What are the issues that I should consider as to whether I copyright my book under my name or under my business name? What do you write on the copyright page?

1. Who is the publisher? Me or my business?

If you are self publishing, you choose what you want the publisher name to be. Think of your branding, if you plan on doing more than one book.

1. ISBN number?

You always include the ISBN number.

1. EAN versus UPC bar code?

The barcode goes on the back cover of the book.

1. "Printed in Canada" -- what does it mean?)

You must have "Printed in Canada, U.S., China..." in the copyright page and the back cover, mainly if you intend to move books in or out of the country.

1. Format and layout of the page

The format and layout of the page is somewhat standard. The best thing to do is pick a book off your shelf that has the layout that resonates with you and copy that format.

1. CIP data (Which comes first? Copyright, ISBN, bar codes, CIP data)

First comes the publisher number (Canada: http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/isn/041011-1030-e.html;
U.S.: http://www.isbn.org/standards/home/isbn/us/secureapp.asp), then the ISBN. You can't apply for a cataloguing in print number without the ISBN and you can't generate a barcode without the ISBN.

The copyright page is always on the left-hand side.

The copyright of the written manuscript belongs to the author, however, if a publisher (other than the author) publishes the book, you lend the rights to publish to that firm for a period of time (usually two years -- but make sure the contract says the rights revert back to you, or you may not get back the rights to publish your own book).

If you don't edit and proofread your correspondence, check out what a publisher actually publishes, check out their websites and submission guidelines, what do you think your chances are? Here are just two examples of real emails that say more than I could preach.

(Group email listing every email in the Association of Canadian Publishers' directory in the "TO" box.)

Friday, October 27,200612:23 PM

Looking_for _a _publ isher.pdf

Looking for a publicher

Estimable Sir

I wrote two books in informatics. I think that these are good and I send to you the cover, the contents

- and a paragraph from everyone. If you are interested, please answer to me for sending the entire fist form for every book. Everyone has a CD with the application programs, whose design was performed in the books. I trust in you, for helping me. See attachments. No viruses.

the authOr.

Thursday, October
16, 2008 3:22 AM

Subject:Good Book

Attachment: The Master's Stick.doc (908 KB)

Dear Literary Agent, Dear Publisher,

(His picture was inserted here)

My name is ___, and I am an Italian writer. It is an honour for me to send you a piece of my work entitled: "The Master's Stick". It consists of a collection of short stories and aphorisms,  based on the zen style, and it has already been published in Italy, obtaining a good number of sales.                                                     

If you are interested in my work, as I hope you are, you might like to know that a second volume of such work is already available and has not been published in Italy yet. It would be a pleasure for me to collaborate with you for our mutual economic and moral satisfaction.               

Yours faithfully,

First, the publisher produces the book that the author has written. The publisher ships these books (at its own expense) to bookstores or to a distributor (the middle party between the publisher and bookstore). If the books are sent to a distributor, he or she sells them to bookstores (many times on consignment), usually through a catalogue or a sales call, and ships them to the bookstore at the distributor’s expense.

When the bookstore sells a book, it pays the distributor or publisher. However, each party in the sales chain takes a percentage of the retail revenue from the book’s sale before the remainder, the royalty, trickles down to the author. Generally, the bookseller will get 40, 45 to 55 percent of the sale, the distributor 20 percent, the author 10 percent, sometimes five percent, and the publisher the balance. (As a self-publisher, you would get the author and publisher share.)

Also keep in mind that booksellers send back returns (books that don’t sell) to the publisher at the publisher’s expense. Authors receive no income from these books.

Advances

An advance (or, more correctly, an advance against royalties) is a sum of money a publisher pays an author before a book is published. The schedule can vary, but often, it is paid in two or more installments — one when the author signs the contract, another when the manuscript is delivered to the publisher, and additional installments at different steps of the process.

In order to understand how a publishing advance works, you need to understand how the bookselling process works.

The advance you may or may not receive from a publisher is an advance on royalties, the author’s share in the pot. If your book retails for $20 and you’ve received an advance of $5,000, that means the publisher needs to sell 2,500 books (2,500 x $2) before it makes back the money it paid in the advance and before you will receive any more royalties. If the publisher doesn’t sell enough copies of a book to recoup the advance, that will be the only money you will ever see. One benefit is that the author doesn’t have to pay back the advance if book sales go in the hole.

It only goes to show you, don’t spend your money before you have it.

www.freelancepublishing.net