FAQs
You’ve Got Questions Before You Get Started.
We’ve Got Answers!
Editing Services
Q: What are the benefits of purchasing multiple rounds of editing?
A: Our professional editing services improve your manuscript on every step of its writing and publication journey. By investing in multiple rounds of editing, you’re ensuring that high-level elements like story, structure, and all mechanical details like grammar and punctuation are fine-tuned, polished, and ready for the world to enjoy.
Q: What types of editing services do you offer?
A: We provide all the book editing services your manuscript needs to succeed: Developmental Editing, Line Editing, Copyediting, and Proofreading.
Q: How much do professional book editing services cost?
A: Costs vary depending on the level of editing service and the length of your manuscript. We offer per-word editing rates so that your investment is based on your word count, and rates range from $0.021 to $0.09 depending on the type of editing you purchase. For manuscripts less than 20,000 words, we offer flat rates. Additionally, we offer pre-built and custom packages with discounts on bundled services.
Developmental Editing
Q: What is developmental editing, and how can it benefit my manuscript?
A: Developmental editing assesses elements like story, plotline, structure, voice, and how your book may be received by its genre audience. All authors and manuscripts benefit from this phase of editing because it points out the draft’s strengths and areas for improvement, thus improving the writing overall and saving time and money on costly revisions or rewrites later on.
Q: At what stage should I seek developmental editing?
A: Our developmental editors meet your draft where it is. You can enlist the help of our team regardless of whether you have a pile of notes, a basic outline, or an entire rough manuscript.
Line Editing
Q: What is line editing, and how does it differ from other editing services?
A: Line editing looks at your paragraph structure, sentence flow, and word choice to address any consistency issues. This service also addresses your story’s overall presentation. Although line editing is a more general type of editing than copyediting and proofreading, it’s more nitty gritty than a developmental edit.
Q: When should I consider line editing for my book?
A: If you’re happy with your manuscript’s overall storyline and flow–but are ready for suggestions on how to improve elements like pacing and language–you’re likely ready for our line editing services.
Copyediting
Q: What aspects of my manuscript are addressed in your copyediting services?
A: Professional copyediting services provide a thorough review of your manuscript, identifying typos, misspellings, and grammatical errors. Copyeditors absolutely love words, so they might suggest some options here and there to make the language a bit more impactful.
Q: How does copyediting enhance the readability of my manuscript?
A: No one likes reading a book wrought with mistakes and typos. On average, our copyeditors make between 10 and 15 corrections per page. In a 350-page book, that’s over 5,000 errors copyediting can help you avoid!
Proofreading
Q: What does your proofreading service include?
A: Once your manuscript is formatted into a publication-ready PDF, our book proofreading services puts it under a microscope. We’ll thoroughly check every word and punctuation mark to ensure your book is ready for readers to enjoy. Like all of our editing services, your proofreading investment includes a dedicated author success manager who’ll be your go-to throughout the process.
Q: How can proofreading improve my manuscript?
A: Professional proofreaders improve your project’s overall presentation by not only acting as a final set of eyes before publication, but also by lending their eagle eyes to any new typography that may have been added during your book’s final formatting. They’re the last line of defense in making sure your readers purchase an error-free book.
Ghostwriting
Q: How does your ghostwriting process work?
A: Our ghostwriting services involve a few steps:
- We conduct interviews with you to get a firm grasp on your story and voice, which allows us to pair you with the right ghostwriter on our team.
- You and your writer outline the details of your book.
- We get to work making your authorship dreams come true.
Q: Can I maintain creative control when working with a ghostwriter?
A: Absolutely. We provide the best ghostwriting services available by working with award-winning writers who specialize in telling your story in your voice. You’ll maintain complete creative control throughout the project. After publication, your book will be entirely yours, including all profits and royalties.
Book Cover Design
Q: What should I consider when designing my book cover?
A: There are a lot of things to consider when creating your book cover. Typeface, font size, color, images, and back cover text are just a few. Because the cover is often the difference between a reader picking up your book or passing it by, many authors choose to invest in our award-winning book cover design service.
Q: How do your designers ensure the cover reflects my book’s content?
A: Part of our process includes a creative intake form to ensure the book design is in alignment with your vision. We will ask questions about your vision for the book cover design and the look and feel of your book.
Q: What does your book cover design service include?
A: Authors who enlist the aid of our professional book cover designers receive:
- A dedicated author success manager
- A design that suits your book’s genre
- Beautiful, custom designs for the front, spine, and back cover for the paperback and e-book formats of your book. A hardcover add-on is also available.
Interior Formatting
Q: Why is professional interior formatting important for my book?
A: E-books and printed copies all need to be perfectly laid out in order to provide the ideal experience for your readers. Our book formatting service ensures that in addition to abiding by your preferred publishing method’s templates, your book’s chapters, paragraphs, and images are engaging for your readers.
Q: What does your interior formatting service include?
A: Our interior book formatting service includes:
- A dedicated author success manager
- A wide variety of professionally developed and meticulously crafted templates
- Limitless custom layout options
- Our enormous library of fonts
- An ePUB file and a PDF version of your book
- Fast turnaround, with the initial proof delivered within 10 business days
ISBN's
Q: What is an ISBN, and why do I need one?
A: ISBN stands for “International Standard Book Number” and is a unique 13-digit code assigned to each published book, allowing retailers, libraries, and distributors to easily identify and order specific editions of a book, making it crucial if you want to sell your book through most bookstores or online platforms; essentially, it acts like a fingerprint for your book title and edition.
Q: How do I get an ISBN?
