Your paperback cover is available in either a gloss or matt laminate. You will be asked to choose which you prefer.

We endeavour to produce a quality cover produced from a single design brief supplied by the author. See the following steps:

Together with a design brief, the author is to supply all the text required for the front, back and spine of the book. Consider the following:

Front Cover

• Main title
• Subtitle
• Short promotional endorsement
• Author name or pseudonym (“written by” or “by” is usually avoided. Including simply the author name is recommended.

Back Cover

• Supply text that provides the potential buyer a snappy, attractive overview of what the book is about, which will help sell the book. This is your main tool for attracting buyers. This text will be used across all platforms on the internet as the description of what the book is. It is vital you make this as clear and informative as possible, with clean, error free use of English.
• About the author. If you would like to include information about yourself, please supply this text. You may also want to include a portrait photograph of yourself. Any imagery should be supplied to us with the design brief.
• If you have a website address, think about including this information on the back cover too, to enhance visibility of your personal brand.
• A Zaccmedia ISBN barcode will be placed on the back of the book.

Spine

• We automatically add the book title, author and Zaccmedia logo on the spine. Please advise if you wish to change this. Note: The book must be at least 80 pages thick to enable text to be placed on the spine.

We will produce two different designs from the supplied brief. It is essential the brief is as clear as possible, and within reasonable limits of the design being based on using stock image library photographs and illustrations, together with attractive typefaces. Custom drawing, photography and hand illustration is not part of this package. If this is required please contact us. You may have your own graphic or photograph you would like to use for the cover. This should be supplied as a 300dpi digital file at the size of the book format chosen.

The author may select the preferred design from the two options and has one round of amendments to the cover that is included in the price. This round of amends may, for example, be a request for a different font for the title, or to change the main image. It is also a final opportunity to change the Title or Subtitle.

A final design is presented to the author. Any further design work requested is charged at £30 per hour, with a minimum hour’s work.

Our publishing packages all include professional editing packages.

Page Count (known in the trade as “Extent”)
The minimum page count possible for this package is 18 pages and the maximum is 600 pages or 180,000 words. If your word count is above this, please add £1.50 per additional 300 words. If paying for additional pages, then the maximum a book can handle in printing is 1050 pages. A page can be defined as being one side of a leaf of paper in the book. A leaf of paper has two sides, which makes up two pages.

A mandatory requirement by our printer is to reserve two pages at the back of the book for technical printer information. If your book is produced with 80 pages, the final page count will be 82, once the printer pages are included at the very end of the book. For other technical reasons, the final page count must be divisible by 2.

Typesetting alterations after marking up first PDF proofs

After you have submitted your manuscript it will be sent for typesetting. It is critical that your manuscript is as clean, checked and proofed as well as possible, because the scope for changes following the typesetting stage are restricted. Once the manuscript is typeset, you will receive a set of PDF page proofs to check that all your content is there, correctly laid out and in the format requested. It is also an opportunity to check any last minute minor errors.

With the cost of typesetting we include 20% additional time (above what it took to typeset the book) for corrections, so if it’s a 240 page book this gives us roughly two hours work for corrections included in the package price. We find this amount of time is sufficient to make the average amount of corrections. However, if the author wants to make quite expansive corrections that go beyond the 20% of total time to originally set the book, then the author will be advised of additional labour costs. Where a manuscript has been professionally proofread before typesetting, the amends are usually minimal and more often than not, fit within the 20% additional time.

In this example, estimated for a 240pp book, for every hour beyond the first two hours of corrections, we charge £30.00 per hour. For this reason, it is critical your manuscript is as clean as possible from errors when submitting it for typesetting. It is unreasonable to request expansive adjustments following first proofs that can escalate in time and costs that are beyond the budgets set out in these packages.

Following receipt of the first set of proofs, any subsequent rewrites of paragraphs or long sentences, wide scale manual repetitious changes, or re-setting the book completely from scratch, means additional costs, which will be quoted upon request.

The final proofing is intended to spot small grammatical and spelling errors, and not for wide scale editorial adjustment.

Submitting first proof amendments

Proof amends can be supplied either using the review tool in Adobe Acrobat Professional, or listed in Microsoft Word or .txt file in the following structure as a way of referencing your amends:

• PDF page no.
• Which Paragraph. (1st, 2nd 3rd, 4th?)
• Which line in the paragraph (1st, 2nd 3rd, 4th?)

So, as a fictional example, you would present two amends like the following:

Page 1, 3rd para, 4th line
Amend slipery to slippery.

Page 10, 2rd para, 1st line
Add full stop at end of the sentence, so it reads: The cow jumped over the moon.

[icon icon=”0072.png”][/icon]Hard Copy Printed Page Proofs: If you prefer printed page proofs to mark page errors up by hand, these are available at a cost of £0.05p per page plus postage.

