Print copies from FeedAread.com

FeedAread.com was set up with Arts Council funding and is supported by Orion group publishing and Random House. It’s free to join and to publish your book on their website. They even provide the ISBN. They also offer things that Createspace and Amazon don’t. If you want your book in hardback with a dust jacket, they can provide it (at extra cost). If you want your book to be available to bricks and mortar bookshops Worldwide, they can do that (for a small fee). With the relaunch of Hammer Blow as The Unsold Child, I had the chance to try them out.

The first thing to say is that they try to help. Once you have chosen your trim size they offer a Word template into which you can copy your book. This sets up the page size and margins. It also includes the front matter, title page, copyright notice, etc. From there you are on your own. This is a plus, Createspace don’t provide that and it makes publishing that little bit easier. What the template does not do is give you a professional looking layout. If you want the title and authors name to appear at the top of alternate pages, or if you want each chapter to start on an odd numbered page, you have to work that out yourself. FeedAread.com will convert your word file to printable pdf and provide it for your approval before committing to it.

The cover creation tool is easy to use and they provide templates. I chose to use three image files, Front, Back and Spine. The pdf file will give you your number of pages and once you have that you can use the spine calculator to give the dimensions of the spine image. I was given a minimum price for my book of £7.99, which gave me a royalty of 20%; however, if you set the price higher you get more. Proof and Author copies are available at cost.

If you are looking for speed, FeedAread.com is not for you. They state on the website that your book will be available within twenty-one days. Mine was ready in fourteen but that is still slow when compared with Createspace. The approval of the cover takes twenty-four hours and if you are not happy with the first it will take another twenty-four to approve the modified version. To get distribution beyond their website costs £88.00. This gets your print book into Amazon, Barnes & Noble and 30,000 book wholesaler throughout the world. Your local bookshop will be able to order copies. However, your local bookstore would get a better deal buying directly from you and you can publish on Amazon, using KDP print, for nothing.

Single proof copies can be sent out using UK 2nd class post. This is significantly less than postage from the USA. However, for more than one author copy they only use UPS trackable service. At the time of writing that costs £6.99 so, you would have to order a minimum of ten if you want to sell them at a profit.

I have yet to receive my proof copy so I can’t comment on quality. That will have to wait for another post.