Publishing Support

You wrote the book.

Now it has to become one.

Finishing a manuscript and publishing a book are two very different things.

A completed manuscript still has to become something a reader can actually hold, open and enjoy — with an interior that feels right, a cover that belongs to the book, and files that meet the technical requirements of the platforms that will produce it.

For a first-time independent author, that process can become surprisingly complicated.

ByJollyColostrum Publishing Support helps bridge the gap between finished manuscript and finished book.

Whether you’re preparing your first book, struggling with files that keep being rejected, or looking at something you’ve already published and thinking this could have been done better, we can help you work through the process.

 

Publishing support can cover as much or as little of the process as your project requires.

You may need help with one troublesome cover.

You may have a finished manuscript and no idea what comes next.

Or you may want somebody to help take the project through the practical stages of preparing it for publication.

Before a manuscript becomes a book, its structure needs to be made consistent.

Paragraphs, headings, chapters, spacing and other elements are organised into a coherent document ready for book design and formatting.

The words remain yours. The purpose is to prepare them for the form they are about to take.

A book should look deliberately designed, not like a word-processing document that happened to be printed.

This can include:

  • Trim size and page dimensions
  • Margins and gutters
  • Typography and paragraph styles
  • Chapter openings
  • Headers and footers
  • Page numbering
  • Front and back matter
  • Contents pages
  • Image placement
  • Paperback and hardcover interiors

The objective is simple:

When someone opens the book, nothing should distract them from reading it.

A cover has two jobs.

It has to make someone want to pick up the book — and it has to work technically when the book is manufactured.

Publishing support can include development of new covers or preparation and correction of existing artwork, including:

  • Front-cover design
  • Spine and back-cover layout
  • Typography
  • Image preparation
  • Paperback and hardcover dimensions
  • Bleed and safe areas
  • Spine-width adjustment
  • Print-ready cover files
  • Correction of existing cover problems

If you already have artwork you love, the objective may simply be to make it work properly as a book.

Paperback and hardcover editions aren’t simply the same file with a different button selected.

Different formats can require different dimensions, covers, spine calculations and production considerations.

BJC can help prepare each version appropriately rather than forcing one design to fit everything.

An ebook is not a little PDF of the printed book.

It behaves differently, responds to different screen sizes and allows the reader greater control over how the text is displayed.

Where appropriate, a publication can be prepared separately for digital reading rather than treating the print layout as a universal format.

Amazon KDP Publishing Assistance

The manuscript and cover may be finished, but then comes the publishing platform.

Files have to be uploaded correctly. Book information has to be entered. Formats need to be selected. Previewers need to be checked. And sometimes a perfectly reasonable-looking file comes back with a list of things that need fixing.

BJC can provide practical assistance through the publishing process, including:

  • Setting up book formats
  • Preparing files for upload
  • Upload and preview guidance
  • Resolving formatting and file problems
  • Paperback and hardcover setup
  • eBook setup
  • Book descriptions and presentation
  • Series information
  • Publication troubleshooting

You remain the publisher and retain control of your accounts and your work.

The purpose of BJC Publishing Support is to help you get there.

ISBNs, editions, formats, imprints and publishing information can be confusing when encountered for the first time.

BJC can explain the available choices and help ensure the appropriate information is prepared and used consistently.

Writing an entire novel does not necessarily make writing 150 words about it easy.

Book descriptions, back-cover copy and online presentation can be developed to communicate what makes the book interesting without simply summarising the plot.

Books belonging to a series should feel related before the reader even examines the titles.

BJC can help develop consistency across:

  • Cover presentation
  • Typography
  • Interior design
  • Naming and numbering
  • Book descriptions
  • Visual identity
  • Paperback and hardcover editions

Each book can retain its own character while clearly belonging to a larger body of work.

Sometimes the best time to fix a book is after you’ve seen the first one.

Perhaps you published your book yourself and were simply relieved to get it finished.

Then the printed copy arrived.

The margins aren’t quite right. The typography feels amateurish. The cover doesn’t have the impact you imagined. The chapters don’t look like books you’ve bought from established publishers.

Or perhaps you’ve simply learned more since you published it.

An existing book doesn’t have to stay that way.

BJC can review an already-published book and help rebuild or refine its interior, cover or presentation for a new edition.

Sometimes you don’t need publishing support.

You just need the bloody file to work.

A platform rejects the cover.

The spine doesn’t fit.

Text crosses a margin.

The bleed is wrong.

Fonts aren’t behaving.

The hardcover looks different from the paperback.

Something that looked perfect on your computer looks completely different in the previewer.

BJC can help identify what is wrong and work towards getting the publication technically ready for submission.

ByJollyColostrum Publishing Support is not a promise of sales, rankings or commercial success.

It is not a literary agency.

It is not a vanity-publishing package where you surrender control of your work.

And unless specifically agreed as part of a project, it is not proofreading, copy-editing or substantive rewriting.

It is practical creative and technical support for independent authors who want to turn their work into a properly presented book.

You Stay in Control

Your manuscript remains yours.

Your copyright remains yours.

Your publishing accounts remain yours.

Your royalties remain yours.

BJC provides the support required for the project we agree to undertake. You retain ownership and control of the book.

 

Who Is This For?

Publishing Support may be useful whether you’re publishing independently for the first time, struggling with production requirements, rebuilding an existing book, developing a series, or simply trying to work out what comes next.

You don’t need to know the terminology. That’s part of what the service is for.

You did the difficult part. You wrote the book.

Now let’s make it look like one.

Enquire About ByJollyColostrum Publishing Support →

 

Start With the Book

Every project is different, so BJC Publishing Support is offered according to the needs and suitability of the individual project.

Tell us what you’ve written, where you are in the publishing process, and what you’re having difficulty with.

If you’re not sure what help you need, that’s fine too.

Sometimes the first job is simply figuring that out.

You did the difficult part. You wrote the book.

Now let’s make it look like one.

Enquire About ByJollyColostrum Publishing Support →