CN Central: Publishing and printing

Good idea, Anna!

A
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My concern is the security, as presumably we’ll have to put in our CC details both as author and buyer, and CN seems to be a ‘built from scratch’ website, which means there may be some holes here and there. Or are you using an established payment system like Paypal?

I have no idea how any of this works really, I just want to be sure my CC details are safe :)

Sorry – missed this post!
We will be using Google checkout to begin with, which will hold details securely as they have organised all the security themselves. Yes – we want to make sure everyone’s details are safe too…we’re supposed to be helping the starving authors, not hindering them!

We’re now using Paypal so everything all transactions are handled entirely by them.
When the order is processed paypal take the payment which goes into the CN account. The books are then printed and the printing is paid for printing and shipping. There are then some paypal fees and the rest of the money is placed in the authors account.

When the author wants to extract their balance they can do so by simply getting in touch with CN with their paypal or bank account details.

All totally secure and I all transactions are encrypted with SSL certificates.

Any other questions let us know.

Would be good to hear if anyone has any opinions on us using PayPal – would it be helpful for us to explain a bit more about the service on CompletelyNovel, or are people familiar enough with it now?

The Paypal set up appears to be working fine and no problems have been encountered. Pity my bank statement was made up the same day as a refund occurred however, while showing on my Paypal account it missed the bank by a couple of hours or less and will not appear until next month…

I am concerned about the ordering of book copies through bookshops, Amazon and for libraries and understand this is governed by Nielsen downloading CN data but details of timings are not given in relation to when taking out the professional publishing package. One apparently has to wait a couple of weeks but is not given this information. While taking advantage of the free offer one cannot complain,other than of a lack of information, but if paying for a service that only partly operates…

Apart from a few blips the concept that you have is good and undoubtedly will prove successful but these little missing bits of info do not instil faith in the IT system. I also note that the ‘hit’ or ‘view’ counters have disappeared and hence authors no longer have any idea how many are viewing their work.

While I have no qualms regarding Paypal, with blips in the system at CN, such as sales at CN not registering in one’s account some nagging doubts keep appearing, specifically regarding sales from outside the CN system.

Please set my mind at rest with the relevant INFORMATION

Cheers

Harry Sivertsen

We’re in our ‘beta’ development stage so there will be little blips here and there. We can guarantee that everything that does go wrong will be rectified and there is zero operational risk to any beta user. We really appreciate everyone using the site in our beta phase and the feedback helps us build a much better system.

Nielsen data
Unfortunately Nielsen aren’t the most technologically advanced data management company out there and they can only accept information updates once a week. They then take an unspecified amount of time to update their systems with the information. We’ll put what I’ve said in the help section but it is a little unknown as after we send the information it is up to them to update everyone.

Book Stats
Regarding the book view stats disappearing from the portfolio page it is because we are building an upgraded monitoring system. This will appear in the portfolio management section. It will provide better information about who is reading, visiting, buying what and when.

Sales from outside CN
Regarding sales from outside the CN system, this is an area which is undergoing a lot of work. Traditional book distribution networks are very old and were never designed to work with modern production systems. I could go on for hours about how simple it could be but they are stuck in their ways and it is hard to change things at this stage. The costs of such channels are very high as there are many different parties in the supply chain to deal with.

Selling on CN is very easy and cheap because the supply chain looks like this:
customer → CN → Printer → Customer

An order through a retailer is expensive and slow because it looks like this:
customer → retailer → ISBN agency ordering sytem → wholesaler → CN → printer → wholesaler → retailer → customer

Each party in the supply chain requires notification of order status at each stage. They then take their cut (approx 50% of sale value) and finally pay the remainder to us so we can pay you. This is why the orders don’t come up in the accounts instantly as we would like them to.

So in CN style we are working on a better way to integrate with these guys so it is seamless and lower cost. It is just taking a little time as there are a lot of antiquated systems and restrictions to work round. We are only able to offer this integration for premium members as the subscription helps service the overhead of dealing with these older companies.

The new distribution management system we are building will enable you to manage all these distribution channels from CN and see the status of each order as it progresses (it will also tie into the stats system mentioned earlier). It is a big system and will take a little time to build and iron out glitches but it will be pretty awesome when done and will scale across multiple countries & routes to market.

