With today’s print-on-demand services and desktop publishing programs, authors can publish their own books if they choose, perhaps outsourcing editing or cover design. So why pay someone else?
For the same reason not everyone installs their own kitchen or does their own landscaping. Sure, you can learn how to do it; you may even learn to do it well; but you may prefer to spend the time writing another book.
Figuring out all the steps, vetting freelance editors or cover designers, tearing your hair out when your fonts come out weird in the PDF – you get to leave all that to us. A growing list of happy authors and high-quality books provides reassurance that your book is in good hands.
Plus, we don’t publish just anything. The Ashwood imprint shows that your book has been through a selection process, is professionally produced, and can hold its own alongside traditionally published books.
Most of our books are published print-on-demand with printing in Melbourne, the USA and the UK, depending on where the book is purchased, providing worldwide distribution to major bricks-and-mortar bookstores and online sellers including Amazon, Book Depository, Barnes & Noble and so on. E-books are published in multiple formats including Kindle. For some projects we’ve done up-front print runs with local Tasmanian or overseas printers.
We also offer a full range of book preparation services – structural and copy editing, cover and interior layout design, conversion to ePub, and step-by-step coaching through the self-publishing process – to authors who wish to self-publish or submit their manuscript to a traditional publisher or agent.
Many authors are a bit shocked at how many rounds of editing and checking their ‘finished’ manuscript still needs. But editing is about much more than just finding the typos or correcting grammatical errors. Manuscripts benefit hugely from a thorough line/copyedit that improves the flow, makes the language and style consistent, checks details for accuracy and realism, points out places where the author might say less (or more), and generally helps polish the writing to present what the author wants to say to the reader in the most effective way.
Sometimes significant structural changes may dramatically improve the book in ways that the author had not thought of. However, editing isn’t about taking over and turning the book into something else: it’s a collaborative, back-and-forth process, in which the editor seeks to uphold what the author is trying to do and help make the text express it most effectively.
You may have heard of different kinds of editing – developmental editing, line editing, copyediting and proofreading – and many editors will offer some or all of these as separate services. Here, once we’ve accepted a book, we just make sure it gets whatever it needs, at one all-inclusive price agreed in advance.
Authors do not get a professional-standard book if they just set it up in Word, have their mum and a friend who was once an English teacher look it over, and upload it to Amazon.
At Ashwood we use professional layout software to lay out the book’s interior, giving complete control over the design and typesetting. We also edit the EPUB files by hand to iron out formatting bugs and check that the e-book will look good on a range of devices.
We offer custom cover design in-house, or we may use an outside cover designer who suits your book better.
The first step is to contact Susan to discuss your project. If it sounds like a potential good fit, we’ll ask to see the full manuscript as a Word document. We’ll return it with advice on whether it’s ready for editing and how to move ahead with it.
If we think it’s a book for us, we provide a free sample edit and quote, and we both feel we’re a good fit, we’ll take it from there.
Publishing a book with Ashwood is a collaborative process, so you’ll need to be available to review edits, discuss and rework passages, and consult on all aspects of the book.
Let’s talk! Tell us about your book and your publishing goals, and let’s see if we can work together.