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Guidebook

Publishing with Behemoth Books

So you have come this far and you are ready to publish your work? For whatever reason you have chosen this path whether to share your knowledge with the world, for financial benefits or simply to have a go, Behemoth Books welcomes you and your work.

As you may already know publishing your creations is not an easy task, apart from having to worry about producing quality, coherent content, the average author also has to worry about marketing, promotions, editorial changes and a million other things requiring immense amount of time and resources.
If you have been lucky and your work has been accepted by a major or regional publishing house, it may take up to a year (sometimes even longer) to actually get your book on the shelf, plus the abysmal author royalties deem the whole project economically unviable!
You may’ve also tried the vanity publishing option and very quickly arrived at the conclusion that the time and money spent through this route may as well have not been invested at all! The typical vanity publisher will ask the author to cover all expenses (sometimes even upfront) and according to industry reports, the average selling rate will equate to approx 5 books per year thus vanity publishers are often not taken seriously in the publishing industry.
On another hand, you may have tried to publish your work yourself! Generally, speaking this is the best option, you are always in control of your success, you project manage your own progress and essentially you are your own boss free to make any decisions! However, as you may’ve already discovered, one of the major drawbacks is level of commitment, the amount of resources and the effort you need to dedicate to your self-publishing project! This is where Behemoth Books comes in – we are not Vanity press, neither are we a regional publishing house nor are we a Print On Demand (POD) provider. Behemoth Books is the optimal publishing process designed especially for people who want to be in control of their creations i.e. the self-publishers like you! Authors like Mark Twain, James Joyce, D.H. Lawrence, Edgar Allen Poe, Rudyard Kipling have all published their work themselves.
In a nut-shell we offer quick & efficient route to publish at an absolute minimal cost. We sell and market your work in the format of a PDF eBook. As a registered author with Behemoth Books you can enjoy:

Behemoth Books Digitalised Publishing vs Conventional Print-Orientated Publishing methods

Typically, print-orientated publishing providers regardless of whether it is with a large or niche publishing house will take on a lot of risk when choosing to publish a particular book, as a rough estimate, only 3 out of every 10 books will be sold successfully generating profits for the publisher, while 4 will just about break even and 3 will make a loss. Thus authors with previous track record of good sales and or famous personalities are much easier to take on than an unknown author. The publisher is concerned primarily with margins and the bottom line of the “product” i.e. your book. To them there are no good or bad books. There are book that can sell and those that cannot sell. Consequently, to publish through a conventional print & distribution provider, the author has a lot of hurdles to overcome.

In addition, the print-orientated publishers follow seasonal patterns of book sales with three selling seasons per year when the book seller' stocks are replenished every four months or so , this means your publication has just four month to make it or break it. With Behemoth we are selling anytime, anywhere and all the time!
Here is how the conventional print-orientated publishing process compares with Behemoth Books digital method

Of course the conventional publishing industry offers a lot of great benefits too such as promotions, cover of printing & distribution costs, space on seller’s bookshelves, but for most unknown and first-time authors this option is simply inaccessible.
In summary here are the major benefits of electronic self-publishing

No inventory thus your cash is not tied up in stock.
No risk of overproduction and being stuck with excess stock – everything is just in time and on demand.
No paper wastage - good for the environment.
Significantly cheaper than other conventional methods (Print On Demand i.e. POD is still expensive as it has no forecasts and all is done on ad-hoc basis).
Anyone who is anyone these days uses the World Wide Web for everything – what a great method to promote your work!
Behemoth Books’ authors retain highest percentage royalties on the market
You will save a lot of time - there are no middle men and you are always in control!
No one else is as enthusiastic and keen to make your book big as you are so why go through the trouble of using conventional, publishing methods where many people will handle your case, which in the end may not yield any results.
Once you’ve self-published, the experience and credibility makes your more attractive to the large, mainstream publisher (if you still wish to go that way).
Your set up cost is a pathetic 1.97 GBP and your book is on our digital shelf instantaneously!
You can sell unlimited copies of your book to unlimited audience on the world wide web
You are your own boss managing your own business i.e. your own success.
Self-publishing puts YOU into the publisher’s shoes i.e. you are required to think like a publisher and understand what will make a book sell and what will not.

Why do I qualify to be an author?

