A. We care about our client’s files and manually format and convert each one for submission. Most services advertise “free” conversions and never even look at a client’s file. They do it all on autopilot. If the file is junk—that’s what gets submitted to the online retailer, and in many cases, it is rejected for that very reason. We’ve seen all kinds of corrupted files come into us. We don’t let them out until they are right. Clients who want it done correctly usually end up going through a paid-for service.

Our team of professionals each average 20 years of experience, bringing a wealth of knowledge and expertise to each client.

Best of all – our prices. We are the most competitive in the industry. We have never lost sight of our objectives, and that is to bring the latest technology to our clients at affordable pricing.

A. We are a hybrid publishing company, which means you receive the best of both worlds – traditional publishing and self-publishing. Typically in a true self-publishing/vanity company, you, the author, are responsible for your files, 100%. Using our services, we look at each page of your manuscript, we perform a surface edit, and we format your book in a highly professional manner using standard industry policies. Your book has our name on it and your name, which means we put extra attention to all details. We also guide you in decision making to make sure mistakes are avoided. You can ask questions at any time, as we feel the more comfortable you are with the process, and the more you understand the industry, the greater success for your title. We also offer the most extensive distribution in the industry. We have built a solid reputation, which has allowed us to grow, as we are indeed an international publisher. We have published books from authors in over 27 countries. We have published books from the rich and famous, known established authors, first-time authors, and we are publishers to other publishers. We care about each title that we publish, which gives you peace of mind that you are in good hands.

You retain all your rights, you keep 100% of the retained royalties, and you are non-exclusive when your book is listed with us.

A. Yes. You keep control of your rights and the content of your book. We act as an Agent/Publisher, not a Traditional Publisher in that sense. For the purpose of submitting and managing your book, we retain temporary rights (granted by you when you obtain our services) as the publisher. This authorizes First Edition Design Publishing to submit your book through distribution outlets. As a company, our intent is not to control ownership at any time of your book. You have the right at any time to make changes, control the pricing, and control the distribution. We do not retain any royalties of your book. Our services are only for those that hold the rights to their works. Retaining our services under a false pretense of ownership is punishable under federal law. All books that we submit for distribution are done so with digital rights management (DRM). DRM restrictions include limiting copying, printing, and sharing of e-books.

A. Quarterly. – It will take a few months before you receive your first set of royalties. We do not receive real-time numbers; we have to wait for venues to send us reports and funds before releasing them to you. Please keep in mind that because we payout quarterly, the royalties received in that quarter can be from sales that took place up to six months prior. If your sales are below $20.00 for any given quarter, those funds will be held until the following quarter in hopes the amount distributed back to you is more significant. We do have a minimum of $20.00.

A. YES and NO. Depending on the various venues and contracts we have in place – we maximize the highest royalty rate along with the broadest distribution for your book. First Edition Design Publishing has founded its business practice on the most extensive visibility possible for every title. We believe every potential reader around the world should have access to your title. We pride ourselves on having the most extensive distribution in the industry. Almost all our contracts are listed with a 40% – 50% discount on POD and 30% on eBooks.

To calculate your exact royalty return on a POD, we need your book’s final page count and the suggested retail price. We like to aim for all POD authors to retain at least $3.00 per copy sold. You are always welcome to send in your manuscript for a free evaluation.

POD Shelving Rate is a different type of program. The industry dictates that if your book is listed with a 55% trade discount and your book has ‘return status,’ your title is eligible for bricks and mortar shelving. This can include retail stores such as Barnes & Noble, Wal-Mart, Target, Grocery Stores, Gift Stores, Costco, Sam’s Club, Specialty Stores such as Williams and Sonoma, and the like.

To participate in this program, you have to make sure you do two things – one, on the submission form that you submit to us after you place your order – make sure you check the box that says ‘55%’ and makes sure you order the ‘bookseller return program’ for the territories you are interested in.

