We’re not going to lie, self-publishing and epublishing are a lot of work, especially if you’re committed to creating a professional looking product that is easy to read. But the hassle of formatting and typesetting a book is set to get a whole lot easier with D Publishing launching today.
D Publishing is an online program that allows you to professionally typeset your book, with cost-effective options to publish the book in print and as an ebook. It gets better – D Publishing is part of the Dymocks company and using their system will ensure your book is not only available on their much-visited website, but also in the catalogue of books that Dymock bookshop owners select their stock from. D Publishing also provides the publishing logo, branding, an imprint page, registration, ISBN and barcode.
Earlier this week, the General Manager of eCommerce Michael Allara came to the Sydney Writers’ Centre at Milsons Point to give the team here the first live public demo of the D Publishing ecosystem. He was able to answer our many questions on how it works, pricing, distribution and the vision of the initiative. Please keep in mind while reading this post that online systems, prices and legal agreements can change over time.
An online publishing office for your work
The D Publishing site is designed with the author firmly in mind. It’s lean and easy to navigate. Unlike other self-publishing systems, it’s all online and hosted by the Dymocks servers. This means your computer won’t crash because you’re working with a large program. However, if you have a slow internet connection, it could be a potentially frustrating process as the whole application is based in “the cloud”.
How complex can my book be?
The D Publishing system offers all the features required for most text-based fiction and non-fiction books. If you’re planning on creating picture books or coffee tables books, at the moment D Publishing is not the best fit for you, but we expect that will change over time as more features are added.
You can create chapters, contents pages, forewords, afterwords, epilogues, dedication pages, author bio, appendices, credits, references, notes, picture pages, your cover, spine and blurb and many other features.
You will need to create your book in Microsoft Word to upload it. Provided you use Microsoft Word properly and use functions like “heading 1″ for chapter headings and “heading 2″ for subtitles, the D Publishing system automatically recognises these headings and will format your book accordingly, splitting it into the correct chapters and headings. You can edit the text, insert pictures, graphs, breakout boxes, and drag and drop sections in the program.
You can also create end notes, the index and the contents page in the program. The beauty of this system is that if you edit the document, the page numbers update automatically. For example if you enter a new paragraph or re-format a page of densely packed content into a more readable two pages, your entire annotation system (contents, end notes, index) auto-updates all the corresponding annotations. This means that D Publishing does the hard work for you.
I’m not very computer confident, will I struggle with the program?
D Publishing has programmed a lot of support into the D Publishing ecosystem. You will be able to download guide documents, and they’ve programmed roll-over help boxes to pop up when you hover your cursor over a term you aren’t familiar with. We recommended they create step-by-step videos as well.
Rights and exclusivity
Publishing with D Publishing includes giving Dymocks some publishing rights. You must make sure you fully understand the contract and what you are agreeing to before you sign/click through. You can find the Dymocks Publishing Agreement here. Currently, these rights don’t limit you from selling your book anywhere unless the platform requires you to sign a publishing agreement. This is because you need to make sure your two publishing agreements are complementary and not exclusive. There may be issues with selling the book on Amazon, if you are required to sign a conflicting publishing agreement. Michael explained that D Publishing is looking to provide access to as many selling opportunities as possible for authors. You are welcome to sell the book independently, and promote it as much as you like.
If you choose to publish with D Publishing, your book will include the D Publishing brand and logo which according to Michael is “D Books”, although their first published book is wearing a “D Publishing” brand.
Costs
If you want both a print book and ebook, the production fee is $699. This price is for access to the D Publishing tools, ecosystem and five typesetting conversions. This is where the D Publishing system takes your uploaded manuscript and formats it into the style of a book. The typesetting process separates chapters, ensures uniformity in headings and creates the document to the size specifications and format of a book.
You don’t need to make your edits all at once or in one sitting, you can spread the process out. Once you’ve got your book ready to be printed, you can convert it to a typeset book and assess how it looks. You can buy further conversions later.
Print, publish, or both?