For the time being we are processing external orders manually so it can take a few days to go through.

I hope that answers your questions, please keep them coming and let us know what you think of what is going on and what can be improved.

Cheers, Oli

Hi Oliver

That was a detailed reply and welcome many thanks. As you state elsewhere it would be good to publicise things more. May I suggest a schedule, however approximate, of what you are planning and when you expect it to be running? As a current example the upgraded monitoring system which many of us are missing.

Perhaps all this is a bit of pain but it could lead to further discussions regarding the system and improvements/expansions etc…Unless we are aware of what is planned we cannot make logical suggestions as we do not know where you are or where you are heading…and we all want this to work for obvious reasons. You are in front of all others as far as I can tell…lets keep it that way.

All the best

Harry

Hi, your product and services look very attractive, but using them has been frustrating.

I have uploaded both Word and PDF docs, but they take forever to convert, and all the while, give no indication at all as to what the problem is – Is the font not supported/embedded? Is the document the right size? Just showing a buffering webpage tells people nothing! At the moment, I have uploaded a basic Word document, in Times New Roman – and it still hasn’t been converted after half an hour.

Getting PDFs into print is a pain, as there are issues with distilling, etc. I will have to pay to get my file done manually, but I don’t want to make a habit of it.

Ken

Hi Ken,

The doc conversion is one of those strangely complicated tasks. What the auto converter does it to open it up in MS word, check the page sizes and margins are printable and then save it as a PDF. After saving as a PDF it needs to check that all the artifacts (elements on the page) are PDF/X:2001-a compliant (the PDF standard used by printers).

Now this on its own is not too bad and the conversion works 99.5% of the time but sometimes corrupted docs or docs with unusable fonts are uploaded which causes word to stop what its doing and wait for a user prompt to select an action. When this happens we have to login to the document converter and manually fix the problems with the doc.

So what we are doing to fix this is:
a) Buy loads of fonts so we can automatically replace missing or corrupt fonts with those from stock.
b) Add a time-out so after a minute of converting if it still isn’t done it closes the process and adds it to a queue for an admin to look at.

It is actually only your docs which this has happened with but after this happens it locks MS word so following conversions get queued but not converted. This is the error message we get

To help us solve the error could you give let me know what version of MS word you are using (Windows: 97,2001,2003,2007 Mac: 2004, 2008)

I would quite like to follow up Harry’s idea of making what we’re working on more public. Perhaps people could also vote for new features they would most like to see and post ideas and improvements to what we’re doing.

Thanks Oliver,

I’m using Word 2003. I’m puzzled as to why it’s only my documents that have this problem. I have had problems with corrupted files, but when I use them with your rival service (can I mention a name?) I can upload my PDFs without difficulty. I don’t need to upload Word files at all. However, the cost price is becoming too much, and the only suitable size is A5.

That service uses Lightning Source, which, I understand CompletelyNovel plans to do ‘in the future’. How about ‘now’? I’m sorry to be blunt, but I know from personal experience that ’we’re still a new company’ doesn’t impress customers. I learnt the hard way that people don’t want to pay to be treated
as guinea pigs, and yet I am amazed that companies with capital that I could only dream of do the same (although they call it ‘in beta’)

As well as having a time-out, you should tell people exactly what the problem is. If you’re on a train and it stops, you expect the train driver to tell you why and when you’ll get going again.

Cheers for letting giving me the details, it is really helpful to know that you receive the corrupt file errors your end as well.

Corrupt files in the document converter
The problem is very solvable, the reason we haven’t fixed this specific bug since it first came up a couple of weeks ago is because we are having a new converter built. We recently contracted an ex adobe pdf guy who’s system should handle all the bugs and be able to maintain formatting better when incorrect page sizes are used. I will expect it to go live in the next 4 weeks. We will add better status reporting of the conversion to this too.
As an aside, if you have created a pdf with the correct page size you should be able to upload it directly in the same box as the word doc. When the new converter is running it will even change the page size of your pdf if it isn’t right.

Lightning source
We are in the final stages of testing integration with LS and it will bring with it new printing prices, geographies and options. We are actually waiting for them to sort out a problem their end, once that is done we’ll run a few test orders through in different configurations and we should be good to go. I’ll get it in the feature calendar but we’re expecting it any time soon.

