Publishing Services - For Publishers

My Proposal to You My Proposal to You is simple. I’d like us to talk and see if we have something between us that can work for both of us. I am very straightforward and hardworking and so is our entire staff, from Senior Project Managers to Book Formatters. If you think in the next year you are going to produce more than 20 books for which you could utilize us, then we should talk. Please hit this ‘Talk to Jon’ button so we can find out if we have a good match between our firms.

Hi,

My name is Jon Fitch. I’m the founder and President of Accurance. If you are reading this, you are probably a book publisher - traditional, print-on-demand, or subsidy.

We are *not* a publisher and don’t intend to become one. Ninety-five percent of what we do is offer services to companies like yours - the main manuscript pre-press services that often balloon a publisher’s cost base: book cover creation, manuscript interior formatting, ebook conversion and distribution, mechanical editing, illustration.

Our market position is simple. We are, bar none, the most cost-efficient, highest value per dollar vendor of these services in the world.

I know that is a bold statement, but 10 years and 20,000 book titles of experience tell me it is true. Since our founding in 1999, we have been the main pre-press supplier to some of the largest POD publishers in the world. There was even a period when, for a couple of years, we had 50% world market share of the POD book-publishing pre-press volume, when POD was in the earlier years of explosive growth in number of titles.

We weren’t smart enough to keep that dominance, but we have been good enough to continue doing what we’re doing, and providing service levels on several metrics our clients report they cannot get anywhere else. We have presently produced the interior formatting and/or book covers now for 20,000 books. Our prices for our publisher clients have not changed much in the last ten years.

We have publisher clients that are traditional, POD, and subsidy. As you know, the ‘lines have blurred’. We have been building and refining our production services machine for more than ten years. We are not publishers and our pricing reflects that. It gives our publisher clients a huge advantage. We are faster, cheaper, more creative and operate at a very high level of customer service in behalf of our publisher clients. We have been told this over and over.

Some Highlights. Please compare.

I’d like to give you some bullet points, so you can compare the possibility of working with us, with what you are doing presently:

• There is no author services firm or book-publishing services firm worldwide that we know of that offers the services we provide for less cost. In many cases we are 1/2 as expensive. We are, in fact, often less expensive than in-house alternatives.
  
  
• Fifty percent of the worlds largest Authors Services firms servicing self-publishing authors, presently do or have in the past depended on us to produce the majority of their pre-press book output (book cover creation and interior book formatting).
  
  
• We have just rolled out an e-book conversion service and distribution service that outputs for six different devices and lets our publisher clients choose (and continue to build) the ebookstore sites they want. Complete reporting on each candidate ebookstore site on 15 metrics. We believe it is the most comprehensive service in the world.
  
  
• Our average turnaround time for most of our publishing clients for covers and interiors is 3 days. Although we average more than that for some services and in some peak-time situations, we also regularly do ‘overnight’ turnaround for our clients on our most popular services.
  
  
• We have formatted over 20,000 raw manuscripts, converting them to press-ready. This means we do it well and fast - after that much practice, how could we not?
  
  
• We have created front/back/spine book covers for more than 18,000 books. We do *not* use visual templates. We do custom work, every single time.
  
  
• We currently provide rigorous Mechanical Editing services at a volume of more than 25 million words per year and at a price that is half or less than that of most editing services.
  
  
• For publisher clients, our most popular service - creating the front/back/spine press-ready art for the book cover, combined with front-to-back formatting of the book interior - ranges from $140 to $225 per book. This includes the original PDF draft plus up to three revision cycles for each.
  
  
• Our pricing for a 50,000 word manuscript mechanically edited averages a little over $300. This includes, if your author needs it, a 5,000-word trial with 100% money back guarantee.
  
  
• Our clients are nearly always flabbergasted with the combination of turnaround, price and quality. Our biggest problem - and I really wish I were kidding here as it is a sore spot - is that prospective clients simply don’t believe it when we explain what it is they can expect from us.
  
  
• We are fully ‘private label’ for all our publisher clients. Your authors will never, ever know that you are not doing the work in-house. It has not happened in 10 years and 20,000 authors, and it is not going to start now.
  
  
• It is rare that a publisher or author we work with is unhappy with any aspect of our service, at any time during the service. In fact, once we have a book publisher partner, it is uncommon that they ever leave us.