Pedernales Pricing

One Simple Flat Fixed Fee

Here is the full list of “packages” that we offer:

$3,495. Flat. Fixed.

That’s it.

One $3,495 flat fee delivers it all…stunning cover designed by world-class professionals, beautiful interior design, ebooks in all flavors, domestic and global distribution for your paperback, hardcover and ebooks. Most importantly, we provide intense, focused, concierge-level top-quality personal service and a complete understanding of the self-publishing process.

Here’s what you get for our $3,495 flat fixed fee:

Free Submission Review
Let us take a look at your manuscript. We will review it and let you know if it is ready to go. If it needs some work, we will pin-point the areas of concern. It might just need a good proofing, or it may need editing. Whether it is gold, needs a touch-up, or if it is rough, we will tell you, and we won’t charge you. You do not need to sign anything. No obligation whatsoever.
Book scanning

If you are publishing your backlist, and all you have is printed versions of your book (because your previous publisher won’t give you the actual files) we can have your book scanned, and then use the resulting scanned file as a starting point for your manuscript. 

Financial Modeling and Consulting
So you have a book. How should you price it? What about the ebook pricing? What will it cost if you want to order copies for yourself? What about if you want to get it into bookstores…there are stories about self-publishers who have had disastrous results and lost plenty of money doing that. Before you even sign up with us, we can talk to you about all of those issues. In fact, we initiate the discussion with you, because we need to know how you want your book distributed before we get started, so we can tailor the project to meet those goals. And yes, the consultation is free. After you sign up with us, we can revisit the discussion at any time.
Mockups of your submission
What will your book look like, or better yet, what do you want it to look like? Most authors don’t really know, so what we do is take your manuscript and mockup some interior designs for you. You can choose one, or ask us to combine design elements from the different mockups into one design, or you can point to a book online and say “make it look like that.” This is all before we ask for you to sign a contract or pay us anything.
Design your book cover
Once we contract with you, we will schedule a conference to discuss your cover. Some authors already have covers that were designed by the artist of their choice. Fine, we work with that designer to get your cover ready for production, or we take the files and prepare them ourselves. If you do not have a cover already, we discuss your ideas for the cover, provide our own suggestions, and then get to work on the design ourselves. This is the really fun part of our jobs. We search the multitude of custom and stock image sites, select a few, and then blend them together to create stunning covers for our clients. We use Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, and Indesign, all on the latest Creative Cloud versions, to create your cover. We present you with a few mockups. You choose the one you want, ask us to combine design elements of several, or send us back to the drawing board. Is there a limit? Yes and no. We’ll both know when we’ve reached it. Once we’ve found the design you love, we will create the production paperback version, and then design the dust jacket for the hardcover version, if you have chosen to publish one.
Layout your book interior
After the interior design is finalized, we get to work laying it out in the latest edition of Indesign. We establish the trim size, the margins, the running headers, setup paragraph and character styles, define a table of contents, and then format the book. Call-out boxes, images, footnotes, tables etc are expertly laid out and programmed. Chapter starts are defined, so you can get beautiful drop-caps or small caps if you so desire, and when we format a print book, we also format it for the ebook. That is one reason our prices are so reasonable. One pass produces the essential layout for the paperback, hardcover and ebook. It can be done, if you know how. We know how. After the formatting is done, we send you soft proofs (pdfs) to review and comment on. We apply any changes until the layout is final.
Perform account setups

Depending on your distribution goals, we get started setting up accounts for you. These can include KDP Print , Ingram Spark, Library of Congress, Copyright Office, Bowker (for the ISBNs), Kindle, Author Central, and then the appropriate ebook aggregator (such as Smashwords, D2D, or others). For each account we setup, we provide YOUR information, because these accounts belong to you. You are the publisher. All the reports, sales info, royalties, etc will go directly to you. Royalties will be deposited to your bank account. We never see them. When the project is done, we will give you the list of account user ids and passwords that we created for you. Feel free to log on and change the passwords. Just remember to record them on the form we sent you, in case you need some after-project support.

Obtain ISBNs in your name
We will have a discussion with you about your distribution goals to determine how many isbns you require. If you want broad distribution, and if you want all formats such as paperback, hardcover, and ebooks, we will need to purchase a block of ISBNs from Bowker in your name, registered to you, as you will be the publisher of record. This is included in the flat project cost, as are the title setup fees for Ingram, copyright fees, and then whatever the cost of printing and shipping your initial proof.
Obtain the LIbrary of Congress Preassigned Control Number in your name
We will first apply to setup an account for you. Once that is in place, we will register your title and the ISBN with the Library of Congress. Though not required, the preassigned control number is useful for your book to be available to libraries.
Title setups

Depending on your goals, we will setup the title of your book on KDP Print and Ingram Spark for the print versions. We will also setup the title on Kindle and the ebook aggregator we have selected to distribute your ebooks. Kindle will get the book on Amazon, the ebook aggregator will get it everywhere else, such as iBooks, Kobo, Nook and various others.

