Publisher Data collection

Book publishing services are usually just self-publishing companies that do the legwork for a fee. But in a nutshell, the publishing industry includes the development, marketing, production and distribution of news and non-fiction magazines and books, literary works and other works dealing with dissemination of information. Although newspaper and magazine companies often own printing presses and binderies, most of the book publishing companies outsource the production and development work to smaller companies and only control the advertising and marketing tasks. Some of the publishing companies sub-contract the editorial work as well. These companies offering specialized book publishing services are also an integral part of the ever-growing publishing industry in the US.

Some of the book publishing services companies like Cader Books, Benchmark Productions, iUniverse Inc. and Xlibris offer specialized services at every stage of book publishing like researching topics and assisting authors. They also offer editing services, designing the layout, artwork and photography, cover layout, bar coding and the final printing and distribution of books. Each service has a fee and can be customized according to the client’s need.

A number of publishing service companies offer counseling services to help self-publishers. They include theme planning, book formatting, business plan advice and copyright information. Other specialized services include manuscript evaluation and critiquing, as well as suggestions as to how to develop the manuscript and make it “saleable” in the market. The publishing services also include ISBN acquisition and CIP data acquisition that are mainly used to assign a unique number to the published books and to help catalog the books.

Whether you want to get published or whether you want to self publish your cook book, the same basics apply – you need a good understanding of the publishing industry. Without the basics, will you know if your contracts are in order, that your book is the best it can be and that your cook book marketing plan is actually an effective strategy? No – but, knowledge is power. It is crucial that you take enough time to educate yourself about the entire publishing industry.

Understanding publishing, and the marketing of books, will clearly help you to identify why you are writing a cook book. Perhaps you are writing a cook book just to record secret family recipes or to have all of your own favorite recipes in a book format; maybe you are writing a cook book for a community or church fundraiser; or best of all, your goal is to create a bestseller. Cook books that are written for a very small group do not require business and marketing plans because you already know how many books will be purchased and who the buyers are. However, if you are planning to publish your own cook book for the mass markets, you need to understand that you have moved beyond author to publisher. That means that you are now a business person whose primary goal is the creation of a product to sell. There is no point in printing a book that no one will want to buy.

When I began writing my own cook book, I naively thought that it would be a two or three month process, and that in no time I would have a book on every book store shelf in the country. Ha, ha, ha, chuckle chuckle… Experience is a great educator, but who says that you have to learn the hard way? Obviously I had no idea how to publish a cook book in the beginning! However, through this article and via the publishing course that I and my partners have created, I intend to help you avoid losing time and money.