How We Work

Coverstory books is currently open for submissions!

The Coverstory books premise

The underlying premise of Coverstory books is to act as the intermediary between the author and the printed volume – the agent of ‘text-to-volume’ – in such a way as to provide a collaborative journey for authors as they strive to get their work published.

In the modern world of indie publishing, speed, flexibility and affordability of making the journey is greatly enhanced – but utilising existing experience of how to get to the end goal is always of value. We handle the final formatting of your book – internally and externally – and deal with the submission to the printer / distributor of your book. You just supply the manuscript.

We recognise that many people could undertake this journey by themselves – but they would be running the risks of making the errors that first-timers make, and the extra expense that could potentially incur. Coverstory books aims to minimise the cost and risk to would-be authors – even to bear some of the financial risk ourselves under certain cirucmstances – thus creating an environment where success and sales benefits both parties.

And having a publisher’s logo on the spine of a book is of considerable authenticity value to buyers, as opposed to – well – nothing…

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Our Process

We follow a nine-step process which is outlined below:

Initial query

Expression of Interest

Submission

Acceptance in Principle

The Quote and Payment

Set-up Work

Publication & Promotion

Monthly Reports & Royalties

The Financial AngleIMG_1839

‘Cost’. ‘Quote’. ‘Payment’. ‘Money’. Hmmm. So is this just a cover for ‘Vanity Publishing’? A scam? A rip-off?

Not at all. Let’s tackle the question head-on here.

The printing engine we use charges a fee. There are some channels who don’t – but often these have restrictive options in terms of who your material can be sold through and prevent the author for buying their own book at cost: if you want one, you have to buy it at full price just like anyone else! And if you want fifty to distribute yourself…

Our printer is also a distributor. Once your book is ready, it is automatically made available to multiple on-line sales channels (including Amazon) – and as a global distributor, most bookshops and chains have direct access to their catalogue, which will include your book!

So where are the fees?

For a paperback, initial set-up costs from £50 upwards depending on the size of the book (including number of pages) and the contribution that may be made by Coverstory books. If there are subsequent corrections to submitted material – cover or internal text – these cost c. £40 per change. Here’s one incentive to ‘get it right first time’! Coverstory books may pick up a proportion of the cost of the initial set-up depending on book size, quality of the manuscript provided and cover complexity. Any corrections needed because of something we had done, we would fund; corrections made at the request of the Author, the author would fund.

The biggest cost, however, is your mandatory ISBN number. Buying a single number as a one-off author would currently cost you £89 (October 2017). If you publish through Coverstory books, we could provide your ISBN number for as little as £15, because we buy in bulk.

So by using us, you could potentially get your book into print at a lower cost than if you went solo through the same channels we use.

After that, it’s all print-on-demand. If you want one copy – or a hundred copies – they can be supplied essentially at cost to you. The recommended retail price – and the discounts on this you would be prepared to offer retailers – we would discuss with you as part of the set-up process.

For a little more on the mechanics of the process, please see The Quote, Payment, Publication and Promotion and Monthly Reports & Royalties.

Exclusivity

Whilst the copyright for the internal material remains with the Author, Coverstory books would retain exclusivity over the book itself (paperback or ebook). All the while your book was being published through us, this exclusivity and the pre-agreed royalty arrangements would remain in force.

If at some point in the future, you wished to move your material to another publisher, then Coverstory books would be happy to facilitate that move and give up its exclusive rights subject to an appropriate commercial arrangement being agreed.

Of course, we hope that you will stay with us, that your book will be successful, and that you will choose to use Coverstory books for your next work too!