YGL MANAGEMENT SDN BHD
Connect with us:
  • ANNOUNCEMENT

How to publish

7/9/2011

2 Comments

 
Today for the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators' (SCBWI) July meeting, we met at Silverfish Bookstore. Deepa who came had been writing for her young son and wondered about the whole process of publishing. She was interested to find an illustrator for her stories and planned to take the self-publishing route.

Briefly, here are the steps to getting your picture book or illustrated book printed and published:

Getting an ISBN and Barcode for your book
1. Register your publishing company [you have to set up one first if you haven't already have a company] with the National Library. You just need to fill in a simple form available from the National Library [ask for the ISBN department] to get your registration number. 
2. Apply for an ISBN for your book - this is another simple form to fill at the same place. You need to fill in information of your book, like title and author's name and provide the front cover of your book. The ISBN number as well as barcode is provided free and is usually available in half an hour, assuming there isn't a queue [there usually isn't].
3. You may also want to apply for the CIP [Cataloguing in Publication] data for your book which is another form from the same place.
[More detailed information on the above may be obtained from the National Library's site: http://www.pnm.my]

Getting your book ready for illustrating and printing
  1. Decide on the size of your book - illustrations should be provided according to the book size or in proportion [illustrations may be bigger than the book size but not smaller to ensure quality]
  2. Decide on the number of pages - optimum pages for print purposes are 16, 24, 32, 36 [ie mulitples of four]. Your story itself may only take 22 pages but the printer will still give you 24 pages - you can leave the extra pages blank or use them for promotional materials. 
  3. You need the following front matters: Title page, copyright page - which should be planned into your book.

Looking for illustrators
1. So you've written your story and are looking for a suitable illustrator. Some places where you can find local illustrators [apart from googling]:
  • the SCBWI local website: www.scbwi-my.org
  • visit the Annexe Gallery's KL Alternative Book Fair / Art for Grabs event where freelance artists often take up stands to sell their work - check them out on Facebook or - www.annexegallery.com
  • you can also find illustrators at Central Market
  • check out the artists' colony at the Craft Complex, Jalan Conlay
[if you find other sources, please let me know so I can add them]

Working with illustrators
  1. Look at the illustrators' existing work to see if you like their style for your story
  2. Talk with the illustrator to see if you can work together successfully
  3. Have a clear idea how many illustrations are required for your book and work out a budget - how much are you willing to spend? 
  4. A one-page full-colour illustration may start from RM150; a black and white (simple illustration) may start from RM50. Covers (front and back) costs more. In general, I like to work out a package deal with the illustrator for the whole book or series of books. Be willing to pay more for an experienced illustrator or for more detailed work which may require some research by the illustrator. It helps to pay the illustrator an advance followed by progressive payments for progressive delivery of work.
  5. Before deciding to proceed with the illustrator, ask the illustrator to provide, for free, rough sketches (or roughs) of the illustration you require - eg, a key character of your story. You should not expect the illustrator to provide roughs for every page.
  6. However, once you have agreed to appoint the illustrator, ask the illustrator to provide roughs for each illustration which you will approve before he/she proceeds with the actual illustration. This avoids a lot of grief. If you or the illustrator decide this step is not necessary, you may find it difficult later to change any completed illustrations that are not satisfactory and the illustrator may feel he/she should be paid extra for the additional work which you thought should just have been a correction... see what I mean?
  7. Depending on how experienced the illustrator is, be prepared to talk through your story with him/her and if necessary, for each page of your book. 
  8. Agree with your illustrator on a suitable time frame. Sometimes the illustrator may misjudge the amount of time needed and starts to fall behind schedule. Then sit down and agree together on a new deadline. This is better than getting frustrated and abandoning the work - you can't use what has been done and you don't have a complete book.

Getting to print
  1. Find a layout artist who can help you select a suitable typeface and design the book for you. If your illustrator is also a layout artist, you can get him/her to do that. This is a separate job and requires separate payment. 
  2. The layout artist should be experienced and be able to prepare the files for printing - the right resolution, crop marks, bleeds [ie for pages that have require printing right up to the edge] and so on.
  3. Show the printer the quality of paper, binding, finishing [eg glossy cover or spot varnish or matt cover or embossed title etc] you want - bring book samples. When you have more experience, you will be able to provide detailed specifications such as grammage of paper, type of paper and the different types of finishing - learn from your printer. 

So your book is printed. How do you sell it? This question should be asked before you start publishing but is frequently not done. I have made the same mistake and I still have stocks of my earlier books published two years ago. They are good books, well written and illustrated and produced to high quality. We enjoyed the whole creative process and we had our book launches, readings and related activities. But we would be lucky if we recovered our costs. 

There are lots of excellent books and website where you can find information on marketing and selling your book. But what do you do if the local bookstore does not want to take your book? Or they tell you to find a distributor and the distributor wants 60% of the book cover price with returns - ie if your books do not sell, they will return them to you. 

You can produce e-books or print-on-demand and there are a number of such publishers online. You can use a digital printer [rather than traditional offset] and print small quantities. However, that will increase your per unit cost and you will have to sell your book at a high price [to cover not only your printing/illustration costs but also the percentage required by the distributor or bookstore]. This may not be such a problem if you are able to sell the books yourself directly.

In other words, list down all your costs from the start.

I have not pointed out the need to have your book edited [the text, illustrations and overall concept] and many self-published books would have been better with external input [not counting your relatives and friends]. There is no harm in being open and listening to what others have to say [the SCBWI is a good source], give them due consideration, based on the research and information you have gathered and the final decision is yours. Read and look at other books in the market. 

I wish you success.
2 Comments

    RSS Feed

    Author

    Yusof Gajah
    Linda Tan

    Archives

    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    August 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    January 2012
    December 2011
    November 2011
    October 2011
    July 2011
    May 2011
    March 2011
    November 2010
    May 2010
    April 2010
    January 2010
    December 2009
    November 2009
    October 2009
    September 2009
    July 2009

    Categories

    All
    Anak Alam
    Arts House Singapore
    Asian Festival Of Childrens Content
    Asian Festival Of Children's Content 2011
    Bologna Children Book Fair
    Borders
    Calistro Prize
    Childrens Books
    Childrens Illustration
    Clients
    Dewan Bahasa Dan Pustaka
    Dr David Kirkham
    Dr Yeoh
    Elephabet
    Elephabet Activity Book
    Emila Yusof
    Frankfurt Bookfair
    Illustrator Exhibition
    Illustrators
    Intellectual Property
    Kinokuniya
    Kota Kinabalu
    Leowania Leow
    Linda Tan Lingard
    Literary Agency
    Literary Agents
    Mother&Child
    National Book Development Council Singapore
    National University Of Singapore
    New Straits Times
    Noma Concours
    Oyez!books
    Peter Worthington
    Publishing
    Publishing Process
    Puppet Show
    Resources
    Rights
    Sabah State Library
    Sarah Joan Mokhtar
    Scbwi
    Selamat Hari Raya
    Singapore Rights Fair 2011
    Sireh
    Society Of Childrens Book Writers And Illustrators
    Stories
    Submissions
    The Edge
    Wipo
    Year Of Tiger
    Yusof Gajah
    Zakiah

Blog               
Copyright 2014-2020  YGL Management Sdn Bhd