‘Beta’
I know exactly what you mean here, I grew up working for my father’s joinery business. It was very much a case of you make a product and sell it, if it went wrong you would get it back and you would fix it (that never happened obviously).

However websites have radically different economics. For one people don’t pay upfront and aren’t contracted into paying websites and the margins are much smaller. This means the upfront development is done with little or no capital (CN is self funded by the founders). The reason huge companies (google/MS for example) with loads of capital release betas comes down to efficiency. With a web platform there are so many intricacies that you can’t predict all the use cases upfront. For example we tested the converter with as many docs as we could find but there are always outlying cases such as particular corruptions in files which go unaccounted.

We hate bugs more than anyone else and when they happen our developers (including myself) get a good slap. All web services have the odd bug, generally the older they are the more bug free but if you’re doing something new bugs will happen.

Cheers for the info, I’ll keep you posted on improvements.

Thanks Oliver!

As an interim measure, I’ll pay for a manual conversion. Admittedly, my book isn’t quite finished yet, but I wanted to be able to print out a copy just to see it for myself, or work out the size of the cover, width of the spine, etc. I used the Espresso Book Machine in Blackwells’ Charing Cross, which was cheaper than the service I’ve been using so far. It also uses Lightning Source.

With Open Office Writer, I can export a Word 2003 doc as a PDF, with all fonts embedded. (Unfortunately, it also messes up section breaks, so footnote and endnote numbers are continuous.)

I’m using Aldine 401BT, and Humana 777.

Thanks Oli for giving Ken such a comprehensive reply… I’m trying to recruit him into undercover POD research for CN ;-)
Ken – I’ll make sure that the developers get an extra hard whack round the back of the head if you encounter any more bugs.

Aagh! You blew my cover, Anna! As it happened, I was working for MI6 as well. :D

For some reason, when I click on the links in the email alerts, I get this message

Sorry… Something Seems to have gone wrong
I hope it hasn’t caused any inconvenience.

However, now you’ve found the problem I’ll get straight to work fixing so no one else experiences the same problem.

We can generally fix these problems by the evening so please check back later.

You can use your browsers back button or click any of the links on this page to continue.

Cheers!

Thanks again.

Here are some updates – I can now do PDFs that match your printer’s requirements, but am having less success with the cover, as I can’t use the existing PDF created using Open Office. I’ll find a workaround.

On a more basic level – is there a way of staying logged IN? Every time I go to the site, I have to log in with my password. I don’t have this problem with other sites, which recognise my username and put in my password.

Cover

Designing a cover for a book requires all the dimensions to be correct. Generally the only way to design a cover is to use a design/illustration program such as Adobe Indesgin/illustrator/photoshop or Coreldraw. If you want to keep with the open source goodness gimp/inkscape provide good free alternatives although not quite as fully featured or easy to use (mainly due to the amount of help and tutorials availalbe).
Alternately you can design images of each side of your cover and upload them as the backgrounds to each side in the cover creator. You just need to hide/remove the text and you should be done.

Staying Logged in
We can add a way to stay logged in, I’ll try to get that feature on the site by the end of the week.

Oli

Okay a few more bugs.

1. It says CPI only ships to the UK, Ireland and France. However, on the drop down list, I could choose any country in the world as my deilvery address. Is the shipping flat rate for the whole world, or just the three countries mentioned?

2. When I select the ‘Deliver to United States’ option, it just keeps buffering. Nothing happens. Is it a valid option or not? If it isn’t, delete and only restore it when is valid.

Cool, I see what you mean (happens when checking out with an address outside of UK, France, Ireland)

This is down to many country options being available and the printers not filling in the shipping details for other countries yet. So I’m going to do two things.

1. Get them to fill in more shipping options. The system supports shipping anywhere in the world and CPI can ship to most of Europe and the states so it is just a case of filling the blanks (prices for different order weights).

2. Update the UI (User Interface) to avoid this happening for countries which aren’t serviced. For this we have two options.

a) Don’t let people choose a shipping address in a country that isn’t serviced

b) Allow addresses in countries which aren’t serviced and then display a message saying we can’t ship to that country.

Will have a think as to which option is better, the first is simple but the second will let them use their shipping address when further options are available. What do you think?

