Publishing Schedule
We have informed you that we are going to publish your book. What next?
Summary
We need a signed contract from you. Then your e-book takes up to 12 weeks. Paperbacks take 6 to 9 months unless you go for the fast track service then your paperback comes out when it is signed off by you and finished by our paperback manager. To qualify for the fast track service you need to guarantee to order 30 copies at full price where we will give you 55 books. About 5 to 10% of people go for this option.
Contracts
From 22nd of July 2010 we started offering digital contracts only. So there will be a back log of contracts that need to be posted for the rest of 2010. Both contracts are the same digital contracts just speed up the publishing process and are better for the environment.
We will email you a digital contract. You will beed to fill out all the boxes on pages 1 and 12 and then email it back to our contract department.
If you were offered a contract before July 22nd 2010 then the first thing you need to do is print out, sign and post back the contract we have emailed to you.
(We do not send copies of any contracts back so keep a copy for yourself - we prefer to get on with publishing and keep administration time and costs down).
Within one month of receiving your contract (if you signed a contract that needs posting) you will be contacted by us for the first phase of publishing. You should be contacted in two weeks if you sent the contract to the office address (featured on our contact us page).
If you have signed a digital contract we will contact you usually within one week.
We will register your book with an ISBN number and then proceed with preparing the book for the website. Your book will be published as an e-book first and then later on as a paperback. This is a guarantee as long as you work with us, are able to provide us with the information we need and follow our instructions. Take our advice and your paperback will come out more quickly.
You will be emailed directly by Paul, the E-book Manager, who will ask you to resubmit your entire manuscript, send the image you want for the cover, a book description and a biography for the website. The quicker you send this information the more quickly your book will be published. Have a look at other books on the website as a guide.
From Contract Signed to E-book
Processing the e-book for publishing usually takes between 6 and12 weeks from receiving the author’s final version, sometimes even quicker if the all the information is provided in an easy to read and logical fashion. Paul manages a team of 15 or so volunteers who edit the books. The volunteers are mainly University Students in an Arts/Media degree who have work placements with us as part of their degree so they are fully committed to doing a great job on your book. We also have a few retired professional editors. The editing means we proof read the books, check the grammar and avoid repetition. We are not going to take out big chunks of your book (which goes against the traditional publishing model) as we believe that writing is a cathartic process and that you deserve to have a voice and express exactly how you feel about your life and/or your writing. We also publish alot of books for a small team and trust your talent as writers.
Please make sure your manuscript is submitted in the correct format:
- Font: Ariel
- Font Size: 12
- Chapter headings: Bold, not underlined or italicised
There may be a delay in the publishing of your e-book if:
- you have not provided the file in the correct format (as a Word document attached to an email),
- if you have not added any pictures yourself in the places you want them but ask us to (we can not do this for you),
- if the file you have provided is corrupt or
- if we are waiting for a cover image, biography or book description. Please email them in as sending them in the post does just means that we will ask you to email to us.
When your e-book is released you will receive an email that says “Congratulations, your book is now on the website” and which contains your e-book. You should then email Jason who will liaise with you about the promotion Chipmunka can do and will advise you on your own promotion. E-book production and aftermath does not involve lots of liaison with the author and any revisions of the manuscript on their behalf.
The importance of e-books is in getting them out quickly so that you can market in preparation for the release date of your paperback. You do not get to see your e-book before it comes out but you will get to approve your paperback before it comes out. If you want to make changes to your e-book wait until we contact you about your paperback. This way you keep your position in the paperback queue and can carry on promoting your e-book whilst making any final adjustments at the paperback stage. Ask us for the word file back as you will not be able to make changes to the PDF file that we send you. Please promote the e-book even if you are only 95% happy with it. This way we maximise the viral marketing of your e-book and your paperback comes out on time and is not delayed. E-books are a viral marketing tool to start your publishing fame. E-books are hugely important for your presence on the internet, for the popularity of The Chipmunka website and for our presence on the internet and in the media.
Whilst our editors will do everything they can to ensure that the manuscript is perfect, the responsibility for spelling, grammar, and content ultimately lies with the author and the condition in which they submitted the manuscript and their final online file checking at paperback stage.
Branding
If you have a general browse of our website you will see that (excluding the very first book we did or books we have taken on direct from other publishers) we have a house style. E-books covers are white with a central image and black writing, paperback covers are black with a central image and white writing. We make no exceptions to this. This is for a number of reasons:
- for us to help more people and your book to do well we want people to immediately and visually associate with the Chipmunka brand.
