Our weekly e-Gems series contains insider tips and suggestions on everything from plotting, to publishing, to promotion. Delivered conveniently to your email box every week.

• Course # 1 - 20 Weeks - Publish and promote your book the right way
• Course # 2 - 20 Weeks - Write, publish, and promote a book in 20 weeks
• Course #3 - 20 Weeks - Book production and publishing 101

Do you want to receive these helpful publishing e-Gems absolutely free and with no obligation? Simply send a blank email to outskirtspress@getresponse.com

Sometimes the hardest part of getting on the radio is simply knowing who to call and what the contact information is. Imagine if you had the contact information of every radio show producer in your state. Outskirts Press provides you with everything you need to conduct on-air radio interviews to promote your book from the comfort and convenience of your own home. The majority of on-air interviews can take place over the phone. No travel required. Simply contact these producers and pitch your published book.

Contact information includes...

• Local phone numbers
• Personal email address
• Fax numbers
• Radio show names, call letters, and frequencies

To get your local radio show information absolutely free, simply sign-in to your free author's resource center account and enter your two-character state code into the appropriate box under "Author Data." For example, California would be CA. This is valid for United States residents only.

Your free Author's Center also includes...

• Illustrators & Cover Artists - Find an illustrator to collaborate with or use ours
• Writers Groups & Resources - Network with other writers and associations
• Editing & Transcribing - Find a professional editor or use our available services
• PR & Marketing Help - Public Relations & Marketing firms are just a click away
• Book Reviewers - Here are the addresses you need to solicit glowing reviews for your published book

Every book you publish with Outskirts Press receives its own marketing webpage, designed to promote and sell your book online. Choose from various color and designs lay-outs based upon your publishing package (Pearls get 16 different formats to choose from).

The Pearl webpages can be updated at any time and include silver, red, blue, and green colors choices. The author's photo is at the bottom, along with a list of other books published by the author. Multiple BUY links go directly to your listing on Barnes & Noble and Amazon.

• Change your webpage content and appearance at any time
• Add HTML to make your webpage really stand out
• Pearl authors may add an audio file enhancement for free
• Includes an easy URL to promote (for example outskirtspress.com/yourbook)

See a sample webpage here and here.

Most publishers forget about you after your book is published. Not Outskirts Press! At about the same time you receive your free author's copies you will begin to receive Creative Online Assistance, Coaching, and Help from the amazing Outskirts Press Marketing COACH.

You will discover...

• How to pitch your book to Oprah
• How to submit your book to Google's product database
• How to list your book on Amazon alongside a best-seller
• How to get Kirkus to review your book
• The addresses of independent bookstores nationwide
• and much, much more

There is a lot to do once your book is published. The marketing COACH shows you the way over a gradual span of time, in order to give you time to complete each suggestion and tip at your own pace and discretion. Do as much or as little as you desire. But the help is here, it keeps coming for YEARS, and it is all free.

"I am overwhelmed with how helpful you are with this information. Keep it coming!" - Dr. Faye, The Desperate Daughters of Destiny

 

After your book is published, your personal, pre-formatted Sales Sheet will be available to you immediately. Simply print as many copies as you need. Sales Sheets are instrumental to have as hand-outs at trade shows, book signings, and when pursuing sales and publicity. We have made it easy for you.

Your sales sheet includes

• All available editions of your book
• Your retail price and distributor discount
• Availability (wholesalers, distributors)
• Your book cover and author image (if supplied)
• Marketing copy and author biography

Here is the amazing part. You can change the content of your Sales Sheet whenever you want. The changes are made instantly for your convenience. See a sample of a sales sheet here.

 

Part of a coordinated book publication promotion campaign includes customized collateral such as bookmarks, business cards, postcards, and posters. These are not templates for you to create the materials yourself. These prices include the actual high quality, full-color, marketing materials, shipped directly to your house so you can use them to promote your book. They are fully customized just for you.

Bookmark details....

• Available in quantity packs of 500 for $199
• Full color front, black & white back
• 2" x 6" fully laminated stock
• Your cover image is on the front
• Your marketing copy is positioned on the back
• Back includes ordering information

Business Card details....

• Available in quantity packs of 500 for $199
• Full color front, black & white back
• 2" x 3.5" fully laminated stock
• Your cover image is on the front
• Your contact information is on the back

Postcard details....