A: To get an ISBN (International Standard Book Number), you need to purchase it from an ISBN agency, like Bowker in the United States, by creating an account on their website and submitting a request to register your book. You can buy single ISBNs or bulk quantities, depending on your needs. Learn how to purchase an ISBN with Bowker in this guide from the Elite Authors team.
Q: I heard ISBNs are free with Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP). Is that true?
A: Yes! If you are planning on publishing through Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing, you can absolutely secure an ISBN for free through KDP. Please reference this guide from the Elite Authors team for a step-by-step instructional PDF and video. It’s important to know that KDP’s ISBNs don’t work anywhere else but on KDP.
Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) Services
Q: How can your services assist with Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP)?
A: Amazon book publishing services are perfect for many independent authors who want to self-publish–but their system isn’t the easiest for new writers to navigate. Our Kindle Direct Publishing services will handle the hard work and stressful parts of the process for you so you can just sit back, relax, and wait for your KDP sales to roll in. The upload service is available as an add-on when you purchase both cover design and interior formatting services.
Q: What are the benefits of using Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) for my book?
A: KDP is a great platform that allows indie authors to self-publish both e-books and hard copies without going through the difficult (and frequently frustrating) traditional publishing process. Millions of writers have self-published their masterpieces on KDP–and our publishing services can help you stand out from the crowd.
Back Cover Text
Q: What makes compelling back cover text?
A: Great back cover text must include an intriguing tagline, a book blurb that leaves your readers craving more, and a fascinating author bio. Our back cover text service has led to countless book sales for thousands of authors, and we can’t wait to help you, too.
Q: Can you help craft engaging back cover text for my book?
A: Not only can we help with it–we specialize in it! We’ll create eye-catching and intrigue-building taglines, blurbs, synopses, and author bios that you can use on your book cover, author website, pitch submissions, posters, and any other marketing materials you may be utilizing.
Manuscript Evaluation
Q: What is included in a manuscript evaluation?
A: Our manuscript evaluation service includes:
- A thorough read of your manuscript by one of our talented editors
- A detailed assessment that highlights your draft’s strengths and suggests areas for improvement
- Actionable suggestions that help you move forward
- A fast turnaround of one week or less
Q: What’s the difference between developmental editing and a manuscript evaluation?
A: A manuscript evaluation is a high-level assessment of your manuscript that focuses on overall strengths and weaknesses, and it provides you with expert feedback on major structural, plot, and character development issues. The Elite Authors team delivers your assessment in a five-to-seven-page document, which highlights areas of opportunity and includes suggested next steps for your manuscript.
A developmental edit, on the other hand, delves deeper into those elements. Your developmental editor offers detailed suggestions for revisions and helps you restructure your manuscript to improve its narrative flow and overall quality. Developmental editing happens before or during the production of a manuscript.
Q: How can a manuscript evaluation improve my book?
A: Our professional manuscript evaluators are experts in the world of self-publishing and will help you improve your book by creating a custom roadmap with suggestions on strengthening your story, structure, and mechanics. We’ll be sure to pair you with an editor who specializes in your genre, so you’ll also receive feedback on how to refine your manuscript to reach your exact audience.
Book Reviews
Q: How can professional book reviews impact my book’s success?
A: Genuine, authentic reviews lift your book toward the top of readers’ online search results, which helps you reach a wider audience–and since as many as 97% of readers check reviews before buying a book, our book review service can really catapult your success and sales.
Q: What is the process for obtaining book reviews through your service?
A: Our book review service is easy! Just follow a few steps:
- Click here to place your order
- Fill out a brief Author Questionnaire
- We enlist readers who buy, read, and post a genuine (never AI-written) review on the platform or platforms of your choice
Optimized Amazon Listing
Q: What strategies do you use to optimize an Amazon book listing?
A: We’ll provide you with an optimized Amazon listing so your book doesn’t get lost in the crowd. Our services include:
- A customized book description tailored to your audience
- Diligently researched keywords and meta descriptions specific to your genre
- Our exclusive software, which is calibrated to Amazon’s search algorithm
Q: How can an optimized Amazon listing increase my book’s visibility?
A: An optimized listing drives more traffic to your Amazon book and author pages and increases your search rankings. In other words, optimizing your listing leads to wider visibility and more book sales.
Video Book Trailer
Q: What is a book trailer?
A: A book trailer is a short 45-second video that you can post on social media platforms, your author website, and your Vimeo or YouTube channel. It includes a combination of images, music, text, and audio that provides a dynamic experience that taps into viewers’ emotions.
Q: What are the benefits of having a video book trailer?
A: A professional video book trailer reinforces your credibility as an author, grabs readers’ attention, and communicates your book’s theme and message in a different medium than text. When incorporated into your overall marketing strategy, our book trailer services increase your visibility and lead to more book sales.
Q: How do you create a compelling book trailer for my book?
A: We create a movie-quality book trailer by first having you tell us a little bit about your book and design preferences so we have a full understanding of your vision. From there, our award-winning designers get to work creating a top-notch trailer that includes custom video, images, text, and music. Once the video is complete, you’re free to use the trailer in all of your marketing efforts.
My Book Is Already In Process!
What Do I Do Now?
You’ve got your manuscript ready. You’re excited to start the process. But what’s next? Don’t worry—we’re here to help! Here’s the top questions our authors have that we’re happy to answer.
I’ve purchased my Elite service package. Now, what’s next?
Congratulations on completing the first step in your publishing journey! Here at Elite Authors, we’re excited to partner with you to ensure a smooth process. To get started, we’ll need you to fill out the questionnaire form that your publishing consultant sent via email.
I need to talk to someone about my project. Who can I contact?
Please feel free to reach out to your project management team at projectmanager@eliteauthors.com if you have any questions! We’re here to help!