Cheers, Oli

Thanks, but it seems to be one step forward, one step back!

One of the reasons why I didn’t go with Blurb was because their list of countries was too limited – Singapore wasn’t on there, and it’s hardly some failing state (which my book is about)! I am amazed how parochial Antony Rowe is – almost as bad as CreateSpace, which only pays by US dollars, by ‘check [sic!]’ and expects non-US users to file a tax form with the IRS.

My target market is Australia, but the US would be acceptable, as it can be shipped overseas from there by someone else.

I’d suggest Option 2a – it saves people time and disappointment up front. I remember trying to book a flight online with an airline in one country, only to have my card rejected. By contrast, another one clearly stated that it only accepted credit cards issued in that country. (In any event, its online booking didn’t work at all.)

As regards the cover, it’s not the dimensions that are the problem, it’s the compatibility of the PDF. I’ve tried Office 2007 but there isn’t a program similar to Open Office’s Draw. I know I could use GIMP or Inkscape, but would the PDF be accepted? If you could use Lightning Source, this wouldn’t be an issue.

The problem with the Cover Designer is the spine – I can’t upload a background image, or if it can, it doesn’t appear at all.

Hi Ken

• Foreign delivery *
  We’re working at it as fast as we can. Getting there but liasing with other parties takes a little while. Once set up though if new printers want to join the community they should be able to sign up and do most things themselves which means our coverage can increase at a much faster rate.

• Payments *
  We can certainly pay in more than just dollars by more means than just check. Currently we’re paying out via paypal. Paypal should cover most of the payment problems but for the currencies and countries they don’t service we’re devising various ways of making payments. Traditional bank FX (foreign exchange) payments are always expensive (

Thanks Oli.

My book will be 200+ pages, so not sure why it wouldn’t be sufficient for a spine background image.

The thing about cheques/checks is academic, as it only applies to CreateSpace, and how it would pay me, not how customers would pay – only one person I know wouldn’t buy online. I was hoping that the distribution package would overcome Antony Rowe’s parochialism, allowing people to buy through amazon.co.uk, or through bookshops.

UPDATE

I enlarged the text of my manuscript, it’s now 230 pages, and it STILL isn’t thick enough for for a spine background image. ????

Aha, I’ve just found out what is going on.

You have added the image to the cover correctly but the part of the image which is selected is the white sky so it appears like nothing is there.

To remedy this go into the cover creator, then to the spine tab and then in the background section click ‘adjust’ you should be able to select the part of the image you want to by dragging the box over your desired section.
Sorry for the slow reply, hope all’s well.

Oli

Hi Oli,

Things have moved on, I’m now using Office 2007 and have successfully created a PDF for the cover, which CN has accepted.

I’m more concerned about shipping – I don’t know what planet Antony Rowe are living on! Australia is one of my target markets, but it’s going to be a major hassle if I have to pay for international P & P as well as UK P & P. If people order through amazon.co.uk, will that sidestep the problem?

Hey,

Good work on the manuscript, let me know if there are any other features you think should be present. Our pdf conversion process is getting an upgrade next month which should solve a lot of problems you might have come across.

Regarding shipping, huge topic so brace yourself…

• How it works at the moment *

The most efficient way to sell is direct through CompletelyNovel as the only steps in the chain are purchase > printer > delivery company > customer (facilitated by CN). So the printer sends the items out directly to the customer. The only criticism I have of this process is that the printers are not as fast at printing or adept at P&P as they should be. This is why they insist on charging the silly ‘handling fee’ per order (LS and AR both do the same). For international delivery the printer has to offer delivery to that specific country. There are some logistics companies doing pretty good tariffs for small parcel delivery (DHL & UPS are notable in this field), the printer just needs to offer it. They are getting better but a way behind the curve of a true mail order company.

bq.

What the retailer pays you (the seller)
| Cover price |

Thanks.

I had another look at Blurb. However, their PDF specifications are even more onerous. PDF/X-3:2002? Why do these people assume that everyone has expensive Adobe software or wants to use some naff in-house program?

I may use Lulu for US-based international sales.
Alternatively I might order POD books from CN when orders come in from abroad, snd people can pay me using PayPal. E-commerce is international, and international distribution is, in my opinion, non-negotiable. I can see the point of not shipping to certain Third World states (like the one in my book) but only shipping to two other countries is just ridiculous.