At Behemoth Books we believe everyone has a story to tell, experience to share and ideas to enlighten the world with! Some of us however, need more guidance than others, this is why we are here to help you publish your content whether your intention is to make millions or simply share your knowledge. If you are able to logically layout out thoughts and effectively voice an opinion, you are the right person for us and if you have come this far, you are on the right track! Of course there is significant difference between writing fiction and non-fiction, however, your own research, views and experiences is what makes your publication unique. Your audience will seek expertise, originality of thought and clarity from your publication and if you work meets these criteria you are that talented author that Behemoth Books is looking for!

I am still in the “writing” phase

At Behemoth Books we appreciate the fact that everyone is different and follows different ways of working and organizing information. From best practice point of view, Behemoth Books recommends the following simple end to end process from starting up right through to uploading your publication onto Behemoth Books:

I am ready to publish my book!

Since as a self-publisher you are always in control of your own success you’ll need to try and get it right the first time – when you book goes out to the world, make sure you’ve done everything you can to make it a first class publication. Don’t give an impression of an amateur (even if that is the case). Understandably so, there is a trade-off between spending more time on the book to achieve 100% perfection and taking the book to market. If you think the book is 99% ready it is 100% complete!

Remember, publishing is a business. Make sure your material is valuable and can generate sales, by that definition it contains:

Original thought or thought leadership
Well communicated subject matter expertise
New ideas, methodologies and views sought after in the modern industry, society, life

So if publishing is like running a business then writing is like creating a work of art! Here are some rules of thumb to go by, which will give you a brief indication of how sale-able your book is:

The subject matter of the book is of interest to the masses.
You have some strong expertise/experience and deep subject matter knowledge on the topics discussed in your book.
The subject matter outlined in your book is focused and narrow with clearly defined, coherent arguments and details.
The proportion of the applicable market/audience is large enough to generate the required amount of sales.
The market/audience is easy to reach (in this context they are PC literate and are able to download your publication from Behemoth Books)

What about copyright and my Intellectual Property?

Before your work is published you need to have a clear idea of how you want to protect it. With Behemoth Books you are able to create your own copyright statement, which will be explicitly stated in catalogue listing of your publication and users who download i.e. purchase your publication(s) from Behemoth Books are required to accept and comply with our authors’ copyright statements. The copyright statement i.e. your protection is active from the moment you upload your publication onto Behemoth Books.

From best-practice point of view, you will also need to include a copyright statement in your book as well (do not forget to add a copyright symbol: ©)
Typically, the copyright protection lasts from 50 to 70 years and unless you are legally trained, Behemoth Books recommends you seek legal advice to help you formulate a good, effective copyright protection before you upload your work onto our website - this will significantly minimise you risks of loosing your IP and your work being abused or illegally plagiarized.
As we view it, in self-publishing you are always in control of your own success and Behemoth Books are here to help and guide you, however, the copyright and IP protection is your own responsibility!

What about my contract with Behemoth Books?

At Behemoth all our authors have to agree to the same, standard contract - our Authors Agreement. These terms apply to ALL authors wishing to publish with Behemoth Books and we expect ALL our authors to fully adhere to those.
Note: Behemoth Books do not pay any advances to the authors wishing to publish with us.

What are ISBNs? Do I need one?

ISBN stands for International Standard Book Number, which acts as a unique identifier of your publication. It gives your publication its own identity and prevents it from being confused or wrongly associated with other publications. Each ISBN is unique to a particular edition of your book and the assigned ISBN stays with the publication forever. The advantage of ISBN is that it also makes you (the author) the owner of that ISBN. With Behemoth Books you are always the owner of your own work and your status as an author of a particular publication is always recognized. With ISBN, you are free to change publishers, editors, printers, but the book’s identity always stays the same. As recently discovered, some publishing houses will offer you FREE ISBNs – beware, these do not always belong to you and may be the property of the publishing house, which means they have all the rights to your work. At Behemoth Books we do not offer you ISBN, and leave the decision on whether to obtain ISBN or not is entirely at your discretion.

Please note, you will need to have ISBN ready before upload onto Behemoth Books if you wish for it to be featured in the catalogue as it cannot be added later. If you wish to purchase ISBN number please make sure to include it in the following locations of your manuscript BEFORE you upload it onto Behemoth Books:

What about editing and proof reading?

Presenting your work to the world is not easy and even though it is made easier with Behemoth Books, presentation is something that you as an author should aim to get right the first time! First impressions always count in this business so make sure you’ve done as much as possible before uploading your book - be comfortable when you click “upload” that this is the best you can do! It would be heart-breaking for you and your readers to see spelling mistakes or misalignments in your published work!

