Services
Below, you’ll find descriptions of our services for:
Editing
An editorial evaluation will help you if you have questions like: Is my manuscript worth publishing? Is it a quality manuscript? Does it need a major overhaul or is it ready for publishing after a basic proofread?
An editorial evaluation entails a professional editor reading your manuscript from start to finish without making any changes. Once they have reviewed your manuscript they will write a short report, often three to ten pages, outlining the strengths and weaknesses and assessing what could be accomplished with further revisions.
Editorial evaluation is $500 for manuscripts up to 75, 000 words and 0.7¢ per additional word thereafter.
A substantive edit includes one round of content editing and one round of copy editing.
A content edit looks at the overall quality of your manuscript and how it can be improved. It will address issues related to pacing, structure, theme and overall effectiveness of the story. For example, is the story engaging and suspenseful? Are the characters well developed? Are there sections that are slow, dry, or duplicating previous sections and can be deleted? Is dialogue or, in the case of nonfiction, are anecdotes used effectively? Is the manuscript structured and ordered in the best possible way?
A copy edit fixes grammatical and spelling errors and cleans up awkward sentence structure.
Our editors have a keen eye for storytelling. They will read through your manuscript and make line by line changes and suggestions on how to improve the story.
The notes are made using the “track-changes” feature of Microsoft Word, which allows you to review the comments and to either accept or reject each change to the manuscript. At the end of the day, you as the author get the final say on every change.
As with any piece of writing, there are opportunities to make it stronger. Sometimes it takes another set of eyes to really find the weak points and patch them up.
Copy Editing (2.2 cents/word)
Copy editing catches any grammar and spelling mistakes, repairs broken syntax and sentence structure, and ensures your manuscript adheres to a clear and consistent style.
Proofreading (1.5 cents/word)
A proofread is a final set of eyes to catch typos and minor grammatical errors that made it through the copy edit. If perfection is important to you, then an extra set of eyes via a copy edit is not enough — you need yet another set of eyes.
A proofread may occur after the design process but before the files are converted into print-ready and ebook formats ready for distribution.
please request a free proposal by completing the form.
Design
With the Premium Cover Design service, one of Tellwell’s expert book designers will create three custom cover designs to choose from. Guided by their Project Manager and helpful resources, authors will express their vision and expectations for the cover design, then sit back and let one of our talented designers translate that vision into three different exciting draft concepts to choose from. As with our standard cover design service, there will be two revision rounds included to finalize the author’s chosen design. The author will also have the opportunity to book an optional cover design consultation to further refine their vision before work begins on the three cover design options.
All Tellwell covers start with one of our book designers creating an original design by combining evocative imagery and font styles to create an attractive and cohesive book cover that meets the author’s personal vision, while keeping with current design trends in a book’s specific genre. The Premium Cover Design service takes some of the guesswork out of this process, allowing the author to actually see the different ways a professional designer might create a concept to visually represent the book, choose their favourite of these concepts, and refine the design.
Premium Cover Design is only available with the purchase of a publishing package.
Illustrations and text work together to tell a great story. Visual art draws the reader in and brings the story to life. Our experienced illustrators have created art across different genres from juvenile to cartoon to sci-fi and fantasy. They listen to the author’s vision, and commit to delivering art that best tells their story.
Check out illustration samples by our talented artists here!
please request a free proposal using the form.
Distribution
Book distribution refers to the process of making your book available to the public. This can include publishing your book in paperback, hard cover, and/or as an eBook, and making the book available to retail channels where people typically go to buy books.
Distribution also includes the process of printing and fulfilling orders, collecting payment, and shipping the books to customers or booksellers who act as middlemen.
Distribution has changed dramatically in the past 20 years. For print books, it is now possible to make your book available to over 39,000 booksellers without spending any cash up front on printing, storage and fulfillment.
Print on Demand systems allow the print edition of your book to be listed for sale with major online retailers like Amazon.com, Chapters.com and BarnesAndNoble.com. Brick and mortar bookstores will also be able to easily order your book through their distributors.
For eBooks, there are no major barriers to having your book published alongside bestselling authors. A handful of eBook formats dominate the marketplace, including:
- The Kindle (Amazon.com)
- The Kobo (Chapters-Indigo), which is especially popular in Canada
- The Nook (Barnes and Noble)
- Apple iTunes ebooks
The most effective strategy is to make your book available in all of the above formats as well as soft cover and hard cover. This ensures that your book is available to the broadest possible audience in the format they prefer.
Every time a bookstore buys your book for resale, or people buy your book from an online retailer like Amazon.com, you earn a royalty. In assisted self-publishing, you earn much, much higher royalties than in traditional publishing.
We offer two main streams of distribution, Managed Distribution and Direct Distribution.
The Direct Distribution route can be great for someone who really wants to be able to take control of his or her own distribution. This option gives you control of managing your all of your different accounts so you can log in to each individual account and make changes whenever you feel the need! This option puts you in the drivers seat, offering 100% royalties.
The second option, Managed Distribution, is just as exciting. This more assisted option puts a great level of the work on Tellwell, instead of you. This can be a great option for authors who do not have the time to manage multiple accounts and keep up with the agreements of all of the different accounts. Instead, Tellwell will set your book up for distribution with all of the important channels for you. Instead of managing lots of accounts, you just have your Tellwell account where we will consolidate information for you, and make it all easily accessible in one place. This option lets you sit back and relax with 85% royalties.
