit on each copy sold of your book in return for them making your book available for distribution. The industry standard for bookseller discounts is between 25% to 55%. We recommend 40% as many booksellers won’t list books with a lesser discount – as this represents their profit for selling the book. This ensures your book will be able to be ordered from most online booksellers and most bookstores in the US and UK. Your decision is to decide how widely you want your book to be available weighed up with your preferred royalty for each copy sold. View the price examples below to help you decide your preferred book price choice.
Price Example for book available to order through Amazon, Barnes and Noble and most US and UK Book Stores - the example contains a 40% Book Seller Discount to ensure that your book will be distributed by the booksellers.
£7.99 Retail Price
|
Page Count
|
Retail Price
|
Printing Cost per copy of book including covers
(70p for cover plus 1p per page)
|
BookSellers Discount at 40%
(the booksellers fee of 40% of the retail price for listing your book)
|
Royalties per book
(Retail cost minus printing cost and bookseller discount)
|
Your Royalty Per Book 60%
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Our Royalty Per Book 40%
|
|
200
|
£7.99
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£2.70
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£3.20
|
£2.09
|
£1.25
|
£0.84
|
As you can see, the higher you set your book price the higher your profits per copy sold. At the same time, if you set your book price too high then this may put some book customers off buying a book which they may have been keen on at a more marketable price. YouWriteOn believes in setting a reasonable price, including for royalties, writers need to consider what they themselves would reasonably pay for a book when deciding on their book price.
Printing costs are dependent on the amount of pages in the book. The formula for working out royalties is: Book Retail Price minus book print costs minus bookseller discount equals total royalties. The author receives 60% of royalties.
We will consult with you so that you may set your preferred retail price for your book during the publishing process.
How often are royalties paid?
The Publisher will pay royalties to Authors every 6 months. The periods for payment are 25th May and 25th November. If the royalty payment due for a period is less than £25 then the money will be carried forward to subsequent quarters until the balance exceeds £25, at which time the Publisher will make the appropriate royalty payment to the Author. YouWriteOn.com Publishing will send Author a link to an online statement of account for sales of the Author's book(s) every six months or email the Author the statement of account. Royalties will be made by bank transfer, cheque, Google Payments or Paypal for UK customers and by cheque, Google or Paypal for US and other overseas customers.
Do I retain all rights to my work?
Yes, you retain all rights to your work.
What price will my book sell for?
You choose the price of your book, usually between £5.49 to £9.99 (between $11 to $20 U.S). The best aim is to strike a good balance between a competitive market price, and a price which will maximise royalties. See our Royalty FAQ above.
Will my book be of the same quality as a bookstore paperback?
Your book’s quality will be the same high quality paperback book standard (softcover) you see in bookstores. Each book is printed at 6 inches wide by 9 inches high.
Where can book buyers purchase my book?
You can choose to have your book available to order through all the major online book retailers and the ordering services of most US and UK book stores through all of our publishing packages.
YouWriteOn.com books are listed in the database of Ingram and Gardners, the largest book distributors, so they can be ordered at most bookstores in the U.S. and UK.
Each time a customer orders a copy the book is printed at no extra cost to you as, as with all books, printing costs come out of the retail price of the book. You earn royalties for each sale made. See our Royalty FAQ above.
Can I still publish my book elsewhere if I choose?
Yes. If a publisher makes you an offer you want to accept for a new imprint of your book you can choose to publish with whoever you wish. You always retain all rights to your book through YouWriteOn.com. Simply give us a month's notice by email (youwriteon@legendpress.co.uk) so that we may remove our own publishing imprint from circulation.
YouWriteOn aims to get talented writers noticed, but it is your talent and not ours that will get you noticed - so you will always own all rights to your book and be free to make whatever deal is best for you.
What happens if an agent or publisher sees my book and wants to publish it?
First of all, congratulations. If an agent wants to represent you, or a high profile publisher makes you an offer you want to accept, you can choose to be represented or to publish with whoever you wish. You retain all rights to your book.
YouWriteOn aims to get talented writers noticed, but it is your talent and not ours that will get you noticed - so you will always own all rights to your book and be free to make whatever deal is best for you.
Do I receive free copies of my book?