We will work with you to optimize the suggested retail pricing, ensuring a fair royalty is programmed into the pricing. The ‘bookseller return program’ is good for the life of your book as long as it is listed with us*. Suppose this program is something you are interested in, it is highly recommended that you order the program from the onset of your order, as ordering the program at a later date can cause much delay in propagating the discount and return status, not to mention if the pricing is not correctly listed on the back of your book to reflect a 55% discount, you will have to pay an additional 165.00 re-submission fee to have the cover re-priced correctly. This is not to say it cannot be done, however, the process will be more costly and inefficient. Booksellers like to see this status from the release of a new title and are more prone to consider the title for shelving than if these changes occur after the book has already been circulating.

*The return program acts as an insurance policy of sorts. Therefore, if the book’s claims exceed the buy-in price, your return status can be terminated. This is a rare occurrence; however, we do have to disclose this information. Keep in mind, once a book sells, you will still receive the royalty, regardless if the book has been returned at a later date. We do not require the royalty to be paid back. It is yours to keep. This is part of our return program. However, if sales take place and books are returned in the same time period, no royalties will be paid, as the sales and returns wipe each other out. If books are returned in full, you will be given an opportunity to buy those books at a discounted rate.

A. Various times throughout, we will process royalty payments. You will be made aware of these statements as they will be emailed to you. You will also be able to log into your First Edition Design Publishing online account and view all reports. These statements will be housed in your account forever. At any time, you can view these. Due to our vast distribution, we cannot track sales in real-time, as most venues do not offer real time numbers. We can only track sales when we receive the statements from each distribution venue. Once we accept the statements and payments, we enter that into our system and pay you that royalty. You typically will receive two different statements, one showing print book sales and one showing eBook sales.

A. The statements that we provide you are sent to you via email and contains a link to your online account. That same statement is housed in your online account at First Edition Design Publishing and can be accessed by logging into your account and clicking on the statement link.

Ebook statements and POD statements are sent out separately. POD statements are sent out once a quarterly and contain the ISBN, title, qty of books sold, royalty amount and total. The royalty amount on all POD books should always be the same, except in some instances where the currency exchange rate or venue processing fee alter the pricing. If the amount varies on the POD sales, it will be noted on the statement.

Ebook reporting is slightly different. We do not put the number of books sold on the ebook report for various reasons. The number of books being sold is eliminated from the report due to the royalty amounts on each ebook sold varies not only from venue to venue but within the same venue as well. We do make a distinction when an ebook sells far below the average 70%. We will give you a separate line item that notes the royalty fell into the 35% category due to undeveloped country sales. As an example, distribution venues can charge small misc fees – although they equate to pennies, the pennies are enough to cause different amounts on each book sold depending on the location of sale, if the book was returned, bandwidth usage, chapter or page count download from libraries, etc.

As a master distributor it is not feasible for us to list all details of each transaction for each ebook sold on a line item by line item basis. Authors and publishers can sell 100’s if not 1000’s of books per title every month – which does not allow us to provide such detailed information.

If you are trying to figure out the quantity sold regarding your eBook, just divide the estimated royalty amount of 70% into the gross royalty. This will provide you with a reasonable estimate of the number of books sold. 95% of all venues that we have negotiated with have a rate of 70%, or the venue already has a published rate of 70%. Some are higher and some are lower. Please check with the venues online to review their published rates. Our rates are either the same as the published rate or higher. Google is the lowest, running at around 50 – 55%.

A. Payments are made via PayPal. We have chosen PayPal as our payment provider as they are the most secure. You manage your account, and we do not retain any personal banking information. Your banking relationship is between you and PayPal. If you do not have a PayPal account, do not worry – upon the first payment sent to the email address that you have given us, PayPal will walk you through setting up your account online. The process is secure, quick, and easy.

A. That is your judgment call. However, we can make recommendations after we review your title.

EBOOK pricing – We will recommend for short stories $2.99 – $4.99, novels $4.99 – $6.99. Pricing below the $2.99 limits where we can distribute. Also, please keep in mind, although you are setting the price and we are submitting your suggested retail cost – some distribution venues maintain the right to adjust the sale price.

All venues from time to time will discount the eBooks as much as 25%. Please refer to any of the distribution sites for their terms and conditions. Although all venues have the right to discount your eBook / POD, that doesn’t mean your royalties are discounted. Most booksellers absorb the discounts through their profits.

PRINT pricing – we will provide you with optimized pricing and explain your options to you.