Of course you cannot do everything yourself and by reading your manuscript over and over again, you may become too attached to it, which inevitably makes you biased thus you are more likely to oversee mistakes and errors.
From best practice point of view your book should be professionally edited and proof-read before it is published. However, as a self-publisher you may be confident in your own abilities and competencies not to refer to these services. Again, the decision to do so is entirely up to you, however, depending on where you want your creation to go, this service may be a very wise investment indeed. If you think that by investing 150 – 200GBP now will generate extra 1000 sales per quarter, then it is a no-brainer! If you do decide to seek professional editorial and proof-reading services, the best bet is to do it through on word-count basis e.g. a fixed price per 1000 words, so do a word count before approaching the service provider. Typically, fixed rate per page or per hour is risky as definitions of “page” vary and you may be stuck with a slow working editor. Make sure you agree the price upfront and confirm it in writing!
To save you time and money you need to check your grammar with Microsoft word before submitting the manuscript to the service provider. This is the basic and most essential element in the end to end publishing process!
Typically professional editorial and proof-reading services include the following:

Grammar and punctuation error fix
Syntax (flow of words) corrections to avoid ambiguity and to emphasise meaning
Phrase and words corrections
Highlight the areas where 3rd party permission is required in order to comply with IP and copyright laws
Restructuring and adjustment of minor sentence to improve the flow and readability of your work
Enhancement/consolidation of accuracy by providing appropriate research references e.g. quote lookups
Promote consistency and the flow of the plot by emphasizing/referring to characters/terms in appropriate places in the text

You may not want to use all of the above for your publication and typically the extent of service can be agreed on upfront.

If you are not in a position to seek professional service at this moment it time, you can try and use a close friend, someone who is qualified with the appropriate skills e.g. an English teacher or a graduate? They may do it for free, in which case do not forget to include them in the acknowledgement section of your book!

I am not sure whether my work is a book an article a paper or something else?

Definitions of publications may vary from one publisher to another, at Behemoth Books we stick to the following:

Book– a set or collection of written, printed, illustrated, or blank pages. The minimum number of pages in a book is 46.
Article - a separate, stand-alone section in the format of a nonfictional prose. Articles typically may be featured in academic journals, magazines, newspapers , the internet, or any other type of published media.
Review - an evaluation of a publication e.g. a book, movie, video game, musical composition, hardware such as car, appliance, computer etc. In addition to critical statements within the review, the author may also use ratings (e.g. one to five stars) in order to flag the object’s/subject’s relative value. As part of this definition, an author may review current events or items in the news.

Please note, Behemoth Books’ ebook catalogue is not limited to those formats and we will welcome other forms of publication, however, all published work has to be uploaded in a standard PDF format.

A few words on design and layout.

The Format

Here are some quick & easy tips that every professional publication should have the following:

An acknowledgement statement at the end of the book. This is a statement from the author thanking all companies, individuals and groups involved in support and production of your publication.
Consider adding a “Dedicated to” page at the very beginning of the book.
Description: It is good practice to include a short description of the publication (two to three sentences) on the back cover. Although this mostly applies to printed (not digital) books it will make your publication look more professional.
Make sure you have included the copyright statement in your publication.
Ensure that the 1st chapter starts on the RIGHT hand page.
Use of Images: make sure they are of good resolution, quality. Do not attempt to save money on images – better to have no images at all than to have poor, irrelevant images undermining the credibility of the whole publication. The best format for images is GIF or JPEG as these do not require a lot of disk memory while preserving the quality.
Page Numbering:

There should be no un-numbered pages in your publication! Sometimes the readers view this as a defect and may even return your publication asking for their money back! Start the numeration from the initial page right through to the last page, this will increase the overall page count and will give the impression of more value for money.
Rule of thumb; always have odd-numbered pages on the right and even numbered pages on the left!
NEVER use letter identification in your page numbers e.g. 4F, do not attempt to teach your readers on how to read books! Imagine if someone is reading you publication, while suddenly they are asked to turn to page 58, if the thought process takes more than a tenth of a second i.e. they realize how difficult it is to find pages in your publication, the reader will throw the publication in the bin.

Margins:

Make sure you have the optimal amount of white space in your page, the trick is not too much and not too little.
Best practice suggests that you should have no less than 0.25” margin size, Behemoth recommends between 0.5” and 0.6” from the top of the page and approx 0.4” from left, right and bottom of the page.

