Detailed Self-Publishing Process

Celebrating 10 Years of Publishing Success!

As a top book self-publisher in the USA for a decade, MindStir Media has the staff in place to help make your book a success. Bypass the learning curve by working with MindStir Media’s team of professionals using our streamlined self-publishing process detailed below.

• Study our self-publishing packages:
  • Paperback/Ebook publishing packages
  • Hardcover publishing packages
• Get in touch for a free consultation by filling out the form on this page or calling 800-767-0531 during business hours. You may alternatively schedule a call directly with bestselling author and MindStir founder J.J. Hebert at schedulejj.com. We’ll get to know you and your manuscript during the call, offer guidance, and help you select an appropriate publishing package for your book.
• We’ll email the publishing contract and invoice to you once you select a package.
• Once payment is received, we’ll assign a professional publishing team to you and your book including a Project Manager. Your Project Manager, also known as an “Author Representative,” will reach out to you to introduce himself/herself and collect your materials. We use a secure file sharing system through which you will easily upload your manuscript, book description, author photo, biography and images if applicable. Make sure that you submit an error-free manuscript if you haven’t selected a publishing package that includes editing.
• Your Project Manager will be the liaison between you and your book designer/illustrator and editor (if your selected package includes editing). He/she will consult with you with regards to front book cover design. We’ll want to hear your overall vision for your book cover and we’ll work hard to meet your expectations. An initial custom book cover design concept is usually completed by the designer within a couple weeks. The Project Manager will provide you with an electronic proof (i.e. “eproof”) of the front cover design. This is normally a JPG image file. You’ll be given an opportunity to offer feedback and approval. Revisions are included for free until you are satisfied with the cover design.
  • During this time, if you’ve hired us for editing and/or book illustration, your assigned professional editor and illustrator will commence the editing and illustration process.
    • Your editor will use the track changes feature within Microsoft Word to show every single edit made to the manuscript. The editing process typically takes about 30-45 days depending on the level of editing required. You’ll be able to approve or reject each individual change. Control of your content is one of the benefits of self-publishing a book.
    • Your illustrator will follow our 3-step illustration process as outlined here. The turnaround time for illustration depends on the total number of illustrations your book needs and the current workload of your illustrator. Your Project Manager will keep you updated on the illustrator’s progress. Keep in mind that if you have a children’s picture book, and you’ve hired us for illustration, we usually don’t start the book cover design until we’ve completed the illustrations for your book.
• At this point in the process, after your cover has been approved and we have a copy of your error-free manuscript and images/illustrations, it’s time to proceed with the book interior layout. Your designer will follow book publishing industry guidelines to create the custom interior. The interior will match the overall look of the cover in terms of the fonts and style. Interior layout includes copyright page (which consists of the copyright notice and ISBN); table of contents; chapter headers; footnotes; page numbers; hyphenation and more. Your Project Manager will provide you with an electronic proof (i.e. “eproof”) of the layout, a PDF file for your approval. Read through the entire interior and get back to us with your approval. Revisions are included for free at this stage.
• After the final page count has been determined, we’ll be able to generate the spine of your book, with the proper width, and also create the back cover design. The back cover design includes the edited book description/back cover copy; author photo and biography; the MindStir Media logo; the barcode with embedded ISBN and price. The spine usually consists of your author name, book title and MindStir Media spine logo. You’ll be given a full-color “wraparound” cover eproof for approval.
• With both the cover and interior finalized and approved, we’ll send your files to our printer and generate the printed proof, the first printed copy of your book. We’ll mail the printed proof to you via UPS overnight service.
• Distribution will begin automatically after you approve the printed proof. It usually takes about 1-2 weeks for your book to be available to the public through our distribution network of 30,000 wholesalers, retailers and booksellers in over 100 countries, including product listings on Amazon.com, Barnesandnoble.com, and Booksamillion.com.
• You’ll be able to discuss book marketing with your Project Manager and/or setup consultations with bestselling author J.J. Hebert during this process and beyond by simply going to schedulejj.com. We offer a wide array of book marketing/publicity services at https://mindstirmedia.com/bookmarketingservices/ that you may purchase a la carte. If your publishing package includes marketing/publicity services, we’ll implement those at this point as well.
• We’ll handle all the order fulfillment through our distributor/printer and vendors. For example, if John Doe purchases a copy of your book on the Barnes & Noble website, we’ll have that copy printed on demand and mailed to John Doe on your behalf. You won’t need to buy copies of your own book, store them and deal with the packing and shipping of each sale. Leave that to us! Of course, we realize that you’ll probably want some copies of your own book at some point (for in-person events as an example). You’ll be able to order author copies through your Project Manager or by calling our office and then you can resell them.
• We’ll mail you an official royalty statement each quarter and include a check. We spend an entire business week each quarter on royalty reporting and payments. We use the audited reports we receive from our distributor and vendors to triple-check the book sales information before creating and issuing your royalty statement and check.