Publishing Process Step-By-Step
- EDITING & PROOFREADING: The first stage is Editing & Proofreading which is done by our editing team. They focus mainly on line editing (correcting spelling, grammar, punctuation, dialogue, spacing etc). Once they are done, the manuscript is sent back to you for approval.
- INTERIOR LAYOUT & COVER DESIGN: After you check through your manuscript and approve, the next stage begins – Interior Layout & Cover Design. The interior of what will be your book will be professionally laid out and 3 cover designs will be presented to you to choose from. It is important that if you have a particular design in mind for your cover, that you communicate this to us right from the onset so the designer can produce something more along the lines of what you are looking for. However, if you have no ideas in mind at all, our designer will produce some interesting themes for you to choose from. You will be sent all of the above for approval.
- ISBN & BARCODE: It is during the Interior Layout & Cover Design stage that we register for your book an ISBN. ISBN stands for International Standard Book Number and is the 13-digit number by which your book is identified and registered internationally and is represented as a bar-code usually on the back cover. It should be noted that this is not a copyright and the book is still registered under your name as the author, so there is no risk with us doing this for you – additionally, it should be noted that this service is done FREE OF CHARGE to any author who is undertaking the publishing process with us.
- E-BOOK CONVERSION & PRINT-READY FILE CREATION: You may request any tweaks you would like to the interior or the cover design you choose, but once you approve the final designs, it is locked in as we move onto the file conversion, no further changes can be made once we enter this stage as we create the fixed and flowing files. We create the required files for uploading you eBook on any platform such as .kdp; .mobi; .epub etc. This list includes files for uploading your book onto the global platform known as Amazon where your book can be available in both Kindle formats and as a Paperback, whereby Amazon will print on demand and ship your book to a customer who orders the paperback anywhere in the world at no cost to you, other than a larger portion of your royalties from that sale to cover the shipping and printing costs. If you are publishing with us, we will usually upload the book onto Amazon in both Kindle and Paperback formats for you as well as on our own online store, mmstore.co.za which offers both eBook and physical copies via our dropshipping options.
Important to note:
- Amazon pays out 60 days after sales and will pay 25% royalties for sales in what they deem first-world tier countries and 55% royalties for sales in what they deem third-world tier countries.
- MM Store pays out within 5 business days, 75% royalties for sales less banking and transactional charges (our online store utilizes South Africa's own PayFast as a payment gateway which takes up to 15% of each sale).
- PRINTING: While you are most welcome to use your own printer even if you are publishing with us, we still provide printing services and once the print-ready files are prepared, we will be able to supply you with a quote for printing copies that will include VAT but exclude delivery charges from the printer or from us to you (you will have to foot the extra bill for the courier from us or the printer to you). You may decide how many copies you wish to print, keeping in mind sales from your upcoming book launch, sales from the website and copies for the NLSA.
- NLSA: Multi-Marketing Publishing assists authors in getting their books published from start to finish, however, it is the author’s responsibility by law to perform the National Library Deposits under their own capacity. We do however, provide the author with the information to do so thanks to a page on our website containing 2 documents which are absolutely 100% FREE to download!
- NLSA Library Deposits Booklet (All the information and addresses you need to perform the National Library Deposits)
- SANB Information Sheet (This is the form you need to fill in and send with every copy of your book that you send off for deposits. This form is editable)
- AUTHOR WEBSITE (optional): A basic author website is an essential marketing tool and flagship of the author’s presence online to promote their book to the potential online consumer-base, especially in swiftly directing them to the online platforms where they can purchase both digital and physical copies of their book/s. Multi-Marketing does not charge a fee for creating and designing each website, but there are 2 essential fees that authors need to bear in mind with regards to these websites:
- Annual Domain Fee: This is the fee you pay once every 12 months to the South African Domain Registrar via us to retain ownership of the domain name e.g. yourname.co.za. If you choose not to pay to retain license of the domain, it is permanently trashed by the Domain Registrar, meaning neither you, nor anybody else will be able to regain that name ever again. If you decide to re-open a website at a later stage, you will have to use a different domain name as the one you let go of is not able to be re-used.
- Monthly Hoster Fee: This is the fee you pay to the platform (host) upon which your site is built. They usually operate on monthly fees, but there are options on certain platforms to pay for a full year upfront. The fees differ based on what type of site you wish to have:
- Basic Site: This is a basic blog-style site where you can write about and promote all of your book and have links which redirect people to places online where your book can be purchased.