Titles: Your title needs to be short and catchy – it needs to instantly attract the reader to your book. The sub-title however needs to have a little more detail but still quite succinct (no more than a sentence).
Fonts: Times New Roman is the default MS font and Arial is pretty hard to read and absorb in large quantities, while most Serif fonts are quite good for text body, the Sans Serifs are suitable for headers and sub-header. If you want to be different try the following:

Century
Garamond
Century Gothic

The Cover
The truth is books do get judged by their covers! If a publication looks, shabby, unprofessional and cheap, this can be immediately repulsive to some readers so you may be risking losing a large chunk of your market before they even understood what your product is all about. Remember, your cover is the face of the publication so again, you need to make sure you get it right the first time!

The beauty of Behemoth Books publishing process is that you already have a standard, book cover template of your choice applied to your publication(s). So all YOU have to worry about is getting the right image, which is attractive, relevant, original, with good colours and resolution. Think about how your publication would look on a “standard” printed copy produced through a normal, home printer!

How do I prepare my manuscript for upload with Behemoth Books?

The beauty of a standard PDF file is that this is acceptable with almost any printing facility! The readers who purchased your publication will be able to print this on their standard, no-frills home printer or take it to a professional printing facility to be bound or stitched. Before you save your manuscript as a PDF file consider how and where your publication will be read – in an office block in the City or on the deck chair on the beach? So as you can see the layout, margins, fonts, page numbering and covers are critical components to consider.

Another major advantage of a PDF file is that is preserves the format that you set, regardless on which computer your PDF publication will be opened, which MS Office it has installed or which printer your customer is using to print off your work. Abode Reader (download for free here: http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2.html) allows you to access and open PDF files.

Sometimes, you may find when converting your manuscript into a PDF file, the layout that you carefully crafted is no longer there with pages misaligned and areas of text missing! These are not uncommon, but not to worry, the best layout management programmes on the market at the moment are:

QuarkXpress
PageMaker
InDesign
Microsoft Publisher
Ventura Publisher.

Understandably, different people take the learning curve in a different way and if you find yourself getting frustrated with the technology, why not just get someone else to design and do the layout for you!

Can I submit my publication in any other format than a PDF file?

Afraid not. Behemoth Books’ quick & easy publishing process and the protection of your file requires for all files in our catalogue to be in a standard PDF format. Please make sure your publication is saved as Publication_Name.pdf.

Note: if the publication does not meet the standard requirements, we reserve the right to remove it from our catalogue without any refunds so please make sure you comply. Thank you for your cooperation.

How do I know what my publication looks like once it is printed?

You may find that the printed copy from your home printer hardly compares to the colours shown the copy printed from your colleague’s printer. This is not uncommon and as an author it is understandable that you would want to know what the standard, average print-out will look like. The best and cheapest solution is to take your file to your local, professional printing facility and ask them to print it in your desired format.

A few words about Marketing

Some of you may have already attempted to publish through the conventional print-orientated industry and may’ve not been as successful as desired. Typically, publishing houses may decline a particular publication because:

The current market conditions are not right for your book. There may be too many similar titles on the shelves at the moment consequently the conditions are too competitive etc. It is recognized that, self-help, kid’s literature, business & economics as well as some genres of fiction are subjected to such pressures as these categories are extremely popular with a lot of authors working in those domains.
The market itself is not right i.e. your work may be better suited to local bookstores, online retailers, academic and/or religious circles/libraries. Not to worry, here at Behemoth due to broad spectrum and digitalized approach we can accommodate all valuable, quality publications for any market.
The book is not marketable or has not been marketed before. At Behemoth Books you are always in control of your publishing success, we provide you with all the right tools and support to help promote and market your book. However, taking the initiative yourself will make a huge difference to your sales too!
The design is wrong. If the book is not attractive, it will not sell. Here at Behemoth Books we help you create an attractive, professional-looking publication by providing you with a comprehensive set of pre-designed cover templates for your publication’s identity.
Poor quality content. This is critical! In order to be classified as a professional author you need to make sure you write quality, valuable literature applicable to your desired audience.
The publisher is not right. A publishing house specializing in children’s literature will probably not publish “Essays on Theory of Relativity”. When publishing with Behemoth Books all you need to make sure when uploading your work is to select the correct category and sub-category for your publication to be placed in as this cannot be altered later. At Behemoth Books there is no such thing as the “wrong publisher”.
Author’s rights are undermined. Some publishing houses will claim to assign your book an ISBN as part of the publishing process, when in fact the owner of the ISBN and consequently the IP is the publishing house NOT you. With Behemoth you always have the full rights to your work under YOUR copyright statement and ISBN is optional.
Lack of long-term prospects. The publisher may conclude that the book’s success (if any) will be short lived thus the investment of time and money will not generate a good ROI. With Behemoth, all good quality books are welcomed regardless of their long-term prospects. The important thing is to give the book a chance and the longevity (or lack of) will determine itself out in the open market!