Our system considers page count, genre, quality of the title, quality of cover, demographics targeted, current trends, etc., to obtain the optimized suggested retail pricing of your eBook and print book. We will pass that information to you to help you make a solid decision.

A. Once your files have been finalized, it can take 1 to 2 days for the eBook to start popping and 3-8 days for the print book to start popping.

We do not control the acceptance of your book into all venues as distribution points have the right to reject any book for any reason. We do make efforts to assure acceptance, however, we cannot guarantee any venue acceptance.

Overall we reserve the right to take up to 60 days to cover any delay that is possible with the distribution venues. Copyright issues can cause the longest delays.

A. We are licensed Apple developers, Microsoft Solution Providers, SEO Certified and hold a host of other professional certifications, and licenses.

A. We cannot guarantee acceptance of any eBook or print book. However, if we do have an issue with any distribution point, we would work very closely with them until we correct any problem they may have with your eBook or print book. With that said, we have never had a rejection due to the scrutiny we put each book through. We catch the glitches before it goes out the door. Distribution venues do maintain the right to control the content on their sites – therefore, if you are writing a book that can be libelous, it most likely will not get placed. First Edition Design Publishing does not censure any content.

A. Yes – you have to have an ISBN (but we provide them as part of our service). That is how search engines will find your book, match keywords, and provide a host of detailed information. Although some distribution points do not require an ISBN, most of the larger retailers require one. We will assign one to each form of media that we are publishing of your title. Different media types of products require a different ISBN. Our ISBN’s are registered to us and therefore, we use all the ISBN functionality to help market your eBook and POD (print) to various distribution points. We apologize. However, we cannot use your ISBN. The ISBN is in place to identify the publisher.

A. A Google search or any search engine of the book title and author’s name will show your book’s availability. Most people have a favorite eBook or print book retailer; they will find your eBook or POD through the retailer’s search engines.

You should also add a link to your eBook and print book of some sellers on your web site. We suggest using the following links: Amazon, Google Play, Apple, Book Depository, and B&N. Publishing the ebook and print book is only the first step. Once we convert and submit your title into distribution that provides you your published product platform– now you have to market your product.

A. Google searches will readily reveal your eBook and print book availability at the locations where most of your readers’ shop: Amazon, Apple’s iBookstore, Barnes & Noble, Google Play, Kobo, Gardners, and many more online retail outlets. Many locations, such as schools, universities, private book clubs, retail stores, organizations, etc., have secure internal databases within their intranet. These are not made available to the public but can be accessed by registered users who have a login and password to enter their system.

A. No. We take care of all formatting. However, you can do a couple of things that will maintain the integrity of your book.

Please make sure all hard breaks in words or at the end of a line are removed. Please do not manually put these into your manuscript. We cannot guarantee that we are able to remove and fix this type of error.

The only hyphen/break in a word that is acceptable is one that is intentional for grammatical purposes, not one that makes the justification look better.

The forbidden text box cannot be submitted to us – we cannot work with these. Please take them out and place the text in the document, same rule pertains to pictures, do not put them in a box—paste them into the document (above or below text, not anchored in).

Most of our distribution partners have a proprietary system for formatting. Although we have to give them clean, formatted, and converted files (as per dictated industry standards) – they will still run the files through their proprietary system. This means that some formatting placed in your book may not stick.

Please remember that eBooks are not print books. eBooks are concerned about the text, uniform sizing, singular font, proper spacing, etc. The user has the ability to customize their reading experience. It is not for us to force a particular style.

Here at First Edition Design Publishing – all of our eBooks have a uniform title page, uniform font, and size. This is required by us from our distribution partners and industry standards to provide the end-user with the best reading experience.

An eBook is one long continuous file. Therefore headers, footers, and footnotes will be taken out of your book. If you want to keep your footnotes, we will reformat the information to the book’s back as endnotes.

A. Our first choice for your file is a Word Doc. If you do not have a Word Doc, please submit the native file that the manuscript was written in. If we have a problem, we will call you and work with you until we have a file that we can work with – nothing is impossible!