You can choose to print and/or publish with D Publishing – two very different options. When you print with D Publishing, you are effectively simply using them as a printer. This may be ideal if you only want 50 copies of a book to give to your family or class.
However, if you decide to to publish with D Publishing, you can choose to publish a printed book, or the ebook version, or both. It’s only when you publish through D Publishing that your book will appear on dymocks.com.au.
We think it’s a smart move to embrace the ebook option, as well as the printed book. Your ebook will be available on Google Books, Dymocks.com.au, and other commercial partners. The team at D Publishing is working to open up as many distribution platforms as possible, including Amazon’s Kindle in the future.
If you choose to publish through D Publishing, the setup fee to publish a printed book is $199. The setup fee to publish an ebook is $149. This includes organising registration with Thorpe and Bowker, obtaining an ISBN and barcode. You can choose to just epublish or just publish a printed book if you wish. For full details on pricing, click here.
Getting your book into Dymocks stores
Your ebook goes up onto dymocks.com.au, and your information about printed book goes into the Dymocks book-buying catalogue, including the blurb you write for your book. This is a guiding resource for the Dymocks store owners to select books from, and D Publishing say they will be promoting the books they’re especially excited about. Please note this is the catalogue that goes to book store owners, NOT the catalogue released to consumers.
As Dymocks is a franchise system, it’s still up to the store owner to select the books they want to sell, but D Publishing will help facilitate relationships between authors and store owners, and encourage authors to get to know their local Dymocks store owners especially if your book has a regional focus that would be relevant to that area, such as a history of the Manly cricket club or similar.
One point to be clear on here is that publishing with D Publishing does not guarantee your book will be sold in Dymocks stores. As Dymocks is a franchise model, these stores make their own buying decisions. While your book may be featured in the Dymocks internal catalogue, it’s up to you as the author to convince individual store owners to stock your book. Furthermore, if you successfully convince your local bookstore to stock 50 copies of your new tome, you foot the bill for the print cost of the book.
If a bookstore owner does order your book, you will need to pay for the printing of the book and those that don’t sell will be returned to you. You can also promote your book on your own site, using the link to Dymocks.com.au where customers can order. D Publishing only prints the book when a customer makes an order and is also responsible for sending the book to the customer. Using print-on-demand technology, this means neither you or D Publishing have to carry any stock, as the book is only printed when there is a definite sale. If you don’t want to list your book for public sale, you can still print copies of the book through D Publishing.
Cover and design
Dymocks provides a range of templates for cover design, and once the book is typeset you can find out the dimensions of your book cover if you want it externally designed. This is essential because the number of pages, size of the book and thickness of the paper all change the cover dimensions. There is no charge for using your own cover, and a Dymocks House Style cover is $99. The book can be printed in a range of sizes and there are two paper sizes, a white 80 gsm and a cream 70 gsm. (We suggest taking the cream option for most books.) Covers can be glossy, and matte covers will be available next year.
The author/publisher/retailer cut
The D Publishing model allows the author to pick the recommended retail price (RRP) for the book. The RRP is split in 50 per cent wholesale price, and a 50 per cent margin for the retailer. The wholesale price the part the author and publisher are entitled to. Under the D Publishing model, the author gets 80 per cent of the wholesale price. The ebook pricing model operates in a similar way. However, the retailer’s cut varies depending on the retailer, that is, whether your book is ultimately sold by Google Books, Booktopia, and so on.
We’re excited about the possibilities offered by D Publishing, particularly for short run books or those with niche audiences. It will also be a game-changer for online-savvy authors who embrace the ebook revolution.
Like any kind of self-publishing however, there are no in-built checks on quality, editing or proofreading within the D Publishing ecosystem. This is left entirely up to the author and we encourage any authors considering this route to undergo rigorous editing, proofreading and assessment before releasing your book to the world.
However, as an online platform for book production, from what we have seen, we want to congratulate the team at D Publishing for this innovation.
Will you check out D Publishing? Have you ever thought about self-publishing your book?
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Posted on: 8 December 2011
