Frequently Asked Questions for eBook
Submission:
Goose
River Press is pleased to announce that we have partnered with an eBook
Submission company and are now able to offer our clients the option to have
their book converted to eBook format and distributed to distribution points all
for one low fee of $350.00. The
following information states what we can offer and answers many questions that
potential clients may have. In the
following document, when we speak of what Goose River Press offers it is in
conjunction with our eBook partner; however, the client will deal with Goose
River Press only.
Goose
River Press will format your manuscript, prepare
submission files, and publish to Apple, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Sony, Kobo,
Diesel, Google and thousands of other ebook
distribution points. We include all metadata, and keyword tagging. Our Formats
include— HTML, Java, .mobi, ePub,
RFT, LFR, PDB, PDF and plain text. We provide your eBook with a free ISBN. Also
included is a one year auto submission service to distribution points added to
our database. A $75.00 optional
annual fee will be charged to you after your first 12 months of service, which
includes ongoing maintenance, auto submission and service of your book for an
additional 12 months. You can opt out of this feature. (Your books will still
stay listed and we continue to pay royalties.)
FAQs / Terms and
Conditions
Q. What makes Goose
River Press better than other file conversion services?
A. We care about our
client’s files and manually format and convert each one for submission. Most
services that advertise “free” conversions never even look at a client’s file.
They do it all on autopilot. If the file is junk—that’s what gets submitted to
the on-line retailer, and in many cases it is rejected for that very reason.
We’ve seen all kinds of corrupted files come in to us. We don’t let them out
until they are right. Clients who want it done correctly
usually end up going through a paid-for service.
Our team of
professionals each average 20 years experience, bringing a wealth of knowledge
and experience to each client.
Best of all is our
prices. We are charge the lowest prices in the industry. We have never lost
sight of our objectives and that is to bring the latest technology to our
clients at affordable pricing.
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Q. Do I keep
the rights to my book?
A. Yes. You keep
control of your rights and content of your book. We act as an Agent/Publisher,
not a Traditional Publisher. Although, for the purpose of submitting and managing
your eBook, we retain temporary rights (granted by you when you obtain our
services) as an ePublisher which authorizes Goose
River Press eBook Publishing to submit your eBook through distribution outlets.
As a company, our intent is not to control ownership at any time of your book.
You have the right at any time to make changes, control the pricing, and
control the distribution. We do not retain any royalties of your eBook. Our
services are only for those that hold the rights to their own works. Retaining
our services under false pretense of ownership is punishable under federal law.
All books that we submit for distribution are done so with digital rights
management (DRM). DRM restrictions include limiting copying, printing, and
sharing of e-books.
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Q. How often
are royalties distributed?
A. Quarterly.
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Q. Understanding
the royalty process.
A.. Goose River Press Publishing is a Master
Distributor. Our database of distribution partners has grown to over 3,500. Not
all books go to every venue. It depends on the type of book. Most books are
distributed to at least 1000 more venues. Due to our vast distribution
territory, it is impossible to track sales in real time. We report to you on a quarterly
basis the sales that are reported to us from our various distribution partners.
We do not count a sale as a sale until we have received payment. All payments
are processed within the same month as receipt. You will receive a detailed
statement along with a quarterly payment .
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Q. Do I have to
reach a certain amount of royalties before I receive payment?
A. Yes. Your
reported royalty payment must be a minimum of $5.00 for you to be paid in a
quarter. If the payment is less, the royalty will be held until the next
quarter in which your payment is at least $5.00.
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Q. How do I price my eBook?
A. That is your
judgment. We can recommend for short stories $2.99 - $4.99, novels $5.99 -
$8.99. Pricing below the $2.99 limits where we can distribute. Also please keep
in mind, although you are setting the price and we are submitting your
suggested retail cost - some distribution venues maintain the right to adjust
the suggested retail cost. Google at times discounts the eBooks as much as 25%.
Please refer to any of the distribution sites for their terms and conditions. The maximum discount that must be given to a
distribution point is 40%, but all vary.
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Q. How long
does it take to upload my book to the various distribution points?
A. Goose River Press eBook
Publishing normally takes 7 -10 days for your book to
go through our process of formatting, converting and checking for errors. After
that, it depends on the distribution point. Some sites will have your book
available within the hour after being properly formatted and passing their
formatting checker. Some sites take a little longer but usually within 2-15
days. As of June 1, 2011, we are letting clients know the process is taking as
long as 30 days for some venues to make your eBook live. Apple takes the
longest due to their stringent requirements for acceptance.
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Q.
Does GRP and/or its eBook
partner hold other certifications?
A. Our partner is a
licensed Apple developer, Microsoft Solution Provider, SEO Certified and holds
a host of other professional certifications and licenses.
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Q. How can Goose
River Press eBook Publishing guarantee acceptance of my book to Apple and the
others sites?