• Available in quantity packs of 500 for $225
• Full color front, black & white back
• 4" x 6" fully laminated stock
• Your cover image is on the front
• Your marketing copy is positioned on the back

Small poster details....

• Available in quantity packs of 5 for $125
• 11" x 17" full color poster
• Your cover image is on the front

Large poster details....

• Available in quantity packs of 5 for $225
• 23" x 35" full color poster
• Your cover image is on the front

See samples of our bookmarks, postcards, and business cards here.

 

The CD Media/Press Kit contains everything you need to promote your book, pitch it to the media, and present it to national book buyers.

Each CD Media/Press Kit includes....

• Submission instructions and address to Barnes & Noble Small Press
• Submission instructions and address to Borders and Waldenbooks
• 1 full-color marketing plan and promotional calendar
• 5 copies of a professionally written press release
• 5 customized CD-ROMS (see below)
• 5 full-color author sales sheets

Each CD-ROM contains...

• A high-resolution cover scan
• A professionally written press release
• A secure e-book edition of your book
• Author biography and book summary
• A high-resolution author image (if supplied)
• A professional marketing plan and promotional calendar

Your Author Representative will supply you with a template and instructions for devising your own marketing plan and promotional calendar. This is the single most important part of your CD Media/Press kit, as it is what Barnes & Noble Small Press and Borders Acquisitions will look at when determining whether or not to stock your book in their retail stores.

"The CD/Media Kit arrived today. All I can say is WOW! It is by far a very professional layout. I would highly recommend anyone who publishes through Outskirts to purchase the CD/Media Kit. It is money well-worth as far as marketing is concerned." - Cassandra Seamon, A Hundred Days of a Life

See an online sample of the CD Media/Press kit here.

 

Our publicity experts will draft a custom professional press release for you and your book when it is published, conforming to industry standards for full effectiveness. Upon receipt of your release, you are free to modify it as you see fit, or use it exactly as is for all your marketing and promotion. It becomes yours.

Press release distribution includes....

• Email distribution
  Distributed to a database of approximately 100,000 media contacts, newsrooms, industry analysts, and freelance writers who receive daily email listings of press releases which match their filter criteria. In the publishing category these include newspapers (Wall St. Journal, New York Times, US Today, etc), magazines (Foreword, Publisher’s Weekly, etc.), and applicable websites and ezines.
• Syndicated news feeds
  Posted to syndicated news feeds on other web sites through our XML/RSS news feed. Adding this news feed increases exposure to your press release.
• Search engine submission
  For maximum distribution, each press release distributed is optimized for search engines indexing. Search engines regularly spider index our press releases.

If you have your own press release already written that you wish for us to distribute to our international syndicate indicated above, we offer a press release distribution service for free to Pearl authors.

The Ingram Advance is a monthly listing of newly published books that are distributed by Ingram. This slick catalogue is distributed to book buyers, retailers, wholesalers, and other book outlets on Ingram's distribution list. By listing your publication in the Advance, you are announcing your new book to the people who are most interested in buying it. A listing includes all pertinent ordering information and a black/white cover image.

Your Advance publication announcement includes....

• A black/white cover image of your book
• Title and byline
• Publisher
• Book synopsis
• ISBN
• Retail Price and wholesale terms

Add your voice to your free webpage. Read an excerpt from your book or explain your purpose in writing it. Adding an Audio Excerpt to your webpage is as easy as picking up the phone and recording your voice.

See (and hear) a sample of of the Audio Excerpt in action by clicking here.

 

Our published authors are so satisfied with our services, many publish multiple books with Outskirts Press. The Back Page Promotion gives them an opportunity to promote their previous book within the pages of their new one.

Back Page Promotion details...

• Includes a cover image of your previous book
• Includes the retail price and availability
• Includes marketing copy from your previous book's sales sheet

The best audience for your previous book is the reader of your current one. Only Outskirts Press offers this promotion opportunity.

 

Don't like the default image on your customizable cover?

Choose from over 100,000 photographs in our image library to further customize your cover, confident in knowing that the rights to the image have been secured for use.

The default cover image is free for you to use or you can select your own for just $99.

 

We will distribute a standard publication press release to our international syndicate of journalists, book reviewers, reporters, newspapers, and websites.

Email Distribution
Distributed to a database of approximately 100,000 media contacts, newsrooms, industry analysts, and freelance writers who receive daily email listings of press releases which match their filter criteria. In the publishing category these include newspapers (Wall St. Journal, New York Times, US Today, etc), magazines (Foreword, Publisher’s Weekly, etc.), and applicable websites and ezines.

