The publishing process

Snowgoose Publishing can undertake as much or as little of the publishing process to suit your requirements. You may feel confident that you can cut down your costs by doing some of the production stages yourself, so you can always use the pick ‘n´ mix approach and just use the services that you need.

Edit and design

Copy-editing – Copy-editing is the final process before your manuscript is set into type. It involves checking through your written work for accuracy and correcting any mistakes in spelling, punctuation and grammar.

A copy editor will make any necessary improvements and changes to formatting and style, ensuring that any illustrations, photographs, tables etc. are suitably located within the text and that any artwork is suitable for printing.

Should you wish to opt for this service, you will always be consulted about any proposed changes.

Page and cover design – We will discuss with you any ideas that you might have and give you advice on:

• Presentation and design of your publication
• Cover design
• Photos and illustrations you may wish to include
• Page size
• Which typefaces to use

Page by page layout – Once we have a page design that you are happy with, we will prepare the book page by page. If there are any photographs, illustrations, figures or tables, they will be included in the text at the appropriate place.

Proofreading - This is always done after the publication has been prepared page by page. Unlike the copy editor, the proofreader’s job is to check the proofs, line by line, with the edited copy. The proofreader is not concerned with improving the text or making stylistic changes but in checking that it makes sense, that the pages are correctly numbered and detecting and correcting any typos and formatting errors.

Proofs – At this stage of the process you will be provided with a set of page proofs and a cover proof to check for any final errors or mistakes. Once the proofs are returned any corrections will be made and printing arranged.

ISBN’s and barcodes - As the publisher, the ISBN (International Standard Book Number) must be obtained by you, as this will ensure that you own all the rights associated with your book. If any other company allocates you an ISBN then they become the publisher and hold the rights to your book.

There is no legal requirement to give your book an ISBN number, however, without an ISBN number a book cannot be ordered through any bookshop or on the Internet. Bookshops use it as a unique reference number to record information about the book on their computer systems.

You can contact the ISBN agency for an application form at: http//www.nielsenbookdata.co.uk or if you wish we will complete it on your behalf before passing it to you for signing and forwarding to the ISBN agency.

Barcodes are based on the ISBN and once you have an ISNB number we can arrange the barcode for you. A bookshop will scan the barcode to access information about the book such as the price and stock level.