Services
How Can Frank Help You Self-Publish?
His Self-publishing services are designed to get your manuscript into print…
Anyone who has ever published a book will tell you that there are not many emotions to match that of holding your new book in your hands when it arrives hot off the press! This is as true for your 10th book as it is for your first, especially if you have gone the self-publishing route. As a self-publishing facilitator, Frank is here to help you ensure that your new “baby”, which has cost you so much blood, sweat and tears, is as pristine and error-free as possible. You are the creative one, and he is the technician who helps you make it work.
Check out the Cost-Estimator on the Fees page to get an idea of what it may cost.
Proofreading
You are an author, a storyteller, a creator, not necessarily an expert speller or even a great typist! It is a well-known fact that it is almost impossible to proof and edit your own work: you are far too close to the idea and the story to see the writing “imperfections” in your work. and we all make them! Frank’s proofreading service ensures that your written work is free from grammar, spelling, and punctuation errors. He meticulously reviews your content to deliver a polished and error-free manuscript.
- Spelling.
- Grammar & Punctuation.
- Typographical Errors (“Typos”).
Editing
Frank come from a career background in newspaper and magazine editing and sub-editing, and has the “trained eye” to help you enhance the clarity, flow, and overall structure of your content. He provides valuable feedback to help you improve the quality of your writing. He looks at consistency, capitalisation, sentence and paragraph structure, and remaining true to your “voice” as an author. He will also undertake, at an additional fee, specialised functions such as indexing, re-writing, restructuring, or research.
Preparation of Photos & Graphics
Some books, non-fiction books in particular, contain illustrations, photos and other graphics to illustrate the content. Over the years, Frank have worked with pictures and graphics in all sorts of formats and of varying quality – from old sketches, yellowed prints, and smartphone-generated pictures to professional shot, high-quality photographs.
He has developed his own technique for the digital enhancement of even the most faded and scratched black-and-white print, sometimes painstakingly going over faded line sketches line by line (see illustration at right – the top was the original, and the bottom was the result. This sketch was deemed good enough to use on the cover of the book).
He works with both physical prints, which are carefully scanned and then digitally enhanced, and digital pictures. As many of the latter are taken on cell phones these days, they sometimes require a great deal of work to make them print-ready.
Book Formatting & Cover Design
Frank provides professional book formatting services, using the latest Adobe Indesign technology to make your book visually appealing and reader-friendly. He was one of the pioneers of desk-top publishing in South Africa, having originally trained on server-based legacy systems introduced by some of the major newspaper groups in the late 1970s, and was one of the first people in the country to purchase Quark Express, the leading desktop publishing (DTP) programmes of its time.
With more than 150 books under his belt, there is very little in the way of typesetting and formatting that he has not encountered, from typesetting in Hebrew and Greek, to complicated tables, footnotes and indices – even some very difficult family tree diagrams!
Cover Design: While he does not claim to be a graphic designer, he believes he has produced some great covers over the years, at a fraction of the cost of a professional designer!
Specialised Services
New Life for Old Books
We have developed and perfected a process to give old, out-of-print books a new lease on life. These books fall into two main categories:
1. Special books for which the copyright has expired and which are therefore in the Public Domain; and
2. Those whose copyright owners commission new iterations of the original.
The process involves scanning the text of the original book – this can be done without destroying or harming the original – and converting it to a word-processing document. Publishing software is then used to rebuild the book from scratch. The same process is applied to illustrations or pictures – they are scanned and digitally enhanced as necessary.
eBook Creation & Conversions
I specialise in converting your content into various digital formats, including ePubs, Kindle, and interactive PDFs, using State-of-the-Art apps like Adobe Indesign and Kotobee Author.I can make your eBook fully interactive, with quizzes, audio and video components. I can also assist you get your eBook uploaded to various sales platforms, local and international. Over the years, I created and/or converted more than 200 eBooks, both those of my authors, and on a contract basis for a large media house in South Africa.
Private Publishing - Memory Books, Memoirs, Special Occasions
I help preserve memories, private stories and family histories through the publication of special memory books, books for special occasions, and family stories for private distribution.
Small print-run publishing for private distribution is now within reach of just about anyone who wants to tell a story to a select, private audience. This is made possible by Write-On Publishing’s highly competitive fee structure and the relatively low cost of modern short-run digital printing technology.
Let Write-On Publishing do the whole job for you – scanning, data capturing, layout and design.
Create great celebration event books like Fr Paul Fahy’s 50th Jubilee as a priest.
Get my Free Self-Publishing Guide
You will be able to download both my Free Self-publishing Guide and my latest newsletter when you request a Free estimate for your book.
