PUBLISH WITH US
Written a book? Inherited a set of diaries that merit publication? Creating a commemorative document? Arum Press is here to make it happen.
You need to own the copyright, and your material needs to be legal and decent. We specialise in fiction and academic non-fiction (histories and biographies) but are willing to explore other areas.
The journey from manuscript to published book varies from project to project, but here are the typical steps and our guide prices. Not all steps will apply to your work, so we customise our charges accordingly.
What sort of book?
We produce hardbacks, paperbacks and e-books. For hardbacks, we sub-contract printing to a small number of specialist printers. We will advise FREE on your book format and paper stock, and we will obtain quotes for you depending on your desired specification and print run. For paperbacks we normally work with Amazon’s print on demand service – this avoids having to hold more than a minimal level of stock. We also use Amazon’s Kindle publishing for e-books – they are now the dominant producer of e-books and while they demand exclusivity, we think this is an acceptable compromise to make.
ISBNs (International Standard Book Numbers)
You will need an ISBN for each format if you wish to sell your hardback or paperback by way of retail, and we strongly recommend having an ISBN for your e-book as well. (Some people say you can get away with Amazon’s stock code instead, but we don’t agree.) ISBNs in the UK are issued by Nielsen in blocks of ten, and you are free to buy your own block if you wish. Alternatively, we will supply you with numbers from our own series at £20 each. For retail purposes you will also need a matching barcode. We charge £15 per barcode.
Copy typing
This is the first step if we are starting with a hand-written text. We will produce a formatted Word document to take forward to the rest of the process. For reasonably legible hand-writing, our guide price is £20 per thousand words.
Primary layout (typesetting)
Here we take your word-processed file and format it in the layout that will be used for the final book, complete with headers, footers, paragraph indentations etc. £4 per thousand words – FREE if we have done the copy typing.
Copy editing and first proof reading
We read your manuscript and check for obvious errors and inconsistencies in the text, stylistic infelicities, and errors of spelling and punctuation. We send you a marked-up copy of the file (we use the ‘track changes’ function in Word) for you to approve or reject our suggestions. Please note that - unlike some self-publishers - we regard this as an essential step in the process: we will ONLY publish work which has gone through this stage, as our own reputation is on the line. £12 per thousand words.
Subsequent proof reading
Most writers find that completing a book is an iterative process, and re-writing carries on well into the pre-publication stage. Any re-writes of significance after the first proof reading will require further proofing, though of course we can limit this to the chapters affected. £8 per thousand words re-read.
Indexing
For academic works, we can supply an index once the main text has been finalised, at £5 per thousand words of the main text. Please note that we do not index e-books as there is no stable page numbering system in Kindle.
Cover design
The cover of your book is a very personal matter and you may already have strong views how your publication should look. However if you want additional support, we can introduce you to independent graphic designers; or if you have a coherent vision of what you want, but need a bit of a polish, we can assist at £60/hour spent.
Production
For hardbacks, we will liaise with the chosen printers for FREE. Final file conversion to release print-on-demand paperbacks and e-books to Amazon costs £100 per format.
Legal deposit
A copy of each hardback and paperback published in the UK needs to be lodged with the British Library; and a further five organisations are entitled to ask for a free copy. We therefore ask you to fund (at print cost) six copies of your book in each format for us to deposit as necessary.
Want to know more? Get in touch via the 'contact' page!