hello and welcome to another article i'm going to talk to you about our publishing checklist so these are the key items you need whether you are self-publishing or working with a publisher these are the checklists these are the key items you're going to need to have ready so i'm going to run through those now the first of course is your manuscript the second is your cover the third is formatting the fourth is isbns the fifth are trim sizes the sixth are the hardback options the seventh is interior printing the eighth is paper type so those are the eight items on the publishing checklist i'm now going to run through each of those items in depth starting with your manuscript here we are talking about the final version of your manuscript the final version that is going to be sent for editing copy editing or proofreading so here are some of the items you need to think about to make sure you've included in your final manuscript you need to have acknowledgements you need to have a dedication you need a contents page of course you also need to be thinking about your copyright page.
we do have some templates that we can supply to you in order to help you with structuring your copyright page as it should be structured an introduction and also an about the author these are all the items that you should be thinking about and that should be included in the final version of your manuscript next we're going to talk about your cover so this is item number two on the checklist so for this particular section of the publishing checklist you need to think about your blurb so have you written the blurb the piece of text that is going to go on the back page of your book this is what sells your book this is really important we can give you advice and guidance on this but it's really important that the initial draft comes from the author as you know your book intimately and you know best which elements are going to attract readers to your book a design brief so what do you want your cover to look like we will actually send a form so any authors that work with us we send them a form and they of course can fill out the key information and provide a brief of what they want on their book cover another item to think about is do you want stock images or do you want a illustrated cover so by stock images we mean images that have already been taken they're readily available and we can purchase these or they're either royalty free and we can use them on your cover if you want a completely custom and illustrated cover that is of course going to take more time and cost more money.
but really important to think about that go into a book shop or go online have a look at some covers see what you like look of and then you'll know which of the designs you would prefer remember to think about the back cover and the spine so really think about the design of the back cover you know the design of the front cover is really what's going to capture people's attention but the back cover is still really important uh also think about what is going to be on the spine of your book so also have a think about what you would like featured there and then think about the finish of your cover would you like a matte cover or would you like a gloss cover so which of the two do you think best suit your book a top tip is that matte covers are most commonly used with fictional books not of course all fiction books use mac covers but it is more common that a fiction book will have a matte cover format so think about the format that you would like your book to be made available do you want it available on ebook paperback hardback audio book a top tip here is that the more formats you have your book available in the preferential treatment that will be provided to your book by amazon and other retailers so put another way these retailers like books where they are available in multiple formats that is rewarded on these platforms and your book will get more visibility as a result number four on the checklist are isbn numbers we supply all of our authors with nielsen registered isbn numbers so if you're working with us that is something that we provide if you are going down another route then you want to be thinking about making sure you purchase the right isbn numbers and they are registered in the correct way if they aren't it's really going to have a negative impact on the potential distribution for your book.
like i say we sort all this out and take care of all of this for our authors item number five on our checklist are trim sizes this is how big your book will be when it is finished so what size are you going to choose i would always urge you to go and take a look on amazon or another retailer or go into a bookshop and have a look at different sizes to see what you like that is a great place to start the other reason trim sizing is so important is because it's actually going to affect the margin that you make so what do i mean by this when you're using print on demand it's going to come down to page numbers so you're going to get charged effectively on a page by page basis what i mean by this is that the more pages your book has of course the more it's going to cost to print you know that's pretty straightforward so something to think about is if your book is very large so you're you know 100 000 words or more you're probably going to want to opt for a much larger trim size because it's going to mean less pages overall so putting of course more text per page is actually going to reduce the overall print cost and give you more margin so think very carefully about the sizing that you choose you know we can if you're working with us give you some guidance on this and we'll also put a link below to a page on our website where you can see all of the various trim sizes something else to note is that when it comes to color printing you're a bit more limited on kdp.
than you are on ingram so for example there are certain sizes that are only available in ingrams certain sizes are only available in king on kdp and that just means that in order to get a consistent size you have to think about the platforms again we take care of all of this for the authors that work with us trim sizes do vary from genre to genre i'm going to read out some of the popular trim sizes so for fiction and this is all in inches i should add for fiction you've got 4.25 by 6.87 5x8 of course 6x9 is another really popular size you've then got 5.25 by 8 and you've got 5.5 by 8.5 so these are some really popular sizes for fiction novellas tend to always be 5x8 again you don't have to stick to these sizes but these are some of the common trends so useful information if you're trying to decide on size non-fiction that tends to be 5.5 by 8.5 6 by nine again another popular one for non-fiction and fiction and then seven by ten is another common size we see used in non-fiction when it comes to memoirs they tend to be 5.25 by 8 or 5.5 by 8.5 children's books they tend to be five by eight seven by ten eight by eight eight point five by five or eleven by eight point five so you see a lot more variation when it comes to children's books again that depends on the age that they're written for of course younger children they tend to be landscape uh you know there's more images and they're they're you know much smaller so think about that when it comes to the trim size that you're going to choose for your book hardback options is number six on our checklist now not all sizes are available for hardbacks and it's also going to depend whether you choose case laminate jacket case laminate digital cloth or um more and then even the color of that digital cloth so whether you choose a blue or a gray um so you really have to think about all these various options.
you know digital cloth which of these options do you want and then again we can look at sizing that's available for those particular options checklist item number seven is the interior print color so do you just want black and white or do you want color and then on top of that you can have standard color or premium color again of course color will add cost so that's going to reduce your margin or you're going to have to charge more for your book and again if you go for premium color over just standard color that is going to be more costly and again you'll have to charge more for the book or of course it will impact your margin so really think about the images that you're including in your book you know do this sparingly if you have a book that's really heavy on images um you know potentially think about dividing this up into multiple books or of course be prepared that it's going to cost a lot more to print and supply that book black and white printing is of course the most cost effective and will give you the best margin for on selling your book checklist item.
number eight is paper type so that is quite straightforward it's either going to be cream paper or white paper these are the two options that you see in the vast majority of books that you will pick up and purchase at a retailer cream paper tends to be most popular with novels and fiction and then we see that white paper is more commonly used for textbooks and non-fiction so cream paper novels and fiction white paper more common for textbooks and non-fiction so think about that when it comes to which option you would like to choose we hope you have enjoyed this article.
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