LS already has a printer in Melbourne, where there are two Espresso Book Machines.

I see what you mean about Amazon – I’ve had a look at one of the books on sale, and the cost of the international shipping.

I’ll sign up for Publish Pro, and see how I get on…

UPDATE: I’ll be using Lulu now – I’ve removed my manuscript from CN. I’m sorry, but I need things to be available now, rather than ‘soon’ or ‘in the near future’. Although your product still looks attractive, the inconvenience of things being done on a piecemeal basis outweighs the benefits. Lulu is more expensive, but it works. I don’t know how quick its customer service people are at answering queries, because I’ve never needed to contact them. I think that tells you something.

Hi Ken,

It’s been very useful to get your feedback – the nice thing about us (and Lulu) is that you don’t have to publish exclusively so you do have the option of coming back here if you like.
Lulu has been established for a long time so I’d certainly expect them to have their core services polished. With CompletelyNovel, we are aiming to be able to give writers a more useful and effective way of publishing and marketing their books, but as I think Oli has explained, we are still in a beta phase, which means that there are a few areas requiring more development.

I wish you all the very best with your writing and your books and hopefully we will see you back here in the future!

Hi Anna,

No hard feelings. I’ve found that my book doesn’t qualify for Lulu’s GlobalReach, which means that it can’t be listed on Amazon UK. On the other hand, books that can only be printed in the US are. Aaarrghh!

I’ll get there.

All the best

Ken

On the subject on Amazon UK – has anyone managed to get their book on Amazon.co.uk via Completely Novel? According to this site it should be listed but it’s been weeks now and nothing.

Hi Jonathan,

I’m looking into this. The reason it is not listed is that Nielsen (ISBN agency) haven’t listed it yet. It was sent to them ages ago along with 3 or 4 other books which have been listed fine. I’ll send through the info again and follow up next week to check everything is ok.

As expected, my first orders came from Australia. Another has come in from Japan. If it weren’t for Antony Rowe’s bizarre belief that the world is composed solely of the UK, Ireland and France, I would be using your service, and making more money than with Lulu. You would be making money, and so would Antony Rowe.

It is just as well that I have not had to contact Lulu’s customer service for anything urgent as it is abysmal -

Inorder to assist you further, i am going to escalate your issue to the concern
team.Sorry for the inconvenience.

As a completely new member and one who has yet to upload my book. I am interested in publish on demand. The costs appear to be acceptable but I worry about where potential customers can order through. I have a marketing plan in mind but it will involve customers being able to order through normal book shops. Is this a problem?? Earlier letters seem to suggest that it is. An agents associated with completely novel is looking at my manuscript at the moment, but I may consider a POD system in the new year.

Hi Colin – thanks for coming on to CompletelyNovel. It is possible for customers to order books through normal bookshops. If you have a Pro Account on CompletelyNovel then one of the options is to make your book available in retail channels. Bookshops can order books via BookNet, a teleordering system run by Neilsen (the ISBN registration company for the UK).
The order comes through to us and we then put an order in with the
There have been a few delays regarding the listing of books on Amazon due to the lag between us sending information to Nielsen and them updating Amazon, and that means that if any information is incorrect, there is a longer delay in correcting it. However, the ISBN is registered with Neilsen, and that means that book shops will be able to order the book.
Were there any particular bookshops that you were planning on targetting?

Thanks,

Anna

It seems that the service I would require is not available on ‘pay as you go’, is this correct? and if so where would the printed dook be available from?

It seems that the service I would require is not available on ‘pay as you go’, is this correct? and if so where would the printed book be available from?

Yes that’s right – on the pay as you go plan, your book can be bought through CompletelyNovel. This is the avenue which enables writers to get the best return in terms of royalties. Of course, there is nothing to stop you buying your books in larger quantities and then selling them directly to book shops if they are local to you (provided the shops are happy to work on those terms).