A. When your files are formatted for an ebook, they are formatted and converted to make the text continuous, thus removing many spaces, and page breaks. You also have to keep in mind that eReaders come in all different sizes. A typical 300 page book may appear as 2000 pages on an eReader. Most eReaders do not keep track of pages, but measures the eBook by percentage. For example – if someone reads the first 100 pages of a printed book, the eReader will recognize that as 33% read, not 100 pages read.

A. Again, eBooks are a whole different animal than print books. The e-Reader doesn’t see your file as individual pages but as one continuous file. That’s why many e-Readers show the percentage of pages read as opposed to page numbers. It’s showing you how far into that file you are.

A. Yes and no. If you submit your file with color pictures and the e-reader is black and white; the picture will only appear to be black and white to the reader. You also have to keep in mind an e-reader is smaller than a printed book. Therefore, viewing any picture details can be very difficult for some users depending on what device they are using.

The format of the picture cannot be wrapped around any text. The picture must reside either at the top or under a block of text. If you submit your book with graphics and the picture is not formatted properly, we will move the picture to the top or bottom of the corresponding text area.

One other option is to remove the picture and provide a link as to where the image resides. You can set up an HTML page with your images, upload the page, right-click on the picture and copy the picture link. Insert the link instead of submitting the picture. The text of the link should be “picture.” The reader will know to tap on the “picture” link to view.

Keep in mind e-readers can vary in size from 3 x 5 inches (some even a little smaller) to the size of an iPad and even a computer screen size. The user controls how they view the eBook.

A. No. We will automatically format your manuscript or finished book from any file type and convert it to the correct format for submission to the various distribution points.

A. All fees are listed on our packages tab of our website. The only ongoing cost is a $45.00 annual fee to keep your print book in circulation. No annual fees are required for your eBook.

A. Sure, on orders of three or more items. Send us an e-mail with the items you want and we will provide a custom quote.

A. We do accept submissions in Spanish or any other non-English written manuscript. Submissions in non-English will receive the same vast distribution that we offer as over 70% of our venues accept non-English titles. However, all non-English manuscripts will be required to pay the non-English verification fee of $35.00.

A. We allow price changes on eBooks (after 60 days), meta data changes on print books and eBooks and any administrative information.

A. You must submit a minimum of 5 titles on your first order to receive publisher status. No exceptions are allowed. If you would like to perform a test submission, please use our regular channels on our web site. We offer two levels of publisher accounts – basic – the publisher provides formatted files or premium service – the publisher provides raw files.

A. No. You can choose to publish your book solely as an eBook or solely as a POD.

A. Yes and No. We assume that the file you send us has been edited and corrected. We will perform a surface edit and do our best to correct any blatant errors in spelling, punctuation, or grammar. However, we will remove double spaces between sentences and extra spaces within words. We also remove any tabbing and spacing between paragraphs. One example we see a lot – the word “It’s” is submitted to us with a space between the “t” and the apostrophe. We will remove that space.

A. We offer full proofreading, which includes typographical, grammatical, punctuation, fragmented sentences, spelling, and some level of content feedback. You will receive your document back in a Word doc, with directions on how to view the proofing properly. We also offer a host of marketing services and print media such as business cards, sell sheets, etc.

A. Unfortunately, we do not release our working files. Our primary service is to format and convert the files we receive and submit them to various distribution points in their correct format. Our clients are not buying a tangible item from us; they are buying our submissions’ service. Our internal working documents are useless to anyone other than to us internally. We offer additional services that provide conversion only where the client pays strictly for a copy of a file in a PDF, DOC, or ePub format. Please see our web page under “Packages.” If you are only looking for a PDF, give us a call for pricing.

A. Our distribution list has grown and is continuing to grow. We cover all major online retailers, schools, universities, libraries. Our territory is worldwide, and we are very active in over 140 countries. For example, Apple added 26 new countries, and we just added over 700 venues in South America, and Google just added Italy. Major distribution to the schools and libraries is worldwide in over 100 countries. The estimated potential readership of any of our books is in the billions!

A. Every book has to have a cover. If you do not already have a cover for your book, our team of designers can provide you with a professional cover design and layout. Please see our packages page for pricing. If you already have your cover art or are planning on designing on your cover, please make sure your specifications are the following: minimum 100dpi and 1200 x 1800 for ebook and 300dpi and 1800 x 2700 POD. We will supply you and your designer with the cover art template and directions once we have an approved interior of your print book.