A. We cannot guarantee
acceptance of any eBook. However if we do have an issue with any distribution
point we would work very closely with them until we correct any issue they may
have with your eBook. With that said, we have never had a rejection due to the
scrutiny we put each book through. We catch the glitches before it goes out the
door.
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Q. Do I need an
e-ISBN to publish my book on-line? Can I supply you with my own ISBN?
A. Yes, that is how
search engines will find your book and match keywords. Although most
distribution points do not require an ISBN, most of the larger retailers
require one. We will assign one to you at no charge. Different media types of
products require a different ISBN. Our ISBN's are registered to us and
therefore we use all the functionality of the ISBN to help market your eBook to
various distribution points.
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Q. How will readers
know where to find my book?
A. A Google
search or any search engine of the book title and authors name will show your
books availability. Most people have a favorite eBook retailer; they will find
your eBook through the search engines of the retailer. You should also add a
link to your eBook sellers on your web site. Publishing the ebook
is only the first step. Once we convert and submit, that gives you your product
– now you have to market your product.
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Q. If Goose
River Press ePublishing is submitting my eBook to
over 1,000 on-line locations, why don’t they all show up in a Google search?
A. Google searches
will readily reveal your eBook’s availability at the
locations where most of your readers shop: Amazon, Apple’s iBookstore
Barnes & Noble, Google eBookstore, Sony, Diesel
and many more on-line retail outlets. Many locations, such as schools,
universities, private book clubs, retail stores, organizations, etc., have
secure internal databases within their intranet. These are not made available
to the public, but can be accessed by registered users who have a login and
password to enter their system.
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Q. Do I need to
format my manuscript for submission to Goose River Press?
A. Yes and No. Most
files are very workable. However, there are a couple things you can do which
will maintain the integrity of your book.
1. Table of Contents (TOC) and Chapters – please make sure if you have
Chapters, that the chapters say “Chapter”. Example – “Chapter 1” or “Chapter
One” or “Chapter – Why Blue Birds Fly”. Please make sure if you have a TOC the
Table reflects / mirrors the content in the book. Example – TOC states “Chapter
One” and inside the book says “Why Blue Birds Fly” (this is incorrect) – they
both should say “Chapter One – Why Blue Birds Fly” If you have endnotes -
please make sure that you place the word "Endnote" in front of the
chapter you are noting. Example -" Endnote - Chapter One" is correct
- "Chapter One" is incorrect. If this is not properly identified our
system will pick this up as an additional chapter and list it in the TOC.
2. Please do not put anything in front of the title page. If you do, we move it
under the title page. Knowing this gives you the option to move this
information somewhere else that you may feel is more appropriate. Remember, by
default we move this info under the title page or the end of the book..
3. Hard breaks in words at the end of a line. Please do not manually put these
into your manuscript. We cannot guarantee that we are able to remove and fix
this type of error. The only hyphen/break in a word that is acceptable is one
that is intentional for grammatical purposes, not one that makes the
justification look better.
4. Most of our
distribution partners have a proprietary system for formatting. Although we
have to give them clean, formatted and converted files (as per dictated
industry standards) - they will still run the files through their proprietary
system. This means that some formatting that you placed in your book may not
stick. Please remember that eBooks are not print books. eBooks
are concerned about text, uniform sizing, singular font, proper spacing, etc.
The user has the ability to customize their reading experience. It is not for
us to force a certain style. Here at Goose River Press Publishing - all of our
eBooks have a uniform title page, uniform font and sizing. This is what is
required by us from our distribution partners and industry standards in order
to provide the end user with the best reading experience. We do understand as
an author you have put a lot of hard work into formatting your book,
unfortunately the eBook world has standards in order to provide the reader with
a format that is uniform.
5. An eBook is one
long continuous file, therefore headers, footers and
footnotes will be taken out of your book. If you want to keep your footnotes,
reformat the information to the back of the book and please remove all number
references within the body of the book.
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Q. Is there a
preferred type of file to submit to GRP?
A. Our first choice
for your file is a Word Doc. If you do not have a Word Doc, please submit the
native file that the manuscript was written in. If we have a problem, we will
call you and work with you until we get it right! 75% of all PDF's that we
receive work just fine.
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Q. My print book has
an artistic interior design, such as a fleur-de-lis and scrolls. Will
they convert and show in my eBook?
A. Yes and no.
You need to remember that e-Readers were designed for displaying text. Graphics
will not convert, and therefore, will be taken out. Some graphics within the
book can be used, for example, if the graphic is before or after a block of
text and is gray scaled. The most prominent exceptions are readers that use PDF
and are viewed on a conventional desktop, laptop, etc. The other exception is a
file converted for Apple’s iPad, which is the best
mobile device (at the moment) for displaying graphics. Unfortunately, that
technology does not carry over to most other mobile devices, as we explained.
