Is Your Manuscript Ready? Tips for Fast and Easy Publication.

Transcript:

Hi, and welcome to iUniverse. We’re so glad you’ve chosen us as your publisher, and we look forward to receiving your manuscript so that we can begin working on your new book. 

In this video we’ll share some important information that will help your book look its absolute best, and ensure that its production goes as quickly and as smoothly as possible.

First, we want to introduce a few terms that relate directly to your manuscript. ‘Hardcopy and Electronic Copy,’ ‘File Merging,’ ‘Length,’ and ‘Language.’ If you’re not familiar with all of these terms don’t worry. We’ll go through them one at a time. 

The first thing we need to know about your manuscript is whether it is a hard copy or an electronic copy. A hard copy manuscript is one that has been printed on paper. An electronic copy is one that has been typed and saved into a computer, where it can be burned to a CD or a DVD or sent over the Internet. Your book will go into production a lot faster if you submit an electronic copy. We can accept manuscripts written with Microsoft Word 6.0 and higher on either a PC or a Mac. Unfortunately we are not able to work on manuscripts written with Quark or PageMaker. If you have another electronic file format, contact a representative and ask about file conversion. If you have only a hard copy manuscript, it will need to be data-entered, or typed into a computer before we begin production. We offer data entry services for an additional fee, but you’re welcome to have your manuscript data-entered wherever you like.

File merging is necessary when we receive a manuscript in more than one file. For example, if you send each chapter of your manuscript as a separate file, we will need to put the files together before we can begin production of your book. There is a fee for file merging and it takes a little extra time as well. For these reasons, it is best if you submit your manuscript as one continuous file. If you need help doing this, watch our video tutorial on File Merging.

We can publish books of nearly any length, but our printer does have some page minimums and maximums. Our paperback books can be between 48 and 740 pages. Our hardcover books can be between 108 and 740 pages.  Please keep in mind that these numbers apply ton your final books page count, not the page count of your original manuscript. Depending on your manuscript’s margins, line spacing, and font sizes, your final book’s page count could end up being longer or shorter than your original manuscript’s page count. If you think you might have a problem with the minimum or maximum page counts, give us a call and we’ll be happy to explore some options with you.

We can publish in any language, but for non-English character-based languages, there are unique, specific submission requirements you will need to discuss with a representative before you submit your materials. 

We’ll design and format your book’s interior to make it look like a professional book. We’ll take care of the final page margins, line spacing, the table of contents, and the page numbering so you don’t have to worry about them. 

Instead of trying to set your manuscript in the final book margins, we prefer you submit it on 8.5 by 11-size pages, with one inch margins.  This is the default setting for most word processing software. We’ll take care of modifying those margins to fit your chosen book size. 

You do not need to double space your manuscript for us. This was common practice in the past, to make copy editing easier, but it’s no longer required. Single spacing is preferred. 

If your book has a Table of Contents, you do not need to include the page numbers. Once your text is placed in the final book margins, those page numbers will most likely change anyway. We will enter the final page numbers for you during the formatting stage. 

You do not need to include page numbers or any other information in your pages headers or footers. Again, we will insert these during the formatting stage. 

Even if you do these things yourself, they will need to be recreated in our design program during the formatting stage. More importantly, we often see some of these things done incorrectly in manuscripts, which can lead to potential production delays. For these reasons, we ask that you just not worry about them. We’ll take care of it. 

If you learned to type on a typewriter, using word processing software on a computer means unlearning old formatting conventions and learning new ones. Before submitting your manuscript, we highly recommend you double check for some very common text formatting mistakes that could delay your book’s production. 

For example, when you were typing and you get to the right hand side of the page, do you hit the Enter key to continue typing on the next line? If so, you’ll definitely want to watch our video tutorial, ‘The Top Five Submission Mistakes and How You Can Avoid Them.’ Recognizing and addressing these formatting issues now will help ensure your book’s production goes as smoothly and as quickly as possible.

If your book contains images or special formatting concerns such as footnotes, tables, columns of text, or an index, we recommend watching our subject-specific videos on these topics before submitting your materials. If you have any additional submission concerns for your book, you are always welcome to contact us at 1-800-AUTHORS.

Thanks again for choosing iUniverse as your publisher. We look forward to getting started on your book.