If we are creating your cover and you already have some artwork, you can still submit that to us. However, a fee of 175.00 will still be charged as we still have to create the remaining layout, pricing stamp, bar code, imprint, spine, etc.

A. YES – you can buy single illustrations or full book up to 15 illustrations or more. You can work back and forth with the illustrator to get just the perfect look and feel for your book.

A. Once you submit your manuscript to us, your work is copyrighted. Current law states that your copyright on your written work is implied and protected without registering with the US Copyright Office. We always make sure on the title page we insert “copyright/year YOUR NAME.” This is sufficient to imply your ownership.

A. We accept all manuscripts in every language. However, we do not have the staff to verify and edit all languages. There are just too many languages to process. Therefore we have a third-party firm that will review your title for us to confirm the content. We have to know that we are publishing a legitimate title. You are responsible for submitting a completed and fully edited manuscript to us. We prefer a WORD DOC, as that will produce an error-free conversion with minimal risk. As with all POD submissions, you will receive a proof that you will be responsible for reviewing. Please triple check all work, as we cannot be your eyes. We can only produce a correctly formatted manuscript for distribution. Upon your final approval on all POD submissions, we will run your title back through the verification process at no additional charge to you. Please keep in mind, although we can process all languages for a print book, many online eBook venues cannot process all languages. Common languages that cannot be processed via eBook are Korean, Chinese (simplified and traditional), Hebrew, and Greek.

A. Welcome to the world of used books, or pretend used books.

Most of these booksellers are following a horrible precedent that Amazon has demonstrated as something very profitable to them corporately, yet a very despicable practice that is frowned on by publishers and authors. This is the practice of new/used sales by unauthorized persons. These unauthorized sales technically are not illegal, just not very moral. These are people that prey on other people’s ignorance. They say they have a used or new copy of a book and list it slightly lower in price than the authorized bookseller or much higher in price than the authorized bookseller.

When they list the book at a lower price, they make up the difference in the shipping charges they hit the buyer. When the unauthorized bookseller lists the price much higher, they give the impression to the unknowing that the book is rare or worth much more money and the buyer is getting a deal.

This does not mean the seller has the book in hand – they attempt to buy the book once they have an order for the book – therefore, they buy the book new, and there is only a minimal chance, if any, that they are buying a used book.

How does this affect the author? The author is still getting the royalty from the sale as this predatory seller still has to supply the book; thus, they usually will buy the book from the same company they are advertising on. However, sometimes if the predatory seller cannot buy the book, they will return the money to the buyer, less a small fee for processing the order.

They can do this all day long and make money of the return fee and not supply a book. It also does not lend credibility to the author as it presents an odd and not so straight forward approach to selling a book, which can be misconstrued.

As a publisher, our stance is that we feel Amazon and the like should only allow these predatory sellers to sell a book in the manner set forth: if the book is not active and live from the publisher or if the book is truly a used book and is being resold.

What can you do about this issue? Call and write letters to the booksellers that condone this practice. Hopefully, if enough people complain, they will change their policy.

A. No, we do not send out any tax forms. Technically the monies we send you are not considered royalties by definition. A royalty is when a person or company pays the owner a license fee to use their copyright to use their product, book, song, or intellectual property for profit. We do not pay our authors, and we do not profit from the sale of your titles. We do not retain any monies gathered from your sales. This practice complies with the U.S. tax law. You are responsible for claiming your income. If you have questions on how to claim your income, please consult your accounting tax expert. To calculate your sales, please log into your FEDP account and click on ‘account statements.’ Every statement with a ‘zero’ balance is a ‘commission’ report. Please click on those statements to view them. You can also go to your PayPal account and filter the amounts received by First Edition Design Publishing.

A. Please read our terms and conditions for detailed policies. For removals, re-instatements and changes please click on this link –

CLICK HERE FOR REMOVALS / REINSTATEMENTS / CHANGES TO TITLES

First Edition Design Publishing, Inc.
PO Box 17646
Sarasota, Florida 34276
Support @ firsteditiondesign.com
941-921-2607 tel

A. You control the price. Keep in mind a print book is different than an eBook. With an eBook, the price is changed electronically on the fly, and a print book has your price encoded in the barcode. We can generate a new bar code for you (after 60 days of the first submission per title). However, a fee is associated with any change after proof has been signed off. We will also work with you to set the optimal price for your book.

