Own publisher: how to publish a book
On the eve of the world day of books and copyright April 23, TASS learned how many manuscripts are taken in the work of publishing houses in Russia and what to do if the editors refuse to accept your work.
I have a text book. What to do next?
Any manuscript before it became a book must go through several stages.
- Correction and editing. In any text there is a grammatical and stylistic errors, factual inaccuracies and violations of the storylines.
- Design the layout which includes the design and layout. The book starts with the cover, so the right design means half the success. The appearance of text fonts and line spacing, are also important. Too small or carelessly formatted text can ruin the entire experience.
- Output. If you open the title page, you’ll see the top and bottom of unknown designation: ISBN, UDC, BBK. All of this — different systems of classification that helps to identify a book in the vast sea of information.
- The transfer of the layout to the printer and print circulation.
What are the indexes on the front page
ISBN (International Standard Book Number) — international standard book number, which is required for distribution of the publication. Without this unique number, the store will not sell your book. In our country ISBN assigns the Russian book chamber and this service is paid. Read more about how to get ISBN
UDC (Universal decimal classification) is an international index, identifies which field of literature, science or art is the book. For the formation of the index there are special tables built hierarchically from General to specific. In Russia the right to publish these tables has Russian Institute for scientific and technical information (VINITI).
BBK (Library bibliographic classification) and the national system of Russia. Works on the principle of UDC. This helps to organize books in libraries and stores.
Indexes — a required element of the output information.
In addition, the title sheet is the so-called author’s sign. It is formed from the first letters of the first element of the bibliographic record (often the author name) and the number corresponding to the letters of this word. Let us examine, for example, sign П91: P — the first letter of the surname of the author, and the number 91 corresponds to the combination of letters push. In our example, we are talking about Pushkin’s poems.
I don’t understand. What to do?
To start to try to give the manuscript to the publisher. His choice depends on what genre written in your book: fiction or non-fiction (business, academic or applied literature). Spetsializiruyutsya different publishers for different genres. For example, the Eksmo and AST are found in almost all segments. “Mann, Ivanov and Ferber” (MYTH) publish a business book. And Drofa publishes educational literature.
If the editors will like your manuscript, all further concerns on the publication and promotion of books they will take.
But in this case the publisher will get the copyrights (for the period specified in the contract) and the basic income (in case of commercial success), and you will be able to count on royalties.
Obviously, the publishers undertake to print only those works which with high probability will be in demand from readers and on which you can earn. Most often it is the detectives and fiction, noted in the publishing house of the Russian writers Union. But the poets very little chance to interest publishers — poetry today, are not popular.
How to contact the publisher?
On the website of most publishers has a feedback form for potential authors. Do not forget to read the requirements for completing the form and terms of consideration of the manuscript, or the editor won’t even read your work.
Usually publishers need to provide the name of the book, the genre in which it is written, for example fiction or detective (fiction), a brief description and key messages as well as information about the author, including previous publications (fiction), professional experience (business and applied literature) and contacts. For manuscripts in the genre of non-fiction it is often necessary to specify the target audience and the ability of the author to promote the book (website, training, etc.).