Syndicated News Feed
Posted to syndicated news feeds on other web sites through our XML/RSS news feed. Adding this news feed increases exposure to your press release.

Search Engine Submission
For maximum distribution, each press release distributed is optimized for search engines indexing. Search engines regularly spider index our press releases.

 

A secure e-book file in industry-standard .PDF format is provided to the author for additional revenue and marketing opportunities. We securely lock your electronic e-book file with protection that prevents editing or printing of the document, so you know your book is safe and only available online.

Your e-book also becomes available on your free webpage at a price you can set yourself between $5 - $100. You can change the price whenever you want and your changes are made instantly. You keep 50% of the profit made from e-book sales on your Outskirts Press page and 100% of e-book sales made through other distribution channels you explore yourself. Yes! You can explore other sales opportunities with your e-book independently of Outskirts Press because we provide you with the e-book file.

E-book files of full-color books can be relatively large (and therefore time consuming for the reader to download). Take that into consideration when selecting this option. We do not recommend it.

 

Our Basic Editing Services costs 1.4 cents-per-word for fiction or non-fiction manuscripts. There is a 15,000 word minimum, so if your manuscript is less than 15,000 words, a word count of 15,000 words will be used to calculate the editing cost.

Poetry requires a different type of editing and is therefore handled on a case-by-case basis for an hourly rate. If you want editing services for your poems, please contact your Author Representative after acceptance.

Copy editing services will review your fiction or non-fiction manuscript for:

• Typographical errors
• Misspelled words
• Grammatical errors
• Punctuation
• Incorrect word use (i.e., effect/affect)
• Style consistency
• Standardization of spelling and capitalization
• Consistency of specific or repeated references

These corrections will be noted digitally on your manuscript and then emailed back to you. At that point, it is entirely up to you which of the edits you decide to accept or ignore. You always have the final say to ensure you maintain your "voice" in your book. The next manuscript you send back to us will be the one used for your publication.

If our editor feels your manuscript contains errors or issues that are beyond the scope of our basic editing service, we may suggest a more elevated level of editing services at a different rate. Of course, this suggestion is entirely up to you.

 

A picture is worth a thousand words, and each interior image and/or element you supply as a digital file can be custom placed into your document according to your instructions. There is a set-up fee of $49 which includes up to 10 interior images/elements that are provided to us digitally. This fee applies to each individual occurrence of tables, charts, or graphs, too, due to the additional formatting complexity of those elements.

For more than 10 images, additional packages of 10 can be purchased for $49 each.

If you supply hard copy images that need to be scanned, that package cost is $99 for 1 - 10 hardcopy images.

Our Diamond package is black/white for the interior so if you supply color images for the inside of your book they will revert to black and white when published.

For more than 5 images, send them to your Author Representative on a CD.

Regardless of whether you have placed them into your document or we are doing it for you, all images should be at least 300 DPI (dots per inch) .tif files. Line drawings should be at least 600DPI. We will use exactly what you send us, so prepare your image resolution and size carefully to fit within the final specs of your manuscript.

If your submitted images are not of sufficient quality for high-quality printing, you will be notified by your title production supervisor. At that point, you have three choices:

1) You can fix the images and submit them again.
2) You can authorize us in writing to use them "as is" and understand the quality may be sub-par.
3) You can consult with our graphic specialist who will optimize your images to the best quality possible, depending upon what you supplied. This costs $50/hour with a 15 minute minimum, billed in 15 minute increments.

 

If you only have a hard copy of your manuscript, we can offer transcription services, which is the process of re-typing your manuscript into a word processor. You will get the electronic Microsoft Word .doc file when the process is complete. An electronic version of your book is required for on-demand publication.

 

Indexing should be done after the initial interior format is done, so that the index pages match the book pages. We offer an indexing service to our Pearl authors for $4/indexed page. This includes the entire final page count of the book (since each page has to be indexed), NOT the page count of just the index.

 

The back cover copy is second only to a dynamic cover in importance. Select this optional upgrade and make your back copy shine with professionally written zing. Once you submit your summary and author biography within your Author's Center, Outskirts Press will enhance it with polish and pizzazz to make it sparkle. You are free to continue to use the new copy on your webpage as well as on your back cover and elsewhere as your book's promotion unfolds.

 

According to the Copyright office, a literary work becomes copy written once it is placed in a tangible medium (like a book