Images & Illustrations
For black & white interiors, you can supply as part of your package up to twenty photographs or illustrations, which should be of sufficient resolution and clarity to be suitable for reproduction. These will be reproduced in grey scale. For professional quality, please supply images at a resolution of 300dpi (dots per inch) at the size you wish it to appear in the book. The minimum we can accept is 150dpi, which can interpolate up to 300dpi. But this isn’t the same quality as submitting at 300dpi, especially if the 150dpi version was poor quality originally. If you have any concerns, we can advise you during the process. Please contact us if you need to specifically work with colour images and illustrations.

We are able to produce a variety of book sizes suited to your preference.

Common Trade Formats Available

5 x 7″ (178 x 127mm)
5 x 8″ (203 x 127mm) Perfect Bound
5.25 x 8″ (203 x 133mm)
5.5 x 8.5″ (216 x 140mm) DEMI Perfect Bound
6.14 x 9.21″ (234 x 156mm) ROYAL perfect Bound
6 x 9″(229 x 152 mm)

All Paperback, Perfect Bound Formats Available (with b&w interiors)

5 x 7″ (178 x 127mm)
5 x 8″ (203 x 127 mm)
5.25 x 8″ (203 x 133 mm)
5.5 x 8.5″ (216 x 140 mm) DEMI
5.83 x 8.27″ (210 x 148 mm) – A5 FORMAT
6 x 9″(229 x 152 mm)
6.14 x 9.21″ (234 x 156 mm) ROYAL
7 x 10″ (254 x 178 mm)
8 x 10″ (254 x 203 mm)
8.25 x 11″ (280 x 210 mm)
8.5 x 11″ (280 x 216 mm)
8.268 x 11.693″ (297 x 210 mm) – A4 FORMAT

Hardback formats (currently not available on our packages – contact us if you want it)
5.5 x 8.5″ (216 x 140mm)
6 x 9″ (229 x 152mm)
6.14 x 9.21″ (234 x 156mm)
7 x 10″ (254 x 178mm)
8.5 x 11″ (280 x 216mm)

A Note About Colour Books
At present, the price of printing and distributing colour books via our print-on-demand model is prohibitive for making realistic sales through commercial channels. We can produce trade standard colour books, but they are not part of our distribution package. The same applies to any colour inserts you may want inside an otherwise black & white book. We cannot include colour inserts with our distribution package. If you would like colour books please contact us with your requirements, and we will happily review your project.

Standard marketing suite, which includes the below:

• Social Media / Web Graphic advertisement for book
• 3D rendered images of book cover
• Inclusion in general Zaccmedia marketing initiatives
• Advance Trade Information Sheet for bookshops
• 100 A5 double sided flyers
• Zaccmedia “always in stock” Bookstore placement

As part of the interior design, you may have a number of photographs, illustrations or particularly complex tables or designs, which you want to include in your book. As part of the package, you may have up to twenty such insertions/treatments. If you would like to include more, then we charge £5 per item to be added. All images will be in greyscale.

Every book that is intended for trade distribution must have an ISBN (International Book Standard Number). An ISBN is used by distribution channels to uniquely identify every edition of any book that has been produced, and to serve as a single point of reference. Very often books can have the same title, and even the same author. An ISBN identifies exactly which book it is and provides database references to who the publisher and distributor is for that book. Bookshops also use the ISBN and barcode for their own ordering and inventory management.

A Zaccmedia ISBN, rather than your own, is necessary because we will be the company where all orders are sourced under our distribution and printing account, which is with Ingram and their subsidiary print-on-demand printing service, Lightning Source. Usually it is viewed that the ISBN holder is the publisher of the book. Whilst what we offer provides the flexibility associated with self-publishing, it is necessary to have our ISBN if to sell your book through Ingrams on our Lightning Source printing and distribution account.

If you want a true self-publishing experience, and go it completely alone, you may want to review our module services instead. What we offer is a complete solution, taking the difficulty and time out of the process.

With the advent of digital technologies in printing, it is now increasingly popular to use print-on-demand methods of producing books. The books are of a very high quality, and to most people, probably indistinguishable to books traditionally printed offset. Ingram have their own printing facility called Lightning Source, and together with many companies like Zaccmedia, we use their outstanding print services. Ingram are, however, principally a worldwide book distributor – one of the largest in the world. They have Lightning Source print stations in the USA, UK and Australia, making it possible for individuals and retailers to order books with domestic postage from any of these countries.