A. Yes – we have a return program that will place your title into ‘returnable’ status. The program costs are conducive to which territory you want to purchase the program in – we offer USA, CAN, UK, EUR, AUS, and RUS. Please see our packages page for pricing details.

At any time First Edition Design Publishing reserves the right to cancel your return status and no refunds will be issued. In any given month if returns reach over 25 copies, your return program will be canceled and costs will be deducted from any royalties due.

A. Retailers keep a virtual stock. When someone orders your book, the retailer in turn orders the book via POD. This is a very smooth instant transaction. Within seconds of a customer order, the POD system receives the order electronically and the title is printed and shipped out to the end user – normally within 24-48 hours. Once the book ships, the sale will be reported within 30 – 120 days depending on when we receive reports from the bookseller/distribution venue. You will be able to view these sales online in your First Edition Design Publishing account.

A. The first year fee is included in your package price. You will be billed $45.00 for you second year 30 days prior to your one-year anniversary of submission of your initial order. If the fee is not paid, your book will be removed from circulation. This fee covers all bibliography cataloging and storage fees of your files.

A. We view your book as two parts: the interior and the cover. Each part is treated separately. Each part carries a revision fee of $165.00 for print books, and an eBook revision carries a revision fee of $65.00 per part.

A. Yes – All POD books must have high res 300dpi graphics. If the book has a black and white interior all graphics must be black and white/grayscale. Color interior books must have high res 300dpi graphics. All graphics must be embedded in the manuscript.

A. Yes, we will take your high res graphics and grayscale them for you at no additional charge.

A. All print books are processed as a paperback. You can upgrade to an additional type of media, such as a hardcover cloth or case laminate or cloth with dust jacket. However you need to have the standard POD paperback created first in order to upgrade to the hardcover.

A. Once we have a final page count of your book, we will provide you with your author copy cost and post your author copy price into your online account. Please send a request through the support ticket within your account page to place an order for Author Copies. You can also call us at any time to place an order. If you would like an estimated Author Copy Price ahead of time, give us a call or send an email. Let us know the size of the book and page count.

A. All POD orders come with everything you need except the cover. You will need to buy that as a separate item.

We take out the guess work for you by providing a full turnkey solution. Our POD solution is a straight forward, no nonsense platform for you to have the most success.

Using our distribution strength, your book always appears in stock and available to all customers worldwide. With over 85,000 wholesalers, retailers and booksellers in over 140 countries your titles will gain the maximum exposure in the market today. With print to order, your book is printed and ready for shipment in 12-48 hours for all distribution venues (HC excluded).

All POD packages include

• ISBN
• Library of Congress Number and Registration
• Library of Congress book submission
• DOI for all academic titles
• Bar Code
• Worldwide Pricing in 17 Currencies
• Interior Layout / Full Formatting – Black and White or Color
• Cover Finish choice of Gloss or Matte
• Perfect Bound
• 50lb stock
• No additional fees for interior graphics / photos
• Worldwide Distribution – Ingram, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, etc. (see full distribution list)
• Priority Distribution to Amazon, Apple, Google Play and Barnes & Noble
• Bibliography Cataloging Distribution
• Meta Data – Key Word Tagging
• Book Order Fulfillment
• Page Count 18 – 1200
• White or Cream Interior Pages
• Unlimited Wholesale Printing
• Non-Exclusive Contract
• Author Maintains All Rights
• Unlimited Telephone Consulting
• One limited layout revision on proof
• Print to Author
• Print to Customer
• Print to Warehouse

A. We produce over 30 sizes to include a large children’s landscape, 11 x 8.5.

A. You can order as many or as little as you want and whenever you want. We do suggest if you are ordering a minimum number of books, do not drop below five copies, as your shipping fees could be as much for one copy as they are for five copies. We also suggest that you always keep at least a dozen books on hand, as you never know when you are going to need them.

A. We ship from the following territories: USA, UK, and Australia.