CUSTOM PUBLISHING DIVISION
"Your Book Beautifully Designed, Printed,
and Publicized Nationally In 120 Days Or Less!"
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Welcome! Would you like to see your book professionally edited, beautifully designed, typeset, printed and bound to library standards, publicized and reviewed nationwide -- and available for sale through bookstores and the Internet in just 120 days? With the help of our Custom Publishing Division, that's a very achieveable goal!Located just three miles from historic Charleston, South Carolina, our Custom Publishing Division designs, prints, promotes, and distributes a wide array of powerful fiction and non-fiction books for individual authors and corporations. Our pride and joy: our expert staff and our integrated fast-track writing and publishing system, which makes top-quality book production a matter of just a few months, not years.
Old-fashioned Publishers The traditional publishing process is as slow as cold molasses and rejects 98% of all manuscripts submitted. Many of those rejected manuscripts are fresh, original, powerful and deserve publication, but the major publishers today now concentrate on finding "blockbusters." Most of them won't touch books from first-time authors or which cater to smaller, "niche" markets, or books which need to be marketed now, not a year or two from now.
Most authors are also astonished to learn that the typical book manuscript can take two years or more -- yes, two years or more -- to fight its way through the slow, arbitrary, and massively-inefficient traditional book publishing system. For the typical author with a ready-to-publish manuscript, it takes:
But even then, the author is not home free, for without good publicity, reviews, and savvy marketing and distribution, the book can "die on the vine." Even the biggest publishers are notorious for:
- Three to nine months to find a reputable literary agent (if any are interested at all);
- Four to twelve months for the agent to find a publisher (who reject 49 out of every 50 manuscripts submitted); and then
- IF a publisher buys the rights to publish the book, the design, typesetting and manufacturing steps can easily drag on for another nine to twelve months.
- Letting first novels, mid-level, and specialty books "sink or swim," with little or no marketing help.
- Failing to send the book out to specialty magazines, newsletters, and Internet web sites whose reviews are critical to the book's success. The result: many important book reviewers never even see books which they'd love to review.
- Failing to give lesser-known authors any publicity -- or even the most basic information about how to get on radio and TV talk shows. And promotional support for the author? It's highly unlikely -- unless your name happens to be Stephen King, Monica Lewinsky, Michael Dell, or Danielle Steel.
- Ignoring the power of the Internet as a powerful way to sell books.
Our "Fast-Track" Custom Publishing Service Fortunately there is now a better way to bring your book quickly to market: self-publishing. As self-publishing expert Dan Poynter wrote in a 1999 Washington Post article, "most people today weigh the advantages and disadvantages of selling out to a publisher and make an educated decision to publish themselves. Those who self-publish find they make more money, get to press sooner and keep control of their work."
Many people are surprised to learn how many famous authors self-published their own first works. For example, Upton Sinclair, rejected by numerous publishing houses, self-published books that became classics.
Through our Custom Publishing Division, we now offer individual and corporate authors the opportunity to become sophisticated self-publishers without having to acquire the skills, equipment, or space formerly required. Working closely with you, we will design, typeset, manufacture, publicize, warehouse, and ship your books. We work for YOU. We'll pay close attention to your dreams and goals. Then we'll ask ourselves the question, "How can we make this the most attractive and powerful book possible?" Then, working closely with you, we'll pour our hearts, minds, and professional skills into making your book the best it can possibly be.
When your book is printed, we won't just drop pallets of them on your doorstep, as vanity presses do.
Not only will we pull out all the stops to publicize your book nationwide, but we'll give you the tools and train you to become a master promoter of your own book. We are dedicated to your success as a professional self-publisher. This extraordinary level of professional support service is offered nowhere else in the United States.
- We'll promote the book nationwide and submit it to the best reviewers in the land.
- We'll work hard to ensure the widest possible distribution.
- We'll warehouse the books, take orders for them by phone, fax, mail, and over the Internet, and ship them to individual customers, wholesalers, distributors, and bookstores nationwide.
- And then we'll show you how you can land priceless interviews on radio and TV talk shows and garner invaluable publicity for the book by attracting feature news stories.
Our Capabilities Our friendly, easy-to-talk-to professional staff can design, manufacture, publicize, and distribute your book better and faster than most small presses and many "big-name" publishers. We provide all of the following professional writing and publishing services to authors who wish to self-publish and control their own literary destinies:
- Writing & Editing
- Research, interviewing, writing, and ghostwriting services
- Obtaining permissions to publish copyrighted material
- Editing, proofreading, and indexing the text
- Selecting and preparing photographs and captions
- Graphic Arts & Typesetting
- Creating illustrations, charts, and tables
- Designing full color dust covers and preparing digital pre-press files for the printer
- Designing, composing, and typesetting the interior text
- Marketing
- Soliciting endorsements, testimonials, and pre-publication reviews
- Researching and developing a national publicity and marketing plan
- Writing and producing electronic and paper media kits
- Writing catalog copy for the distributor
- Preparing and mailing bound galley proofs to pre-publication reviewers
- Creating Internet sales pages
- Sending out review copies
- Book Manufacturing
- Helping choose the book title, size, binding & retail price
- Registering / submitting / ordering the ABI information, ISBN, Library of Congress numbers, and EAN barcodes.
- Choosing the book printer
- Determining the paper stock, cover stock, dust jacket design, lamination, and shrink-wrapping specifications
- Supervising the manufacturing process
- Distribution
- Listing the book with Amazon.com, Barnes&noble.com, Booksamillion.com, Borders.com, and other Internet booksellers.
- Creating an Internet sales page for your book on our website
- Listing the books with the nation's largest bookstore distributors
- Listing the books with book wholesalers and library suppliers
- Warehousing and Order Fulfilment (billed on an as-used basis)
- Temperature-controlled storage and inventorying
- Providing 24/7 1-800 toll-free VISA / MasterCard ordering system
- Picking, packing, and shipping books to wholesale and retail customers within 24 hours
- Monthly statements and direct monthly payments to you for all books sold (less returns and handling charges)
The Benefits To You The best part: YOU, not the publisher, control ALL vital decisions about the content, appearance, promotion, and distribution of your books. And YOU, not some vanity press, own all the books. The bottom line: we can design and manufacture your book to the highest standards of the industry and have it ready for retail sale, distribution to bookstores, and for sale on the Internet at Amazon.com and Barnesandnoble.com in as little as 120 days. And if you don't yet have the text for your book, our staff of veteran professional writers and editors can help you write it -- or ghostwrite it for you -- with power, precision, and amazing speed.
For More Information... To discuss how you can use us to quickly and profitably launch a powerful, beautifully-designed book onto the national market, call Richard N. Côté, Editor-In-Chief of The Côté Literary Group. From within the United States, call toll-free: 1 (800) 876-6202. From abroad, call +1 (843) 881-6080 or e-mail dickcote@bookdoctor.com. We look forward to helping launch your next successful book quickly and profitably.
![Member, [San Francisco] Bay Area Editors' Forum](http://www.bookdoctor.com/images/baef75.gif)
The Côté Literary Group is a professional member of the Association of American Publishers, the Small Press Association of North America, the Publishers Marketing Association, and the San Francisco Bay Area Editors Forum