Here’s a summary of how we compare to the five companies that represent 85% of self-published books. Tellwell offers the best deal for authors in the broadest range of distribution options.
| Publishing Feature* | Tellwell | Author Solutions | Lulu | Smashwords | KDP | IngramSpark |
| Max POD Royalty via major retailers** | 70% | 10%*** | 50% | X | 40-60% | 70% |
| Kindle royalty | 70% | 35% | 63% | X | X | 40% |
| Kobo royalty (Chapters) | 70% | 35% | 63% | 60% | X | 40% |
| Nook royalty (Barnes and Noble) | 60% | 35% | 58.5% | 60% | X | 40% |
| iBooks royalty | 60% | 35% | 63% | 60% | X | 40% |
*Terms and conditions apply to royalty rates; for example, to get a 70% ebook royalty, the book must be priced between $2.99 and $9.99 and be priced 20% lower than the print edition.
**Before printing cost deducted.
***While Author Solutions low royalties are as a percentage of the retail, and printing costs are not subtracted, they are nevertheless very uncompetitive.
Giving authors 85-100% of the net sales revenues means we are neutral when it comes to distribution. We often work with two of the above companies (IngramSpark and KDP) for part of the solution for our clients, taking advantage of the best aspect of each, but we use other options where these companies fall short.
Providing wholesalers with a 55% discount is the norm if you want to have a chance of getting bookstores to stock your book, however, for most books we publish you can choose between the following discount options:
- 55 %
- 40 %
- 30 %
If you want to focus your sales strategy on online channels like Amazon.com, you can set the discount at 30% instead of 55%. Thus for a book that costs $3 to print and is priced at $20, if the seller takes 30% ($6) then you as the author would be left with the other 70% ($14), minus the $3 cost of printing. Your profit would be $11 per sale.
We partner with printers located within Canada, and around the world. We have options for printing anywhere from 1 book, to thousands at economical pricing.
For books being distributed you will need to know your print-on-demand cost, this is the cost the distributor charges to print and fulfill orders from the retailers, it is ‘free’ in the sense it doesn’t require cash upfront as the customer pays for the printing and fulfillment in the retail price they pay when purchasing your book.
At Tellwell, we are transparent about the print-on-demand cost, so that you can choose your suggested retail price with that in mind! To take a look at some print-on-demand costs, and the associated royalties click here: https://tellwell.ca/authorcalc
Marketing
Effectively marketing a book starts with knowing the target audience, the competition, the purpose of your book and what makes it unique. Book promotion strategies can include focusing on getting the attention of traditional and new media by sending a press release and following up with a phone call. Non-fiction books, in particular, may have a chance to receive publicity in traditional print or broadcast media, if the topic is relevant or author can speak as an expert on a subject.
Getting book reviews is also important whether it’s in a newspaper, blog, YouTube channel or on Goodreads and Amazon.com. This can be done by connecting with reviewers individually, sending a book release, mailing samples or emailing an electronic version of the book.
Building a strong online presence establishes credibility and allows you to connect with readers and promote your book. That means creating an author website and being active on social media.
Authors can have great success holding book readings and signings, doing a book tour or launch event. Speaking at conferences/festivals and sitting on panels can also be a great way to spread the word.
Authors can spend years writing a book. The more time and energy spent promoting it, the greater the book’s chance of success.
Tellwell offers a variety of book promotion services, available a la carte, to help you as little or as much as you need.
The 20-25 page strategy that follows will cover the marketing activities discussed during the consultation in greater detail including step-by-step instruction, examples, weekly action items and outcomes for each section.
In addition, you will also receive our 20-page marketing guide that reviews essential components of book marketing including identifying a target market and sales pitch, establishing an online author platform, and ways to connect with your target audience.
An author website is a central hub to share information about you and your book including reviews, news coverage, events, social media links and provides a way for people to get in touch with you. Think of it as an online business card. Not having one can impact credibility. While a Facebook page, Instagram account or LinkedIn profile are also good marketing tools, they don’t replace the function of a website. An author website provides a professional online presence housing essential information in one place that is easy to find, and allows people to contact you.
Tellwell offers a BASIC and ADVANCED website:
Basic Website ($650)
Advanced Website ($1250)
Here are some examples of each:
| BASIC | ADVANCED | |
| Custom domain name | ✓ | ✓ |
Web hosting for one year with renewal options available for subsequent years |
✓ | ✓ |
| Theme options | 5 | 7 |
| Pages: | 4-5 | 6-10 |
| About the book | synopsis | synopsis, excerpt & reviews |
| About the author | author bio | author bio & Q&A |
| Contact | ✓ | ✓ |
| Optional home page | ✓ | ✓ |
| Custom pages (blog, news, reviews, resources, events) |
1 custom page | up to 5 custom pages |
| Purchase links | ✓ | ✓ |
| Social media links | ✓ | ✓ |
| SSL certificate | ✓ | ✓ |
| Header image | stock image or provided by the author | custom image |
| Custom logo | x | ✓ |
Features:
|
x | up to 3 features |
| Revision rounds | 1 | 2 |
Number of books * Books must already be published |
1 | 1-3 |
We will contact the author within a month of the domain expiring to provide renewal options, which covers the renewal of the domain and hosting.
Renewal rates: 1 year ($95.00), 2 years ($180.00), 3 years ($250.00)
Marketing Packages
We also offer a variety of a la carte marketing services that you can add-on to a marketing package or group together to create your own tailored marketing package.
Please note, a marketing consultation and strategy is required to purchase a marketing package and certain a la carte marketing services. For a list of marketing services that don’t require a marketing consultation and strategy, please get in touch with a publishing consult and request our standalone marketing services.