Thanks Anna Publishing through you is obviously not the way for me to go. My marketing strategy requires my books to be ordered and collected via book stores mainly. Thank you for your comments. maybe youwriteon can give me a better deal. Thanks anyway

Thanks Anna Publishing through you is obviously not the way for me to go. My marketing strategy requires my books to be ordered and collected via book stores mainly. Thank you for your comments. maybe youwriteon can give me a better deal. Thanks anyway

Thanks Anna Publishing through you is obviously not the way for me to go. My marketing strategy requires my books to be ordered and collected via book stores mainly. Thank you for your comments. maybe youwriteon can give me a better deal. Thanks anyway

No problem Colin – the main difference between us and the likes of YouWriteOn is that you will have more control over your book and the way it is updated. Rather than you sending your files by email you can upload the files yourself (which means that you can update them as and when it is necessary). There is normally a cost associated with mnaking your books available in book shops – YouWriteOn publishing packages start at around

Dear Anna I really do appreciate your advice and comments on this subject. I am holding back on the idea of self publishing because as of today I have two agents interested in my first book( One from completely novel) and three others reading my sample chapters. It doesn’t mean a lot but I have decided to hold off for a few weeks and see what transpires. Thank you for the advice you havegiven and T will keep it in mibd.

Colt

OK – you are very welcome. We all wish you the very best on the agent front…exciting stuff!

Remember, even if you don’t want to self-publish, you can still use CompletelyNovel to build up your online profile, which is something that publishers are increasingly looking for in an author, as they have limited money for marketing all of their authors. So, if you decide that you want to publish some samples of your book (or any other work that you have) online then you can do so on CompletelyNovel by publishing with our BookStreamer. That can all be done on our free package.

Very best,

Anna

Tghanks Anna for your best wishes and advice, I will ceratinly consider the Book Streamer option.

Tghanks Anna for your best wishes and advice, I will ceratinly consider the Book Streamer option.

Anna may I pose a situation for you to answer. If I published via Completely Novel on the ‘pay as you go’ system and did some marketing myself, How would the individuals order the book if they did not use a computer. e.g. If I produced some small posters with details of the book and forward them to selected places. (not net sites)what could I include to tell them where to get copies. Sorry if it’ sold hat but I am trying to get some idea as to how I could adapt my marketing.

Anna may I pose a situation for you to answer. If I published via Completely Novel on the ‘pay as you go’ system and did some marketing myself, How would the individuals order the book if they did not use a computer. e.g. If I produced some small posters with details of the book and forward them to selected places. (not net sites)what could I include to tell them where to get copies. Sorry if it’s old hat but I am trying to get some idea as to how I could adapt my marketing.

Hi Colin,

CompletelyNovel is very much a web based system so we can only offer automated distribution through online channels. With a plus plan shops will be able to order books into their stores if someone requests them. But to be honest the internet is the most effective way to distribute.

If you want to distribute without the net at all you could just use CN as a tool to print your books (I believe it’s the cheapest around). You could order say 10 copies to your home and distribute from there. Two ways to do this would be:

1) Mail order: Put your phone number on your posters for people to order the books straight from you.
2) Book shops as distributors: If you know some friendly shops you could give them some copies so customers could buy it directly from them. You could then put their details on the posters and customers could either visit their shop or phone the orders through.

If you have any other ideas it would be useful to hear them?

Cheers

It now transpires that Lulu use CPI Antony Rowe for UK printing. For zome reason, they used a gigantic piece of cardboard to wrap a single A5 book, when only an A5-sized package would do, and Royal Mail didn’t put a card through my door to tell me to collect it at the nearest depot – the postman just rang my doorbell and left it on the doorstep! I hope this doesn’t happen to your customers.

Another question. If I publish througn your ‘free, pay as you go system’ does this prohibit me from publishing elsewhere at the same time. I would be interested in publishing with you to check out my potential with the book but I am also considering other avenues besides the agents who are still looking at my manuscript.. I am just exploring all the possibilities at this stage.

Another question. If I publish througn your ‘free, pay as you go system’ does this prohibit me from publishing elsewhere at the same time. I would be interested in publishing with you to check out my potential with the book but I am also considering other avenues besides the agents who are still looking at my manuscript.. I am just exploring all the possibilities at this stage.

Hi Colin,

No…you are free to try out as many avenues as you like. We don’t take any of the rights to your book, you just give us a non-exclusive license to distribute it in the formats that you tell us to. It’s up to you to check that other services are equally relaxed about authors publishing their work elsewhere but we certainly don’t have a problem with it. It’s important that you find the channels that are right for you and your book, and whilst we hope we can fit that role, please investigate all options!

