How to publish your book on Bookmundo?
If you’ve been lurking on our website, wondering how to publish your book on our platform but not wanted to go so far as to create an account to find out, this article is for you! This article is a companion piece to our overview of how to publish your book online, in which we’ll try to walk you through the publishing process on Bookmundo in detail, and give you a few hands-on examples of how it works in practice.
Let’s start at the beginning: creating your book!
Create your first book project
In order to get started, you’ll need an account. It’s completely free, and you can delete it if Bookmundo turns out not to be your thing, of course. Our feelings might get a bit bruised, but we’ll live.
As soon as you’ve logged in to your newly created account, you’ll be met by the following screen:
By clicking one of the aptly labelled “New Book” buttons, you can jump right into the book creation process. Clicking this button will prompt you to choose what kind of book you’d like to create:
If you’re not sure what kind of book you’d like to create yet, don’t worry: you can always change this later. You can also always copy a book project if you’d like to create several different editions of the same book.
Now that you’ve created your first book project, it’s time to turn it into something you can print and/or publish.
Step 1: General information
In this first step, you’ll be asked to provide some general information about your book, including technical specs like paper type, size, and cover finish.
This is also the step in which you fill in the title of your book, along with the name of the author (be it your own our a pseudonym). If you’ve already created one or more author profiles in your account, you’ll be able to select one of them from a list in this step.
Step 2: Do you want an ISBN?
Next, it’s time to decide whether you want an ISBN. This is often a point of confusion when it comes to self-publishing, so let’s talk briefly about ISBNs.
What is an ISBN and why do you need one?
To put it simply, the ISBN (International Standard Book Number) is like your book’s fingerprint; it’s a unique code used to identify your book around the world. But why do you actually need one?
Technically, you don’t need an ISBN to publish and print your book. You can sell it through the Bookmundo shop, the author webshop, your website or social media, or even by directly printing and selling copies. These methods offer higher profit margins since no bookstore takes a cut.
However, if you want to sell your book in larger bookstores like Amazon or Barnes & Noble, you need an ISBN. Without it, these retailers cannot order or sell your book. Keep in mind that selling through these third-party channels results in lower margins because bookstores take a portion of the profits. This is the trade-off for accessing the reach and logistics of major retailers.
You can always come back to this step later
Not sure if you want or need an ISBN yet? No worries. You can skip this step, or even publish your book, and still decide to come back and get an ISBN later.
Step 3: Upload your manuscript
In the third step, you’ll upload your manuscript. You can choose to upload it as a Microsoft Word document or a PDF. For those creating an ebook, an EPUB file is also acceptable. If you revisit Step 1 (General) after uploading your manuscript, you might have to re-upload it depending on the extent of changes made.
Feel free to re-upload your manuscript as often as needed before publication, but keep in mind that Bookmundo will not alter the content of your file. The version you submit is the one that will be published and printed, so ensure you’ve thoroughly reviewed every aspect before publishing.
If you’re uncertain about manuscript formatting, download one of our Word manuscript templates. Alternatively, if you’d rather focus on writing, consider hiring one of our professional editors to proofread, format, or edit your manuscript.
Step 4: Book information
Step 4 focuses on ensuring your book is visible across your chosen sales channels. Here, you’ll provide a brief description, a blurb, and key metadata, such as the genre and relevant keywords. These elements are crucial for enhancing your book’s visibility in online bookstores and search engines.
Step 5: Cover design
Next, it’s time to channel your visual creativity and create a cover for your book. There are three ways of doing this on Bookmundo:
- Upload your own ready-made cover as a jpg, png, or PDF using the cover specifications provided
- Use the Bookmundo Cover Designer to create a cover directly on the platform.
- Hire one of our in-house designers to create a cover for you
The Bookmundo Cover Designer
Our cover designer uses the information you provided in the previous steps to create a perfectly sized cover for your book. This means you don’t have to worry about cover dimensions and can focus on the actual design. You can choose from a variety of templates and customise colors, fonts, and images to create a cover that represents your book accurately. Once you’re satisfied with the design, you can save it and proceed to the next step. We have an article explaining how the Bookmundo cover designer works, if you’re curious.
Upload a finished cover
If you’d rather use another software to create your book cover, simply refer to the cover specifications provided in the cover design step. As long as your design matches the specs listed here, you can create your cover any way you’d like and upload it as a JPG, PNG, or PDF. We have a guide on how to do this using Canva, if you’re interested.
Make use of our cover design services
If designing a cover yourself seems daunting, don’t worry! We offer a professional cover design service for those who want to give their book that little extra oomph! One of our in-house designers would be happy to create a cover for your book using the Bookmundo cover designer (£49). Alternatively, if you have a highly specific vision for your cover, you might want to consider our premium cover design service, where we connect you with a dedicated designer who’ll work with you to develop the perfect design for your book. To request either of these, simply fill out this form and we’ll get back to you with more information within 2 business days.
Step 6: Pricing
This is where you decide how much you want to sell your book for. Using our (aptly named) pricing calculator, you can fill in your desired retail price and get a detailed overview of your printing costs and royalties per sold copy. When you first get to this step of the publishing process, we automatically generate a suggested retail price based on industry standards as well as printing and shipping costs. However, you don’t have to follow this recommendation–you can adjust this price as you see fit. This is one of the ways we try to empower writers and democratise publishing here at Bookmundo.
Keep in mind that finding the right balance between pricing and profit is key – too high of a price may deter potential buyers while too low of a price may not bring in enough profit for your hard work.
If you aren’t interested in selling your book, you can simply skip this step! By setting your distribution settings to “private” you can skip retail channels and limit access to your book to only those you choose to share it with. This is a great option for authors who may want to keep their work within a select group or for those who are still working on perfecting their manuscript. Whether or not you want to sell your book is completely up to you. This setting can be changed at any time, so if you decide you want to try retail later on, you can simply change your distribution settings again.
Step 7: Final check and conditions
This is the step where you finally get to publish your book! But before you do, it’s important to make sure you’ve dotted your i’s, crossed your t’s, and ordered a proof copy–trust us on this one.
It’s vital to ensure your book is perfect before hitting that publish button, so make sure to do a thorough final check.
First, make sure your manuscript is error-free. Double and triple-check for any spelling or grammatical mistakes. We strongly recommend enlisting a friend or family member to read through it for another set of eyes. A proof copy is helpful here, because reading your book in printed form is going to reveal any formatting issues that may have been missed on the screen.
The same applies to your cover. It will never look quite the same printed as it does on a screen. Make sure all text and images are clear and of high quality, that everything is aligned properly, and that the colours match your expectations.
You might also want to ensure that all necessary copyright information is included in your book. This includes any images or quotes used with permission, as well as proper attribution for any sources referenced.
Lastly, verify that you have selected the correct distribution settings. If you only want to share your book with select people, be sure to choose the limited access option mentioned earlier. Otherwise, if you’re ready to sell your book on retail channels, make sure that setting is selected.
Once you’re satisfied, go ahead and publish your book!
That’s it – you’re now officially a published author. Not only that, but you enjoy the full creative rights to your created material, and you’ve gotten to determine your own retail price and by extension, your profit per sold copy! Congratulations on completing this exciting journey and we wish you the best of luck with your book sales.
As a final note, don’t forget to continue promoting your book – share it on social media, reach out to potential reviewers or bloggers for reviews, and attend local book fairs or events. With hard work and dedication, your book can find its way into the hands of readers all around the world.