It’s been a full week since we unveiled the All-New Outskirts Press with its new RWD website for new clients and its new publishing packages for everyone. Last week we offered an introductory special on our new One-Click Suite for Non-Fiction books with an instant savings of $500 off. Saving money is all well and good, but the benefit of the One-Click Suite of services (and, really, all the book publishing services with Outskirts Press) is the amount of inclusions and value you receive. I went over all that value in a rather long posting last week, including some top-secrets benefits that almost no one knew about (shipping subsidies and sales tax savings, anyone?).
This week we are unveiling another Introductory Offer, this time on our amazing Ultimate Publishing Package. Does it offer as much as the One-Click package? Of course not. Is it more affordable? Of course! And that’s another benefit of working with Outskirts Press; our range of services and range of prices mean that everyone can publish a high-quality professional book, no matter their budget. In fact, what savvy authors on a budget can do is examine all the additional inclusions and services within the One-Click package of their choice, and then start with the Ultimate package, and add-on services as you go. That’s one of the benefits of all our a la carte, custom publishing services — pricing flexibility (yes, that double-meaning is intended, because everyone knows that Outskirts Press is already one of the few publishers that gives the author so much control over the retail price of their book!).
Of course, listing ALL the benefits is a long list, but that’s what this posting is for — providing the level of detail and advice some authors are seeking when making a publishing investment into the manuscript they worked on for months, years, or even decades. We know you’re passionate about your story, and we’re passionate about helping you turn it into the book of your dreams.
The Ultimate Package delivers everything you need to accomplish that goal! Here’s the list:
- Paperback publication is included with all our packages, and Ultimate clients have the option of adding a hardback edition (with or without a dust jacket) for a little bit more. In fact, all told, Ultimate clients have the ultimate in customization options, with over 30 different trim and format options to choose from. It’s an embarrassment of riches, actually, and … frankly, all these decisions are one reason authors elect for us to handle ALL the details with a One-Click package instead.
- An ISBN. This stands for International Standard Book Number and is the unique identifier for every “real” book that is published. I stress real, and put it in quotes, because so many books nowadays (primarily ebook-0nly books) are being published without ISBNs. Anyone “in the know” in the industry knows ISBNs are required for all publications, and especially for paperback and hardback publications.
- A price-embedded bar code. Look at the bar code on most of our competitor’s books and you’ll see a 9000 where the price should be. This is because they don’t include price-embedded bar codes. Why not? Because it’s easier for them. But Outskirts Press books make it easier for you and the merchant to marketing and sell your book, and that requires a price-embedded bar code.
- Standard interior black/white book formatting. One of the main advantages of choosing Outskirts Press (or, really, any full-service self-publishing company) is that your book is going to look like a book on the inside when it is published. This might sound like a small thing — but it’s not. Frankly, a computer cannot format a book very well – and when you start adding links or graphics or charts or anything “nice” to your book, forget about it; computer’s choke. In fact, the nicer you want your book to look, the more difficult it will be for a computer to deliver what you want. That’s why professional authors seeking high-quality professional book publication, use services like ours. Can some authors get away with formatting their own book themselves? If they’re proficient in inDesign, then the answer is … maybe. Otherwise, forget about it. So if you’re considering submitting your manuscript to a do-it-yourself place, or submitting a pre-formatted PDF file to anywhere, ask yourself if you’re proficient in InDesign. If the answer is “no” or “kinda” then do everyone a favor (especially your readers) and leave it for the professionals.
- Customizable covers. The Ultimate package offers 20 all-new “themes” to choose from and further customize with different colored backgrounds and images from a image library of literally hundreds of thousands to choose from. I’ve seen some customizable covers that I can’t distinguish from a custom cover design — they’re THAT good. It really depends upon the artistic and creative abilities of the author, which are, let’s face it, probably pretty subjective. Do you know what isn’t subjective? The excellence of our professional custom covers. And that’s why we recommend them.
- New with the Ultimate is the inclusion of 20 optional image insertions. Ask any professional book designer and she will tell you that properly and professionally inserting images into a book manuscript is a pain. (Anyone can do it, but not very many people can do it well). In reality, any page that contains an image becomes a custom-designed page, and those can throw off all the remaining pages in either direction if a substantial change is made to the text (which authors often do as late as the galley-revision stage). But, the all-new Outskirts Press is passionate about publishing the book of our clients’ dreams, so this Ultimate package includes 20 free images if the authors have some to include. We analyzed all our books over the past 14 years and determined that 20 images was a high enough number to satisfy the needs of over 80% of our clients publishing in black/white. The other 20% had LOTS and LOTS of images, and in those cases, yes, image insertion fees still must apply.
- Speaking of galley-revision fees, the Ultimate package includes 3 free rounds of revisions. When we first launched Outskirts Press in 2002, we were naive and thought one round of galley revisions was sufficient. We were wrong. We’re all perfectionists around here, so now Ultimate clients receive 3 free rounds.
- Worldwide distribution through Ingram and Baker & Taylor, with global on-demand availability through retailers such as Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Powells, Books-A-Million, and thousands more. In fact, ANY bookstore with a relationship with Ingram will be able to order and sell your book.
- Marketing services. While the Ultimate doesn’t hold a candle to our One-Click Suites in terms of book marketing inclusions, it certainly out-shines the majority of our competitors in the self-publishing industry. A publication announcement press release will be composed and distributed via Newswire when your book is published. The Book Marketing RoadMap will share a variety of guidelines and best practices for marketing your book, ranging from the “Top 15 Book Marketing Steps” to “Navigating the Social Media Landscape.” And, of course, the Book Marketing COACH still provides creative assistance, coaching, and help via email for years after publication. In fact, in the coming months, the COACH is going to become more diverse and capable, by proving genre-specific suggestions and help for non-fiction, fiction, spiritual, and children’s books. More on that improvement to our book marketing support at a later date.
- Responsive author webpage. All new clients publishing on August 1, 2016 or after receive fully-responsive author webpages with social media integration. And the Ultimate clients have the included option of recording an audio excerpt which automatically appears on the author’s webpage in a “Media” section. I wrote an entire blog post about our amazing new responsive author webpages here.
- And of course, you receive 10 free paperback copies of your book when it is published, with the option of saving up to 50% on your author’s copies (which are already way below wholesale).
Whew. As if that wasn’t enough, right now, this week only, all new Ultimate Clients can save $25o instantly when they order their Ultimate Package securely online from our website. Here’s the link to the promotion code, deadline, and details.
President of Outskirts Press 