‘License’ is a verb, ‘licence’ is the noun. :D

Thanks for the correction!

I do not approve of Americanisms. Period. :D

Thanks Anna for the information. I saw the mistake but did not think it was of any significance to the question. Apparently we have some pedantic individuals on the site. Which I find puzzling in a world of writers where rules are often broken in the interests of a story line. It doesn’t bother me, as parts of my books are set in the USA. Once again thanks for the info and I hope to get back to you soon when the other avenues have been investigated.

I added the emoticon :D to show that my comments were not to be taken too seriously. Clearly you do not understand irony as I ended my previous message with an Americanism.

Sorry Ken, I obviously got my knickers in a twist defending a damsel. Point taken Apologies.

Hello Anna I have decided to stay a little while longer. You may have noticed my posts on other discussion groups. One qestion I would Like to ask. If I published through your ‘pay as you go’ system. would I be able to purchase my book at a discount? I am contemplating a situation where I buy a number of books (say 20) and sell them locally. I am also contemplating another idea where I advertise my book in the UK and give ‘Completely Novel’ as a place where it could be purchased. Give me some answers and comments please.

Me again Forget my question about discounted books. I appreciate it could be difficult with your system. I was actually thinking of another site when I wrote it and now realise it does not reallyapply to CN. I am still considering publishing with you albeit on the ‘pay as you go’ system, but would like to know about others who have done this. Can you point me i8n the direction of a ‘pay as you go’ [published book? I notice that Shea has her book on line now, is this also available for sale beside online reading? Sorry if the questions appear to be stupid but I am trying to get my head round the pros and cons and need a little help.

Hi Colin,

Pay as you go gives you access to all the free tools on CompletelyNovel:

• Access to printing through Antony Rowe (and soon Lightning Source)
• Promotion tools such as the embeddable online reader and your own profile and book pages.

With pay as you go you it is possible to publish your book online and in print for free. There is a step by step publishing process which gets your files ready and then after that you will have your own listing and everyone will be able to buy copies of the book. As the author you will be able to buy cost price copies. I would recommend it to anyone starting out as it is a very simple system which provides enough for most people to start selling.

The addons you can get for the free account are publishing credits (£5) to publish updates or a new edition and an ISBN number (£30) to list your book in the ISBN database with Nielsen. With those addons you should be able to reach a wider audience but you will have to fulfil orders outside of CompletelyNovel yourself.

The premium accounts are designed to provide better value to more avid authors and to assist in selling more books by extending the books reach to a wider market. The monthly fee is means we can spend some time to setup and manage further distribution channels. We can

• supply books to most major retailers including Amazon and large book shops.
• put these orders through on expedited printing account for faster delivery.
• assist in promotion such as listing your book on in online distribution channels such as Google books and can put samples on various document sites around the web.
• On top of extended distribution, premium accounts make services like publishing credits and ISBN numbers cheaper.
• We’re building further distribution into the premium accounts all the time.

It is best to think of CompletelyNovel not as a traditional publisher but as a tool to very easily access lots of publishing services which publishers use. There’s no obligations or commitments so even if you just want to print a few copies for yourself you can do that (and I’m fairly sure its the easiest and cheapest way to do so). The service was designed as a tool for writers to build a profile for themselves and our eventual goal is to link people straight into the right distribution channel for them, whether that is digital and on demand publishing or through traditional publishers.

Regarding book examples, most books you can read and buy on CompletelyNovel are on the free account so head over to the readers page and have a browse around the books.

I hope that helps,

Oli

Thank Oli I am now in possession of the full facts. I will consider seriously publishing through you (Pay as you go) At present I am awaiting reviews and comments on a new prologue I have added to my novel Not sure whether it will work so I will wait a couple of weeks to find out. Is there anywhere on CN that I can upload say, the first three chapters of the book to get feedback or do I have to upload the entire book on a ‘free read’ principle. Thanks in anticipation

Colin, I uploaded 6 chapters of my published book in order to use it as a taster since it was never published with CN. Basically it looks like the principle is the same regardless of whether you are putting up the full book or excerpts to read online in the streamer. However I think I also remember Oli or Anna stating that going forward they would probably look of a way for authors to limit the amount that is viewable of a fully uploaded manuscript. I’m not sure how far on they are with developing this feature though.

