As we ourselves have published the book without the help of intermediaries

Hi, PL! I want to share with you our experience in the production of children's books. Of course, it does not build a house and did not repair in the room / bathroom, but also a very interesting and difficult task.

About how we came to the idea of ​​the edition of the book can be read on the Habré. And then I'll try to tell you about the relationship with publishers, and why in the end we made ourselves as a publisher; about how to look for, where to print the book, and a few funny moments in this; about the preparation of the book layouts; about the relationship with the printing press and, finally, as occurs directly print the book itself.

Will be 10 photos + text.





Here are the main stages of the book - from conception to the publication:

Author
 - The idea and the concept of the book;
 - Writing a book.

Publisher
 - Design (layout, photographs, drawings, graphics);
 - Cover;
 - Proofreading;
 - Preparation of layouts for printing;
 - Money to print books.

Typography
 - Control layout before printing;
 - Print books;
 - Packaging (if required).

Distributor
When all stages are passed successfully, the book, as usual, is transported by the bookstore. And these things is engaged in some sort of a distributor. But it happens that in the major publishing this unit is integrated into the company and, therefore, once again comes into play publishing. A small publishers give this function to the side.

Bookstores
Then the books appear on the shelves of bookstores. Typically, this occurs simultaneously in all the bookstores, as distributors of the contract already concluded with a large number of shops (with the main surely).

And only after all this the reader can get the book in his hands, and if he likes it, buy it, and if you reach your hands, will come together time and the stars begin to read, and perhaps read to the end. Apart from the last stage, all this need by six months or more. We managed for a minimum period.

Now that you have a little better represent the overall picture, I can start the story.

Stage №1: Author

The idea to write the book came to me in the late spring of 2013. The concept was described in the evening for tea. Then I asked Masha, his companion, make a rough sketch book. She coped with the task in two days. Then Ksenia made the first mock trial of one of the turns of the book. It's me, of course, all I described in general terms, but about the way it was. Then I brought the text in the proper form, Anatoly checks it for errors, and so on. All this could have to go into publishing.

Step №2: Publisher

And we went: sent his "manuscript" of all known publishers and waited. Day forward. One week forward. Three forward. Tired of waiting.

Here I first doubts crept in - or rather whether we are going through? It can not all be so with every book that is on the shelf !?

And then just come right answers from the two publishers:
The first: "So be it, will publish your book pay you 6% on sales».
The second: "A good book ready to print and give you 300 books for it».

It turns out that the authors offer from 5 to 10 percent of sales. And with what kind of price - do not speak, and when you begin to find out, it appears that the wholesale price. But the wholesale price is less than one third of the retail price. For example: a book on the shelf is 500 rub., The wholesale price of its nearly 150r., Then, it is believed up to 15 rubles. Usually printed 5,000 copies, multiply them by 15 rubles, we get 75000r. It is in a good scenario! Usually gets smaller. When the name of the author will receive the money on hand - too dark theme, I think it all depends on the prospects of the book, and the attitude towards it of publishing.

That's the way the market. Good or bad, but he has developed and so works. But we have these options clearly sympathized and had to find their way. And we found it: print the book itself, and whether it would be!

I am running a little ahead and say that we finally made offers without exception, top Russian publishers after we raised the money to print through crowdfunding. By the way, how we collected the money, you can read all the same the previous post.

If the scheme is now no publisher, it does not mean that its functions do not have anyone. I remind them, layout, design, layout, photos, graphics, cover, preparation for printing, the relationship with the printing and printing ... money. It is necessary, therefore, necessary. Before delivery of books in print, we printed a test sample, which we did on the basis of sketches, but he did not like us. It is one thing - to look at the book through the computer screen, and another thing - keep it in your hands. That looked like the instance:



After that we decided to change everything completely. Layout and drawings made at a slight Ksenia my leadership. Photos are for internal filling I made myself. Layout for printing Ksenia made independently and is now in the guru. Cover ... not clear how it was done, how could we have done: gone with her son to a photographer friend (thank you very much for Dime free assistance!), They took with them a couple of coats and a box of props for the experiments. It was about 10 pm, Mark had the next day to go to school, but we must pay tribute to him and, he worked that night calmly and an adult. Made it about 300 photos. What we just did not get up on them!



As a result, only one was selected (or rather - two on the back cover too).



Of course, we have done many things in parallel, you do not think that we have acted on some clear algorithm. Thus it was made a bunch of unnecessary movements, but looking back, I can say - they were not in vain. Now issue a dozen other books we just spit. Before talking about printing discuss how we define the format of the book. Thoughts were of course, but would like to know how others are doing. So to start we bought children's books of different directions. It turned out the following:
 - The most commonly used hardcover;
 - The most common form of publishing - from A4 to A5;
 - The circulation, on average, up to 5000 copies (usually - less very rarely longer);
 - Variation in price from 200 rubles to one thousand or more (hardcover - 500 rubles);
 - DVD with a book we have not met.



Finally, after a long search, his size, we stopped here on this:
 - Matte coated paper, 160 g / m, Germany, 80 pages, 4 +4;
 - Lamination on the cover;
 - Cover - cardboard for covers Surazh 1050h920 tol.2.5mm.

So we wanted to add DVD to each copy of the book, it still had to deal with replication of CDs. But this is how it turned out, more understandable. We went to the Internet, typed in the search bar "Disc Duplication" and all you need found. Discs cost us at 43250 rubles per 5,000 pieces. This is a print on the disc and a plastic bag for each.



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