Upload your book for proof

Once the cover is done, and properly sized for your specific page count and paper color, we upload it with the finished interior to either KDP or Ingram for the initial proof. How do we choose which one to use? KDP Print limits you to 5 proof copies. Ingram allows you to order any number you want. This is critical if you plan on sending out advance review copies (ARCs) prior to releasing the book for distribution. We upload the book, we order your proof, and it ships directly to whatever address you have given us, anywhere in the world.

Copyright submission

If you have chosen to do so, we will setup an account for you with the US Copyright Office, then register your book for copyright. If the book has never been published, we can upload the book file electronically. Otherwise, we download a form for you to mail a copy of the book to the copyright office.

Manage the proof and release process
We manage the process of uploading and then revising the book, ordering proofs, and keeping the status of your title updated with the print vendor. For example, we always establish a target publication date for your book. We always keep that date in mind as we go through the book building process. When the date comes, we either let it self-release or we log on ourselves and release it. Ebooks can take a couple of weeks to show up on retail sites, if not longer. Print versions vary. Books show up on Amazon very quickly, in a matter of a day or so at times, but take longer for other sites such as B&N.com. Once released, your book will be available on all the major retail sites, domestically and globally where they have a presence. Ingram also gets your book out to book retailers in many parts of the world. Google your book once in a while. you might be surprised where you find it.
Manage the Advance Review Process

Not every author needs them, but if you wish to send out review copies ahead of the publication of your book, then use some of the feedback to create blurbs for the interior or the cover of your book, we will produce the ARCs and then update your book with the reviews and blurbs. We will make the changes as you request, and create a new interior and cover, then upload the book again. No additional charge for the changes, but you pay for the ARCs.

Design, format, and publish your ebooks

Remember we mentioned that when we format a book, we do it in a way so that the ebook is also formatted? That’s true. Once the print book is final, we make a copy of the book’s interior file, strip out a few things such as forced line breaks and blank pages, and we generate the ebook from there. First we create the epub which is what everyone except kindle uses. We pop the hood on the epub and make any fine-tuning adjustments, such as the height of the dropcaps, and clearly defining the Table of Contents so that kindle can find it. We then convert the epub for kindle. We do all this with specific tools for these purposes. Indesign to create the epub, Oxygen to edit the epub, and the Kindle Previewer tool to create the kindle file. We send you these files with viewing instructions for your approval. Then we load them to the various ebook distributors and release them for you.

Project close-out

At the end of the project, we archive your files for you. We do not charge you for this. We can also send you a zipped file containing all of the design files for your book…the cover, the interior, and the ebooks. This is so you can, if you wish, take those files to someone else for followup work, such as publishing a revised edition. We never hold you hostage by keeping your files from you. You paid for them, you own them. And several times we have been contacted by authors who we published many years ago, asking if we can provide their final published files. The answer is always YES.

Some exceptions to our pricing

Our price is very competitive considering everything we deliver, the superb quality and the concierge-level, personalized service you receive. We don’t believe in gouging authors for products that are essentially byproducts of the original work, such as the ebooks and hardcover editions. But there are a couple of exceptions:

ARCs – charged to you
Proofs –  charged to you
Images – up to 25 at no additional cost
Indexes – priced separately

Everything is in your name, you get 100% of the royalties and complete transparency to your sales. And be careful here. If someone offers you a “free” ISBN, then you will likely not be the publisher of record. They are.

Want it really really fast? Expedite it.
On occasion we get a call from an author in a bind. There is a seminar, or some other event coming up soon, and they want the books to be ready by then. Problem is, it’s in a few weeks. Yikes! But we have a solution. For an additional $450 we move your project into warp speed, and from your final manuscript submission to proof stage we do it in two weeks or less. Once you receive and approve the proof, we can release the book and order however number of copies for expedited shipping. Typically the biggest issue is the cover design, but we have done many of these expedites and our team has always been able to deliver and maintain our highest levels of quality. We all collapse later.
Do I get free books?

We are sometimes asked this question by authors who have been shopping around and are trying to compare services. No, we do not give you free books. That is a gimmick. Let’s say your book costs $3.50 each to print, and they give you 50 “free” books. That costs them $175, and you are paying for them one way or another…most likely by paying for a higher “package” price. Instead, we show you how to buy your books yourself, at cost (not at the retail price!), and you can buy as many as you want, anytime you want them. As the publisher, you will own the account, and can log on and place orders anytime. We will show you how, and if you need us to place the first order for you, we will.

See our FAQs for similar questions.

Brilliant at cover design, flawless quality, responsive and efficient. You couldn’t be in better hands than Pedernales.”

Darrell Delamaide, journalist, news commentator, author of The Grand Mirage and Gold.

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