- eCommerce Site: This is a site where you can promote AND sell either physical or digital copies of your book online.
- BOOK LAUNCH: A book launch is an essential event and the beginning of your marketing campaign in officially launching and announcing your book to the world, therefore it is a potentially huge marketing tool and usually results in a huge return on investment from day 1 as many sales are made at this event, particularly from family, friends, colleagues and warm associates.
There are 2 types of launches:
- Physical Book Launches: The author hires out a venue and we assist with the admin and marketing of the launch, including arranging the programme and providing the equipment for recording/live streaming the event. We also host and emcee the event with the author and items on a Book Launch program include: live interaction with the audience; Q&A Sessions; Book Handover Presentation as well as sale of copies at the very end where the author signs copies for attendees who purchase their books. We might also get media coverage for the event and while the event may be costly, the ROI is high due to sales on the day of the launch. All related costs with regards to venue and sound hire etc are footed by the author, but Multi-Marketing does not charge for emceeing the event and will handle all the admin, marketing and paperwork related to aforementioned launch.
- Virtual Launch: This was mostly employed during the Covid-19 Lockdown period where a simple interview between author and publisher was held, recorded and then posted online for larger viewing. Some sessions were held via Instagram Live, which allowed for a Q&A Session with viewers, but there was no media coverage or any "day 1 sales" since there was no physical audience in attendance. However, no costs are incurred with this format, but no sales either. Again, Multi-Marketing does not charge for hosting this event and will handle all the admin and marketing for it.
The footage recorded from either style of Book Launch will be made use of as marketing material by Multi-Marketing to sporadically market the titles of the authors.
- NATIONAL BOOKSTORE DISTRIBUTION: It is every author’s dream to see their books on shelves of major retail bookstores such as Exclusive Books and Bargain Books.
The first thing to ensure is that your physical copies have a spine (the reason is bookstores only take on books with a spine). You also need to ensure you are able to print copies on demand as the distribution warehouse may often run short of copies for stock to fulfil orders from stores on-demand.
The first step would be to fill out an Advance Information Sheet (which we will provide to you). This form is filled out by the author with all the information about the book. It is then sent back to us and we submit it to the National Distributor who will review the application and let us know whether or not your book will be applicable to stores (they usually base it on current trends, for example, in late 2022, Romance Novels were not doing too great and only in February 2023, a romance novel called "My Dearest Deception" by Jolene Logan was accepted for distribution).
Once the Distributor gives the go-ahead, you will be presented with a Distribution Contract which sets out the terms and conditions of the distribution process. Within this document, there are a lot of clauses, but I will highlight the most important one's below so you are aware upfront:
- Upon signing the document and agreeing to the terms, you will need to pay the Distributor a once-off listing fee. This listing fee is a once-off cost and ensures you are listed on their catalogue of books that stores can choose from for as long as you are under contract.
- You will need to supply their Head Office with around 6-8 sample copies of the title/s you wish to distribute. These copies are not returnable. They go to their sales reps who liaise with regional managers and store management to promote your book to be purchased for their shelf. This is an ongoing basis, meaning more stores who do not initially jump on, may do so later.
- They will also give us an amount based off how many copies they will require for the warehouse. It could be a minimum of 20 copies or a maximum of 80 copies - you need to have these copies ready. They will advise. Upon which, you will first have to courier them to us, as we have to apply our watermarked vendor code label as well as the Purchase Order number on the box before you foot the bill for courier from us to the warehouse. Most authors bypass this bump stop by sourcing a quote from us and have us print the copies, thereby only paying for printing and one courier bill instead of two, but this is entirely up to the author.
- Once the copies are off to the warehouse, then it is the waiting game (could take a month or 2) before we start getting notifications from the people on the ground that the book was spotted in stores - you will never know any other way as the Distributor does not provide a list of stores since they are constantly changing and adding week by week as mentioned above. Our job will be to market the book as available in stores to the consumer market.
- Here's the most important part - stores will purchase copies in anticipation of sales, meaning they will buy on invoice value with a bulk discount applied (discounts are applied to convince stores to buy copies). This is the amount paid to you 90 days after purchase, these are NOT guaranteed sales.