It may also be worth mentioning that a highly graphical ebook
submitted to Apple can only be submitted as App for the iPAD,
not an ePub ebook.
Very Important – the best eBook is simple; it is all about the words,
not how pretty it is. Your eBook is going to be nothing like your print book.
They are two completely different styles of media. It is most important to
realize that very few eBooks are going to be 100% perfect. We format and
convert for the masses and everyone wants a different file type. Some venues
will take a perfect file that we give them and re-run it through their own
proprietary converters, thus causing glitches to appear. A big part of eReaders is to let the reader control how they are viewing
your eBook. The viewer/reader can change font size, font style, color, etc. It
is all about providing the words properly, not making the eBook look pretty.
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Q. Can I have extra
lines between paragraphs or chapters?
A. Typically no.
Anything more than three line spaces jumps to a new page, which leaves blank
pages in-between. We are sure you do not want that. You want your eBook to be
pleasing to the reader. We take out all lines in order to provide a continuous
flow of text.
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Q. How come my eBook
and print book have a different number of pages?
A. When your files are
formatted for eBook, they are formatted and converted in a way that makes the
text is continuous, thus removing many spaces. You also have to keep in mind
that eReaders come in all different sizes. A typical
300 page book may appear as 2000 pages on an eReader.
Most eReaders do not keep track of pages, but
measures the eBook by percentage. Example – if someone reads the first 100
pages of a printed book, the eReader will recognize
that as 33% read, not 100 pages read.
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Q. Why are the page numbers eliminated from my eBook?
A. Again, eBooks are a
whole different animal than print books. The e-Reader doesn’t see your file as
individual pages, but as one continuous file. That’s why many e-Readers show
the percentage of pages read as opposed to page numbers. It’s showing you how
far into that file you are.
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Q. Can Goose River
Press do eBooks with color, graphs, pictures, etc.?
A. Yes and no. If you
submit your file with color pictures and the e-reader (which most are) is black
and white; the picture will only appear to be black and white to the reader.
You also have to keep in mind an e-reader is smaller than a printed book. Therefore viewing any details of a picture will be
very difficult for the user.
The format of the picture cannot be wrapped around any text. The picture must
reside either at the top or under a block of text. If you submit your book with
graphics and the picture is not formatted properly, we will move the picture to
the top or bottom of the corresponding text area.
One other option is to
remove the picture and provide a link as to where the picture resides. You can
set up an html page with your pictures, upload the page, right click on the
picture and copy picture link. Insert the link instead of submitting the
picture. The text of the link should be “picture”. The reader will know to tap
on the “picture” link to view.
Please keep in mind e-readers can vary in size from 3 x 5 inches (some even a
little smaller) to the size of an iPad. The user
controls how they view the eBook.
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Q. Do I have to
pick a format type from the formats listed? Example: HTML, Java, .mobi, ePub, RFT, LFR, PDB and plain
text?
A. GRP will
automatically format your manuscript or finished book from any file type and
convert it to the correct format for submission to the various distribution
points.
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Q. What’s the cost
to me?
A. For eBook
formatting, submission and distribution to Apple, Amazon, Barnes and Noble,
Sony, Kobo, Diesel, Google and over 1000 more eBook worldwide distribution
sites there is a one-time fee per title of $350.00. This includes a free ISBN
for all ebook publications and one year auto
submissions to distribution points added to our database.
Submissions are subject to net proceeds from retailers advertised royalties. Goose
River Press charges a 5.25% monthly service fee. This fee covers maintenance,
consolidated accounting and support.
Goose River Press eBook
Publishing charges an optional $75.00 annual renewal
fee. The annual fee will be charged to you after your first 12 months in order
to maintain auto submission and service maintenance of your book. If you opt
out of this service, your eBooks will still stay listed and you will still
receive royalties. You will not be allowed cover changes, price changes, or
auto submission to new distribution points.
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Q. What changes can
be made without additional charge?
A. We allow price
changes (after 60 days), cover changes and any administrative information.
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Q. What changes
cost additional fees?
A. Any text changes, resubmittal of manuscript, re-conversion of files, etc.
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Q. Do I need to
have my book available in print before I can create an eBook?
A. No. You can choose
to publish your book solely as an eBook. It does need to have cover art to be
accepted to most sites. It will have its own e-ISBN designation and enjoy all
of the same benefits as any other eBook.
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Q. Do you edit or
proof read my book with your standard submission service?
A. No. We assume that
the file you send us has been edited and corrected. We do not look for, or
change, errors in spelling, punctuation or grammar. However, we will remove
double spaces between sentences and extra spaces within words. We also remove
any tabbing and spacing between paragraphs. One example we see a lot – the word
“It’s” is submitted to us with a space between the “t” and the apostrophe. We
will remove that space.
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