All of the above except for the poor quality can be avoided with Behemoth Books publishing. So read on to find out how to market your publication with Behemoth Books!

Here at Behemoth Books we offer you a unique method of marketing your publication for free once you join. We give you:

A personal URL i.e. your personal website allowing you to promote your work for free.
A separate, exclusive catalogue listing of your publication in our online library.
Ability to load your promotional podcasts onto your URL.
Ability to blog.
Ability to load your promotional podcasts onto your personal URL.
Ability to create and distribute newsletters to your readers.
Ability to stimulate online discussions and reviews of your work.
An opportunity to become “author of the month”.
An opportunity to make your publication our “book of the month”.
Ability to upload a sample page or a sample chapter (accessible by the reader for free), which will act as a great promotional tool for your book.

At Behemoth Books we take publishing seriously and want to expand our user base to the maximum. Our Marketing team is always working on new promotions and campaigns to bring Behemoth word to the world. If however, you feel like taking the initiative on promoting your publication yourself, here are some recommended ways of doing so:

Press Releases. If you are well-connected in the media industry you can push this through yourself – just write those articles and send them through to fellow press workers. If however, you are a mortal like the rest of us, we recommend you approach professional PR firms, some of which at competitive prices and with a wealth of experience will help maximize the effectiveness your press releases. Before approaching these make sure you know exactly where and how you want your book to go. Once the press releases take off and you are riding the huge publicity wave, make sure you do not undermine yourself by not having the required level of underlying detail behind you. Make sure you have a plan!
Radio press releases and interviews. Google your local radio stations, get in touch and start broadcasting your book to the ears of your nation/town/village/university/school. The more technologically advanced method of course is Podcasting! Create your own podcast (podcast.com) and load it onto your personal Behemoth URL NOW!
Book Fairs and trade shows. These are relatively expensive but a great way to get your book in front of a lot of retailers at once. Google the upcoming book fairs and trade shows in your area and see which promotional opportunities you can take advantage of.
Join Author Associations. These typically have great connections with major publishing and media houses and also provide good support for their members.
Become a volunteer expert – you can find thousands websites that you can register with, just Google “become an expert”.

Pricing Your Publication

Behemoth Books specialise only in eBooks, this unique and relatively new industry brings a lot of advantages to the author but it is still relatively experimental.

According to 2004/2005 stats, the best selling ebook (Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown) was selling online at $14.95. This is affordable by most people and when you know you are getting good, quality content (especially after it has been mass promoted by the world media) the ebook option is pretty neat.
On the other end of the spectrum books can sell for as low as $1.00 or even given away for free as a way of promoting other, secondary products. At Behemoth Books, even if you choose not to charge for your publication, we will still deduct 0.5GBP from you for each sale of your ebook to cover the basic administrative costs.
Generally, Behemoth Books leaves the pricing of the publication to be at the author’s discretion, however, we do want for your work to obtain its maximum worth on the market, you therefore may consider the following factors when allocating prices for your work:

As a rough guide here are some pricing average statistics per category in observed by Bookwire in 2001

Subject	Price Average ($)
Agriculture	28.93
Arts	34.25
Biography	12.37
Business	18.41
Education	39.09
Fiction	6.78
General Works	28.68
History	30.79
Home Economics	19.05
Juveniles	7.36
Language	41.27
Law	36.43
Literature	16.63
Medicine	30.7
Music	33.43
Philosophy	32.07
Poetry, Drama	5.83
Religion	30.24
Science	33.28
Sociology, Economics	31.66
Sports, Recreation	19.79
Technology	33.86
Travel	18.81
Overall Average	26

Last few words…..

Behemoth Books hopes you’ve found this guide helpful and we look forward to helping you become a world-acclaimed author!
We greatly value your feedback and would love to hear from you: info@behemoth-books.com

Enjoy Behemoth Books!

Living in Middle East
By : Sasha S

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