Yes. You receive five free copies of your book when you publish. If you want to order additional copies, please see our information on our author volume discounts below.
If I want to order additional copies of my book, how do I order them and do I receive an author discount?
Authors receive volume discounts calculated on the number of copies they order of their book. The minimum order which can be made, which will also qualify for a volume discount of 46% off retail price, is 10 copies. The discounts are as follows:
10 - 24 books - 46% off retail price
25 - 49 books - 49% off retail price
50 - 99 books - 53% off retail price
100 - 249 books - 56% off retail price
250 - 499 books - 60% off retail price
500+ books - 64% off retail price
To order additional copies of your book, email youwriteon@legendpress.co.uk. Please include details of your book title and author name, and specify how many copies you wish to order. We will contact you to arrange payment and delivery of your books. All purchases must be paid for in advance, and will include postage and packing costs which we will advise you of before you make payment. Postage costs depend on the individual size of your book.
Note that authors do not receive royalties on copies of their books that they purchase themselves.
It is also important to note that different titles cannot be mixed to receive a higher discount. For example, if an author purchases 50 copies of their book, they are eligible for a 53% discount off the retail price of the book. But if they buy 25 copies of one book and 25 copies of another book, they are eligible for the discount offered for 25 to 49 books for each book. We are able to offer these discounts primarily because of the savings given when a large block of a single title is ordered. This means we cannot split the order between different titles and still provide the same high volume discount.
What are the manuscript preparation guidelines for publishing my book?
All of the work preparing your manuscript is completed by YouWriteOn.com. Your manuscript will be professionally type-set in a clear reader-friendly format tailored for the book . Books that are not laid-out using proper software and technique can look unprofessional, and this is an area self-published books too often fall short on.
How long does it take to publish my book?
The whole publishing process usually takes from eight to ten weeks.
If editing is involved, i.e. we prepare your book proof and you want to change the story or realise you've made errors, this adds another four to six weeks to the production time and we will charge a fee of £250 for the extra work. Avoid this extra time and cost by carefully checking your manuscript and making sure you submit it exactly as you want it to appear.
Below is the schedule that you can expect your book to follow after your submission is accepted
1. Manuscript Submission Verification
We will acknowledge receipt of your manuscript and payment by email. You can expect to receive the cover design proofs and online book proofs by email within 3 to 4 weeks from the time your book enters production.
2. Author Proofing
In this stage, you check and approve the proof we send you including your covers. You are given up to 14 days to submit any changes or corrections. The sooner you return your proof form – notifying us that you have checked the proof - the sooner your book will be completed and ready for production.
3. Revision and Production
This part of the process takes approximately 1 - 2 weeks. At this stage your book will be fully prepared and ready for publication.
Once your book has been set-up for publication, it will be submitted through book distribution channels as outlined below.
Bookseller Distribution Timeline
Your book and title information will be submitted to booksellers and online retailers, who will be distributing your book.
Booksellers update their catalogues at different times, so it generally takes approximately 2-4 weeks to make your book available at online booksellers and available to order through bookstores. Upon completion of this stage, your book will be ready to order from booksellers!
This timeline represents the typical publishing procedure and schedule for our publishing packages. It does not include periods of unexpected high demand or issues that may affect the timeline.
Do you design the book cover?
Professional YouWriteOn template book covers are available through our Publishing Package 1 or by selecting Publishing Package 2, 3 or 4, an industry-expert designer will produce a stylish and bespoke cover (highly recommended). View Publishing Packages Information Page.
I’ve found some typos or mistakes I missed when I submitted my book, how can I correct them?
When we receive your book we will set it up digitally and send you a proof copy for you to check your book is exactly how you wish it to appear before you start publishing, at this stage you can correct any typos or text changes you want before the book is approved by you and sent by us to the publishers. See the 'How Long Does It Take To Publish My Book' frequently asked question above for more details on the manuscript preparation process.
Is it easy to send you my book for paperback publishing?
It is very straightforward to send your book to YouWriteOn for publishing. Simply email youwriteon@legendpress.co.uk and we will answer any questions you may have and when you are ready to publish all you need to do is email us your manuscript and we will take care of the work publishing your book from there. View Choice of YouWriteOn Publishing Packages
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