by Giovanni Casali, editorial coordinator
Publishing a book is a sequence of six steps: editing the text, choosing your road, preparing the files, the book data, the upload, and what you do after publication. The order matters more than the speed: every step you skip shows, and it almost always shows on the page.
They are two different things. A written text has reached the last line; a finished text has been through an eye that is not yours. Two distinct passes are needed: the editing, which looks at structure, rhythm and dead spots, and the proofreading, which removes typos and slips. You cannot do them after printing, and redoing a cover costs less than redoing a book.
The traditional publisher does the choosing and asks you for no money. The publisher who asks the author to share the costs is legitimate, but the contract has to be read line by line. Professional self-publishing leaves you the rights and the revenues and puts the decisions in your hands. It is not a matter of pride, it is a matter of time and control.
A manuscript in Word is not a book. Three things are needed, done by people who know how: a cover designed to be readable even as a thumbnail on a phone screen, the print layout with the right margins and text block, and the EPUB file for the digital edition. This is the step where the book stops looking like a document and starts looking like a book.
Title, subtitle, categories, description, keywords, code. These are the data no reader ever reads and that decide whether your book will be found: the wrong category buries it among ten thousand titles, a badly written description gets it dismissed in three seconds. This is where the visibility game is won or lost, not with advertising.
The upload itself is a matter of hours, not weeks. The price, on the other hand, has to be decided with a calculator: it changes how much you earn on each copy and it changes who buys you. Too low and the book looks like nothing; too high and nobody tries it. How the rates work on the biggest store: Publishing a book on Amazon.
A book that simply comes out dies in a fortnight. The first reviews, the author page, the people who already know who you are: this part starts before publication, not after, and it has nothing to do with spending money on ads.
The publishing package starts at 1,500 euros and covers steps 3 to 5: cover, layout, EPUB, book data, upload to the stores and print on demand, ISBN included. Step 1 we assess together at the consultation, step 2 you decide with all the numbers on the table. If the book still has to be written, we write it.
If the text is ready, weeks. If it needs editing, it depends on how much work it asks for: we tell you after reading it, not before.
Yes, technically anyone can. The difference is not in managing it, it is in how it turns out: the six steps are there anyway, and you are the one taking them.
No. You need one if you are after the selection and the stamp of a publisher; you do not need one to be on sale, nor to be orderable from a bookshop.
It can be ordered from any bookshop and it arrives like any other title. Sitting physically on the shelves is another matter, and nobody serious promises you that.
What it costs in total: How much does it cost to publish a book?
If the manuscript is already finished: I have written a book: what now?
Tell us where you are with your book in a few lines: the consultation is free and without obligation.
info@dualpenbooks.com
Giovanni Casali, editorial coordinator, will reply.
Want to get a sense of how we write first? Read a few excerpts.