Digital Self Publish

The hardest part of creating your book (after the writing, of course) is knowing where to start.

In our 45 years of creating books, we’ve learned everything there is to know about printing. We love to share what we’ve learned with our first-time and self-publishing customers. We’re here to answer your questions and help you get started realizing your dream of self-publishing your book.

Designing your cover:

We are often asked if it’s really best to have a professional designer work on your cover. The answer is an overwhelming yes!  A strong cover can help you sell more books.

Whether it’s our own in-house design team or outside designers we trust, McNaughton & Gunn can help you find the perfect designer for your project.

If you have design skills and are planning on tackling the cover yourself, we recommend using a book layout program such as Adobe InDesign or Quark Xpress.

Laying out your book:

We recommend checking out the following PDFs for detailed instructions on how to lay out your book design.

Perfect Bound Cover Layout
Designers Bleed & Margin Sample

Getting your ISBN:

Before your book goes to print, you'll need to obtain an International Standard Book Number (ISBN). This 13-digit number is used worldwide to identify books. A different ISBN is issued for each edition and each binding.

Self-publishers frequently ask us: “Does my eBook need a different ISBN from my printed book?”

The answer is yes!

Click here to find out more about ISBN.

You’ll also need to know about bar codes. The bar code on the book cover identifies the ISBN, which is linked to the publisher, title, author and book edition. To find out more about obtaining bar code for your books, click here, or we can create and place your barcode (using your provided ISBN) for $28.00.

Copyrights:

You’ll want to visit the Library of Congress web site to learn about cataloging numbers and copyrights for your new book. It’s a great resource for publishers as well as the general public.