Pedernales Publishing

We all want to publish a great looking book.  We will review your book and let you know if it is ready.  If it requires editing to get it polished and ready to publish, we will tell you.  If you need help editing, we'll give you some guidance.  There are many editing service options available to authors these days.  We do not provide editing services ourselves, simply because we don't want to give any impression to authors that we are luring them to us just to sell them other services.  If your book is clean and ready to go, we will sign you up right away; otherwise, you can find an editing service yourself or we can point you in the right direction.

You should be aware that the purchaser of the ISBN also owns it, and you should really consider purchasing your own ISBN.  Pedernales will guide you in purchasing either a single ISBN or a block of them, which would be desirable if you want to publish your book in multiple forms, such as paperback, hardcover, multiple e-book formats, etc.  If you intend to sell your book to libraries, a Library of Congress Control number will also be required, at no additional cost to you.

Roughly half of our clients come to us with artwork they want blended into a cover. Or, if you are handy with design software and have your own cover, great!  We'll evaluate it for you and if it suits, we will work with it.  If not, we will discuss your book with you, decide on a theme for the cover, and then we will draft a cover for your review.  If you like it, we will go with it.  If not, we'll try again.  We'll do our best to produce a hard-hitting, powerful cover that you will love and that sells books.  See front cover examples on the right.

You can't just upload a double-spaced Word file and expect to get a nice book.  A book needs to be laid out in a suitable font of the right size and with the correct spacing, with the desired trim size (the physical size of the book), including required margins for binding and cutting, and with the text justified so you get a nice clean edge of text, not the ragged edges you get with your word processing software.  We have to manage hyphenation, eliminate orphan lines, and ensure that your chapters and scenes don't start at the bottom of a page.  The page numbers should show on normal pages, but not when you start a chapter or a new section.  You might also want running headers so that your book looks professional in all ways. All this requires interior formatting, which we will do for you.  See our samples.

 If your book is so far along that all you need is the interior formatting, we can quote you a price for that specific service.

When we upload your book for publication, it has to be in specific formats or it will be rejected.  The cover, for example, must follow strict guidelines to allow for trimming safety margins, and it must have the front, spine, and back cover all of one piece, with everything centered exactly where it needs to be and with the block for the ISBN and price on the back situated precisely. The cover must be of a specific color system, usually CMYK. We take care of all this for you.

Ok, you've edited the book to a fine polish, the cover and layout are done, so we are ready to roll, right?  Not so fast...first let's order a proof copy or two, and you can go through it one last time to make sure everything is perfect.  If it isn't, we can fix it and you can order another one.  This is where you hand the book to someone besides yourself that doesn't know every word by heart and ask them to see if there are any errors.  The problem with proofing your own work is that you don't see the errors.  Your mind fills in missing words because it knows what you meant to say.

You can decide which e-book format or formats you want to publish, such as Amazon Kindle, Barnes & Noble Nook, even iPad/iPhone/iTouch, other formats, or all of the above.  These require unique formatting and submission vs. the printed book submission.  There is no additional cost for this service, but you might need to purchase additional ISBN's (see the ISBN info above) although that is changing fast.  Not every book is a good candidate for an e-book, however.  Very complex books with a lot of graphs, charts, images, call-outs, etc might not be feasible as an e-book, but let us take a look at it.  

 If you've already published your book and just want it converted into e-books, we can quote you a price for that specific service.

You will decide how you want your book to be distributed, such as with online retailers only (like Amazon) or with the traditional brick and mortar bookstores, too. Once your book is published it can be ordered by retailers (e.g., Amazon, bookstores) and by libraries, based on demand, and based on the discount and returns policies you select.  Then one of the Print on Demand vendors will produce and sell the books to the trade.  You will be paid periodically for whatever profit you've earned from the sales of your books, and you will receive reports summarizing your sales.  In addition, you can order your own books at cost, and sell them yourself.

If you decide to go all the way and the include brick and mortar stores, we will advise you of the risks and potential additional costs you might incur, such as returns, and how you might mitigate those costs. 

After your book is listed for sale on Amazon, we will provide the formatting required so that your book can utilize the "Look Inside" feature, at no additional cost.  It is part of our package.

Are you going to make any money selling your books?  What are the costs, and who gets a cut of the pie?  You already know Pedernales will only charge you an upfront fixed fee, and that's all.  We won't try to get a percentage of your sales.  However, the printer and the retailer will get a cut out of each book you sell.  How much?  We will create a model that will allow you to choose a retail selling price, allow for a discount percentage to give the trade partners, and see how much you can make for a given volume of books.  We will explain it to you and answer your questions so you can make informed decisions and know what to expect.