- we cannot undermine the brand by having books which do not contribute to its market presence.
- from a brief look at our website it is explicit to all potential authors that all books are branded in the same way and it would not be fair to accepted authors if we made exceptions.
- If we did different styled covers for every book we would not be able to publish as many books.
All books are branded in the Chipmunka branding. Look closely at existing Chipmunka E-books and paperbacks so you know what this means.
From E-book to Paperback
All e-books will become paperbacks as long as the author treats our team with respect, carries out instructions as requires and there are no legal issues with the book. The publisher reserves the right to cease publishing. This rarely happens. (On very rare occasions an author may behave inappropriately or both parties may mutually agree to terminate the relationship. An example may be that the author feels nervous about being published and no longer wants to be published for personal reasons. In such situations a mutual parting of company can be agreed amicably). Sometimes we cannot get hold of authors which means we are not able to set up their paperback. This may be because the author is unwell, or is not online or nervous about going to paperback. In these cases then we are very patient and give the author time.
If your e-book was on the website before 2009 then there is about a 3% chance that your book was too short to be a paperback. We would have invited you to write more so you could have your own paperback. If not then you may appear in a chipmunka anthology. We want everyone to have their own paperback. Once your e-book has been released onto the website, please work with us and promote it. your paperback will come out more quickly.
Once your e-book has been on the Chipmunka website for 6-9 months (maybe less).
Chipmunka will contact you about launching your paperback. When we contact you about your paperback, production can happen a lot more quickly if you go for the fast track service. If you order 30 books at full price we will give you 55 copies and you will therefore qualify for the fast track service. The fast track service is requested by about 5 to 10% of authors. There is no obligation to have this option.
If you have not heard from us within this time frame then in 95% of cases we have emailed you already and will have been trying to get hold of you already. in some case we will have emailed you several times ( and possibly even tried to phone you ) but for some reason you did not receive the email. 1) It may have gone into your spam folder 2) You may have changed email addresses and phone numbers and we may not have logged your new contact details 3) The email was not sent properly due to incorrect information or a typo error.
If we do not respond to your email it is only because we have not received it so please check your email settings and spam folders and phone the office and leave a message. Our phone number is always on the contact us page of our website. Of course most of the time email works fine and everything runs pretty smoothly.
- We email you and ask you if you want to make any changes to the text. You will need to ask us to send you the latest word file if you do. The most important thing is that, once you have made any revisions, you do not change the manuscript's formatting again as we have to format your book from A4 to A5 and this takes a long time to do.
- We will do the text first.
- Once the text has been signed off by you, then Andrew or Paul (who both do Paperbacks) will email you what your cover will look like. You will be able to choose the image but the cover will fit in with the branding style of the company. You can also choose the text that you want to go on the back. You can provide one or two quotes from professionals if you like but we want to know their job titles. If you cannot provide a quote do not let this slow the publication of your book down. We are more than happy to provide you with one although usually nowadays we usually just include some text from the book.. The most important thing is that when you sign of your paperback by email, you check the cover for typos and spelling errors.
- When we send the file to the printer they take the file as it is and do not amend it or looking for any grammatical or formatting errors.
- At the same time the book is integrated to bookshops, wholesalers and online retailers globally so it is not advisable to make any changes retrospectively and it also costs money to do so.
- Chipmunka orders 3 advance copies of your book. One for you, one for the production department and one for the Chipmunka Office which we eventually send off to the National Library. Then your book is available to the world. We are here to promote it for you and to advise you on the best promotion.
- Remember we are the publisher so we know how the production process best works. Please take our advice when we tell you how the production process works in relation to our organisation. We look forward to working with you. Welcome aboard. You are now a Chipmunka author.
- For the last 2 years the main reason for not being able to publish someone's paperback on time has been not being able to get hold of the authors by email and them not signing off the text in time. Of course Chipmunka understands that authors want to be happy with their books and sometimes may not be well so we are very flexible.
- If you have any change of heart about being published then it is best to let us know before the paperback is set up as once it is the meta data can remain on the internet even though Chipmunka can cancel the publishing of the book so it is no longer available.
- Of course, most of the time authors and Chipmunka are excited about finally getting the paperback out. Chipmunka are proud to be able to deliver such a quick time frame on e-book and paperback production. In this respect we are much quicker than your traditional publisher that usually takes 2 years at least from the contract being signed to publishing.