- IF, 6-9 months after purchase, the stock has not been sold, the store has a clause in the contract to return the book back to the Distributor in exchange for the money back - the same money that was paid to you 6-9 months prior for those copies. So you need to ensure that you keep that money on hand, in case of returns. If 12 months pass with no returns, then you can safely assume the copies were sold.
That is the basic gist of the Bookstore Distribution process. And yes, this process includes major retail bookstores across the country including Exclusive Books, Bargain Books, CNA, PNA, Wordsworth and more.
We can also request for in-store books signing sessions for authors with regional managers where the author is based or more comfortable with doing a book signing session. These sessions are done FREE OF CHARGE, but usually take place on Saturdays.
- BOOK MARKETING: Multi-Marketing utilizes its Marketing Division to perform ad-hoc marketing for its published authors in the below mediums (it should be noted that it is NOT entirely Multi-Marketing’s responsibility to market your book as only you have access to your circle of family, friends, acquaintances etc and thus you too as the author need to be marketing your book):
- SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING: Multi-Marketing utilises mainly 5 big online platforms to advertise our authors:
Ø Facebook
Ø Instagram
Ø Twitter
Ø TikTok
Ø YouTube
We can create and rollout marketing campaigns with a link to one of the online platforms where your book is sold (e.g. Amazon, mmstore.co.za etc) We will handle the creation and rollout of each ad. This ad material will be spread across all 5 platforms as listed above.
What we would prefer to do upfront would be to conduct some type of in-person or virtual interview with the author on our Instagram platform via a LIVE stream video as Instagram is where most of our followers and views come from so it would garner far more interest and traction from the get-go. This LIVE will gain attention to the book and also give us some content to work with afterwards as we can recycle the interview material as rotational clips to use on our social media marketing campaign for each book. Alternatively, if the author is uncomfortable with a LIVE interview, we can do a pre-recorded interview via Skype and use clips from that pre-recorded material afterwards as regular ad content.
- BULK EMAIL MARKETING: In addition to social media, we also take advantage of Bulk Email where we post out to our mailing list regarding your book. Our mailing list is mainly collated from buying customers on our online store, mmstore.co.za, so these are already customers who may be intrigued to purchase your book, if it interests them and we have a wide demographic between 21-65 years of age. Their intrigue increases if your book is also featured on our aforementioned website, which is their favourite location to shop online for the books and services we offer.
- GOOGLE ADS & SEO: Google Ads is another platform to take advantage of as it is direct lead gen, especially when we tweak the SEO to redirect the search engine results to showcase your book when certain keywords are punched in.
- PRINT MEDIA MARKETING: We will reach out to the local newspaper of the author’s region and request some article or editorial on a local author which in our experiences most newspapers will do for free, provided we send them a write-up and pictures or have the author answer a set of questions via email. If the author would prefer and ad in the paper, we can obtain the latest rate card and negotiate an ad placement and discount on their behalf to have the ad placed as well as create the ad material for placement.
- AUDIO MEDIA MARKETING: If a budget is set-up for or provided by the author, we can explore radio options. In our experience, most major radio stations charge for interviews, some smaller one’s do not. We can do the legwork of researching and reaching out to the various radio stations in the author’s area and fielding quotes as well as negotiating deals and discounts where possible. The second approach of audio marketing would be podcasts. Again, here we will do the research and reach-out to the various podcasts in the author’s area and negotiating appearances for him/her as a guest to promote their book.
Alternatively, we can use the aforementioned Skype-recorded podcast audio for our own Podcast, The Multi-Marketing Podcast, which is an ad-hoc podcast where we interview guests such as authors and post it out on our social media and website for a limited period to boost interest in the book, especially to our regular visitors who are our core listenership.
- VISUAL MEDIA MARKETING: This includes video content posted on sites such as TikTok and YouTube, but also extends to billboards and advertising on screens in garages and other public spaces. Visual also includes one portion of what would otherwise be known as print media marketing – pamphlets or flyers – something we are capable of designing. This outlet of marketing is much pricier, but also puts your book in people’s faces and gets it noticed. Again, prices vary based on location, which municipality you are in that we will have to contact for public billboard space and also how many flyers you decide to print.
- EVENTS/GIGS: Physical events and gigs such as mall signings and appearances at local café’s or independent bookstores can be a big marketing & sales opportunity. For this, Multi-Marketing can reach out and source quotes from malls and independent venues to host such events and gigs. All related costs will be footed by the author, however Multi-Marketing will take care of all the ground work, marketing, admin and paperwork.
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