Questions authors actually ask

Do I keep the rights to my book?

Yes, all of them. Copyright stays in your name from start to finish. Nothing we produce for you is licensed back to us, and we take no share of your royalties. If a publishing company asks for a slice of your rights in exchange for production work, that is a vanity press with better branding, whatever it calls itself.

Are you a publisher?

No. We do production work for authors publishing themselves. We do not acquire books and your book is never ours. That distinction matters, because a company that acquires your book controls what happens to it and we do not want that control.

Who owns the ISBN, and does it matter?

It matters more than people expect. Whoever owns the ISBN is recorded as the publisher of record. A free ISBN from a retailer records that retailer. An ISBN you buy records you. It is a small detail right up to the day you want to move the book to a different platform. Also, every format needs its own number. Paperback, hardcover and ebook are three ISBNs, not one.

What kind of editing does my manuscript need?

It depends where it is, and the honest answer is that most manuscripts do not need all four passes. Developmental editing works on structure and is the only pass that can tell you a chapter should not exist. Line editing works on voice and rhythm. Copy editing handles grammar and consistency. Proofreading is the final read, done on typeset pages. Buying a proofread when you need a structural edit is the most common and most expensive mistake in independent publishing.

Can I use the same file for print and ebook?

No, and this is the single most common technical mistake. A print interior is locked to a trim size with fixed margins. An ebook reflows, because the reader chooses the type size. Upload a print PDF as your ebook and readers get something they cannot resize on a phone, and they will say so in the reviews.

Should I publish on Amazon KDP, IngramSpark, or both?

KDP gets you Amazon, which is most of the retail market. IngramSpark gets you the wholesale channel that bookshops and libraries order through. Going exclusive with Amazon buys promotional tools and costs you every other retailer. Reach, bookstore availability and the highest royalty per copy are three goals and you cannot fully have all three. Which combination is right depends on what the book is for.

Why do categories and keywords matter so much?

Because they decide which searches your book can appear in and which bestseller lists it is eligible for at all. Two books of identical quality with different categories do not sell the same. It costs nothing to choose them deliberately at setup and it is awkward to change them once the book is live. Most authors accept whatever the upload form suggests and never look again.

Can you guarantee I will become a bestseller?

No, and neither can anyone else. Where you see that promised, it usually means a category small enough that the label is meaningless. Ranking is an outcome, not a deliverable. What can be influenced is whether the book is set up to compete: the cover at thumbnail size, the description, the categories, and reviews in place before launch.

Can I pay for reviews?

No. Paid or incentivised reviews breach retailer terms and get books delisted. What works is advance copies going out to real readers and reviewers before launch, which takes lead time rather than money. That is why review planning happens while the book is still in production, not after it is live.

What does an audiobook actually need to pass?

Measured technical checks, before a human listens. Loudness between -23dB and -18dB RMS, peaks at -3dB or lower, a noise floor quieter than -60dB, room tone at the head and tail of every file, and 192kbps or higher constant bit rate MP3 at 44.1kHz. Excellent narration recorded in an untreated room still fails these.

Do I get the source files at the end?

Yes. Layered cover files, print ready PDFs, ebook files, illustration artwork, raw video footage where relevant, and the retailer accounts in your name. Ask this question of any company you are considering. If the answer is no, every future change has to come back through them, and they know it.

How do I tell a real service from a vanity press?

Four questions. Who owns the rights. Who is the publisher of record. Can I see a written scope and a fixed number before I pay. Do I get the source files. A straight answer to all four is a good sign. Vagueness on any of them is the thing to walk away from.

What if I have not finished writing yet?

That is fine and it is common. A half draft, or an idea and a deadline, is still something we can look at. The answer just changes: it might be ghostwriting, it might be a structural conversation, or it might be that you should finish the draft first and come back. We will tell you which.

Where are your reviews?

On Trustpilot. We stopped publishing testimonials on our own site, because a testimonial a company prints about itself proves nothing and every author reading it knows that.

Something not answered here? Call (301) 246-0557 or email sales@publisherinusa.com.