Zaccmedia sets up your book for printing and distribution through Ingram and Lightning Source, giving your book potential access to 30,000 retailers around the world. It is important for you to know that Zaccmedia doesn’t market or promote your book, nor does it place your book in shops. What we do provide, through Ingrams, is the channel to get your book into the shops should there be a demand for it. But it is up to the author to engage in promotional activity to create that demand. This isn’t easy, and is by far the most challenging and money making aspect of publishing. Which is why it is so vital to weigh up your potential sales to see if you will cover your publishing costs with Zaccmedia, or any other self-publishing house. Just because your book is available, it doesn’t mean a shop or person will buy it. Out of the thousands of books produced each month, you need a way to promote yours. Our Advanced Distribution Package includes a Press Release and PRWeb Advanced Package to help with that. But there is no single solution to generating sales.

As part of the distribution package, your paperback book will automatically be made available on Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.com. Amazon are powerful book sellers, and are the most popular destination for book buyers. Make sure your back cover text is effective, as this will appear on Amazon.

If you have taken a package that includes eBook conversion, we will convert your manuscript into the two standard commercial digital formats: ePub and Kindle format. These formats are used by Amazon Kindle, the world’s foremost eBook retailer. We do not supply PDF version eBooks, because they are not suited for portable ereading devices due to their fixed dimensions. Kindle eBooks enable you to enlarge the text, and flow it onto a single page without zooming, making it perfect for smartphones, iPads, computers and Kindle readers.

As a distribution package, the aim is to make your book available for sale through various retail outlets, including Amazon. When a book does sell, you are entitled to a royalty. The royalty commission you receive is 60% net receipts from any book sold through our retail channels. What does net receipts mean? This is a standard royalty system in publishing. This is how it works:

Example: (the retail figures here are purely for illustration. Each book will have a different selling and production cost)

A book has a recommended retail price of £9.99 with a page length of 160pp, and 5.5×8.5″ format.

Via our distribution channel, we usually give 40% wholesale discount to those retailers who want to buy the book for stocking in their shops or online facility.
So, £9.99 less 40% discount = £5.99 (retailer gets £3.99 discount)
We then deduct the unit printing cost from the £5.99
Printing cost for one 5.5×8.5″ book with 160pp is £0.70 + £1.60 = £2.30
£5.99 – £2.30 = £3.69
60% author commission from £3.69 = £2.21
Zaccmedia commission is the remainder = £1.48

Ebook Sales Royalty
The same royalty model applies to eBook sales, but please note that as well as a retailer discount there is also a technology fee from the eBook distribution company. This technology fee replaces the printing cost, which of course isn’t necessary for eBook sales.

The royalty price is structured so that the author will always make more income from a book than Zaccmedia. We receive our commission for dealing with the administration, order and ongoing management of the books under our service agreement. It also in part subsidises our reasonable service costs.

We use Lightning Source to manage our printing and is the world’s leading print-on-demand company.

You can purchase books for your own personal use, distribution and sale. We offer generous terms on the purchase of your books, selling them to you at print cost price plus 25% of the retail price.

For example:
A book has a recommended retail price of £9.99 with a page length of 160pp, and 5.5×8.5″ format.

The basic Print Cost our printer charges on 160 pages will be £2.30.
25% of £9.99 (RRP) comes to £2.49.
So the price to you is the Print Cost of £2.30 + 25% of RRP, which is £2.49 = £4.79 (price to you)

The formula for calculating print costs on different page extents can be found here.

Each order has a handling fee, which is currently £1.25 per order, plus shipping. Shipping becomes more economical the more books you order. There is no minimum or maximum order. But bear in mind that shipping only a few books is expensive. We don’t control shipping rates, as all books are shipped directly from the printer.

Following the completion of publication you are entitled to receive free of charge 10 finalised copies of your book, which you may sell, give to friends and family, or use for promotional purposes.

Our contracts are Non-Exclusive.
For our distribution packages, our contract is for one year. Your book must remain in our distribution plan for that duration. Following one year from the date of contract, you are free to have the book removed from Zaccmedia, if you so wish. Zaccmedia reserves the right, following one year, to remove the book from our distribution facility at anytime.

The contract is non-exclusive, meaning you can publish your manuscript with someone else anytime. The only caveat is that you are not permitted to use elsewhere the print ready files we have produced. After one year, you can request to keep the files and use them elsewhere. But to do this you need to take into account the following:

You can only take control of the print ready files if you cancel our distribution arrangement.

There is a £200 fee to convert and release either/both eBook and print files. The print ready files require a conversion process before being delivered to the author. The files contain our barcode, logo and information on the inside pages and cover. The files will be adjusted for the print version and eBook version (if applicable), removing Zaccmedia details, and if required, replacing like-for-like your own details.

No conditions are held on the edited manuscript in MS Word. This belongs to you at all times.

It is a UK legal requirement to deposit up to 5 books in the British Library Legal Deposit. Zaccmedia will do this as part of the package.