ShieldCrest’s Options 2 publishing package is described here which ensures your book is designed to the highest standard and made available through bookshops and online book retailers such as Amazon. In addition, we provide a full range of optional services which are available to our authors and which are described here. Except for proof reading and editing, these can be purchased once your book is published.
(just click on the item that is of interest)
In the event you don’t see what you require, please e-mail us here and we will respond directly.
To complement these publishing services, we also have a full range of Marketing Services which you can view here.
What We Offer
Featured Author Page
Kick-start your sales with discounted prices from your own web page during early promotion
Writing your book was probably difficult enough but as has been made clear elsewhere on this site, expecting sales to automatically take off is more a hope than expectation. Our most successful authors have worked hard at it with our help in order to kick-start their sales.
One of the tools in our armoury is to give early birds a discounted copy of your book. But with retailers and their intermediaries taking a 60% margin, what are the chances of doing that?
ShieldCrest offers all our authors the option of having their own feature web page on our site where their books can be sold at cost with just the author royalty added. Purchasers can pay on-line and we do the rest. This is particularly helpful following book signings or when arranging newspaper or radio interviews where authors promote their web address for discounted purchases after publicity about their book.
To see samples of author web pages take the link to the author profiles here
e-Books
It’s all part of our ever-expanding service to our family of authors. So, don’t worry about it or resist it, just leave it to us.
Oh! And it’s not expensive; Like everything else we do it’s affordable to all.
As they say: “You can’t stop the tide coming in” and so it is with e-Books. More and more people are downloading and reading from electronic terminals, in fact e-Books are now almost half of all book sales for standard novels.
Let’s take Kindle for example. Amazon are striving to achieve a 50% market share in e-book sales for novels but if you purchase a Kindle terminal you’re locked in to Amazon. What about iBooks from Apple, Google, Kobo books etc. Your Kindle’s no good for these.
Well, it makes sense doesn’t it, the cost is far less than the paper version and it is immediate. No ordering and waiting until it arrives, no shipping costs and it’s right there when you want it. OK it doesn’t look anything like as attractive as a set of books on your bookshelf but if you’re going on holiday and want to take several novels with you, what about the weight?
Would you bet against Apple or Google dominating the book market after their success in music and other markets? Downloading in E-Pub format works on their terminals – no problem. Then what about the Sony, Samsung and many other terminals, shouldn’t you be able to download from any book supplier to these terminals?
But what about the formats? There is Kindle, EPUB, LRF Mobi, PDB What do you do? Which terminal uses what? Aahhh.
ShieldCrest offer a full e-publishing service that will prepare your book for download, to Kindle and all other e-terminals which form the majority of the market. It includes the allocation of a new ISBN which is necessary for all eBooks for general distribution.
Proof Reading and Editing
No matter how good the storyline, if it is full of typing errors and poor grammar it detracts from the work. ShieldCrest offer a full professional proof reading and editing service and can provide authors with both services for approx £0.006 & £0.008 p/word respectively.
We always recommend to authors that on completion of their scripts, they have them read by someone who has not been involved with the writing. Authors never see their own mistakes and will always read what they intended to write rather than what is actually on the page. This should be someone whose views they respect and who won’t just offer polite comment so as not to offend. They should also be invited to give an honest opinion of the storyline. Very often, with just minor changes, the improvement can be dramatic.
Proofreading
This will ensure that typos, punctuation, spelling and grammatical errors are eliminated. Sentence flow and clarity of message are also commented on.
Editing
This goes deeper to make sure that the piece of writing is good in every respect. Sentences may be re-constructed so they work better and other changes will be suggested. Often the author may know what they want to say but have got a bit mixed up putting it down into a sentence. This does not change the author’s ‘voice’ and their style remains intact. It is just tidied up and the finishing touches applied.
In essence it makes a first time author look like a seasoned writer.
RRP and Royalties
Recommended Retail Price (RRP)
This is the price at which the book is sold and includes the following.
Cost to produce + the royalty to the author + the distributor & retailer margin and in some cases shipping.
Our authors decide what royalty they would like and we let them know the effect it will have on the sale price.
The combined margin the major distributors & retailers require on hardcopy books can be as high as 60% of the sale price (not the cost price). As an example:
A book cost price is £5 and assuming an author royalty of £1. When the retailer margin is added to the £6 the resultant RRP will be approximately £15. The retailer then has the ability to apply discounts within their margin. In the case of Amazon, they also insist the publisher pays the delivery cost to them so this needs to be included in their price.
It is therefore important the cost price is reduced to a minimum and this generally depends on the quantity in each print-run. ShieldCrest provide high print quality at the most competitive prices and can even retain this competitiveness at low quantities.
Increasing your royalties using the Author Web Page option
When purchased from the author page (described above), the purchaser will pay £6, providing a very competitive price for single copies and still provide the author with a royalty of £1. If the web page price was set at £7.95, the author’s royalty could increase to £2.95 (less any fees). Payment is made using any debit or credit card and the delivery cost is added automatically at the payment stage.
Royalties payments
The royalties paid by the big publishing houses are typically 5 – 8% of the book price. We endeavour to achieve a minimum of £1 per book for our authors when sold through retailers and much more than this when sold from their web page. The royalties are paid every 3 months. We can do a direct transfer to our author’s bank account or to the author’s PayPal account.
Book Illustrations
ShieldCrest provide a complete book illustration service. We have a range of different illustrators, each having their unique style so we can pick the best fit for your requirements.
These range from children’s story illustrations and cartoon characters to pictorials and cover design. Pictures can be black and white, sketches or colour. You can see examples here.
Book Video Trailer
Where required, we can produce a 30 second video trailer featuring the book. This can be used by the authors for their web page or any talks, book signings or marketing.