Bryony

Bryony Thank you so much for taking the trrouble to reply to my question. If this is so then the problem of ‘tasters’ is solved. I will look at the possibilty of posting three chapters on ‘streamer’.
From experience I have found that readers are far more liable to read the first three, and three out of twenty five is enough to establish whether you want to read the rest.
From my old days I always want to leave them wanting more. Not too much. not too little but just enough to whet the appetite.
Would it be possible for me to have the three chapters on ‘streamer’ and the whole book published on the ‘pay as you go’ sysytem at the same time?? Your response so far is very encouraging, please carry on.

Me Again I have just realised I am using the Word 2000. Would that be compatible with the publishing requirements of CN

Colin, in my case I just chopped down my publisher supplied manuscript (word document) to 6 chapters and created a PDF of it and uploaded. You would have to create a PDF from 3 chapters worth but this would use one of your publishing credits. I think in order for your book to be available to buy on CN you have to have the full manuscript PDF loaded. My first book can’t be bought through CN, only through publisher direct, Amazon and other booksellers. Over to Oli I think on where CN is with limited, viewable content of a full manuscript thing on CN. That is the only way I see you can allow customers to view a portion but buy the actual book if they like the excerpts for a book created on CN.

Bryony

It will be, it is all about how you format the mauscript for the printer (margin size, etc) that really matters. I think Anna told me to use 2.3mm margins for the CN streamer content. OpenOffice 3.1 is very good as well plus it is free to download and does pretty much everything word does. Just google for it. You can save documents as a number of extension types (word, ods, etc) plus it already has an embedded PDF convert function as well.

Bryony

Thank you Bryony I don’t know what I would do without you. I’ll have a look at Open Office 3.1. I’m still very nervous at publishing my book. I have recently added a prologue and today received the first review of it. Comments were good but I would like a second opinion before I go any further. My book length is now 82,500 words long.

I don’t profess to knowing masses about technology, far from it. My husband works in IT so tends to advise me on things, just passing it on really.

Thanks Bryony. Can you tell me where I look on CN to find the books from members that are for sale????

correction to last post. I don’t mean members for sale, that was very bad of me. I was in a rush and didn’t think. My wife was calling for me to come to lunch and I rushed things.
Correction – Can you tell me where I can find members books that are for sale.

I think any book written by a CN member should show up when you go to the members profile doesn’t it and actually select the book. I think if there is an option to buy any book it should be alongside the “read online” button? Oli, Anna?

I seem to have lost a post I made a few days ago. Would it be possible for the ‘powers that be’ to includ a section on CN where we could browse members published books. They must be out there somewhere, and before committing myself to publishing on CN I would like to know where and how people could buy it. (Except for the old stand by, Amazon of course) It appears, as Bryony said, that we have to find the author first to find the book. Someone please answer. I keep making posts and no-one answers the questions. Are they all on holiday do you think????

There are quite a few ways to find them.

1) Click ‘READ’ and then ‘Read online’ at the top or the big ‘more’ button under the books.

2) Click ‘PUBLISH’ and then the big ‘more’ button under the books.

3) Select ‘books’ from the search drop down on the top right of each page and click ‘go’

4) Click ‘Books’ under resources in the foot of the website

This is also a direct link to them all: http://www.completelynovel.com/read-books-online

You can toggle between just CN books and all books in the browsing page you will be in using the switch on the right above the categories list.

Hope that helps, Oli

Thanks Oli, perfectly clear and immensely helpful I note that the price various quite a lot, and I assume that this price (top right hand side) is the paper back version. Can you enlighten me as to why there is such a variation? (Number of pages etc??? possibly?

Hi,

The paperback price is decided by the author who created the book which is why they vary so much.

The only restriction is a minimum price which is, as you suggest, to do with the amount of pages and also the size of the book. From the top of my head, CPI Antony Rowe printers charge:

Demy: £0.01 per page + £0.70 cover and bind fee
Crown: £0.015 per page + £1 cover and bind fee.

You can find out roughly how much your book will cost to print using the printing price calculator found here. Just select your book size and number of pages and click ‘estimate price’. I say roughly because you have to format your book to the right size which will change the number of pages.

Oli