However, it’s understandable that many aspiring authors are still hesitant to try hybrid publishing due to its relative novelty. So if you’re an author who’s considering hybrid publishing, here are the following advantages that this route can bring to you:

It increases your chances of getting published

Traditional publishers can be very strict with their guidelines to the point that they can miss out on promising talents.

Joe Sedgwick of The Literary Consultancy explains that top literary agents will typically take on five to ten writers out of 3,000 submissions per year. The slim chance of getting published causes many writers to DIY the whole process and self-publish their books, without knowing that they can easily get their works out there through hybrid publishers. These publishers take in your draft and improve it with their team, thus increasing your chance of getting published and recognised for your work.

Authors get to retain their rights to their book

After working so hard on your book, you deserve to retain your rights.

As such, our article on ‘Self-Publishing and How It Can Work For You’ highlights how Riverside Publishing Solutions allows every author to retain the rights to their work. Riverside has terms and conditions for books sold on the distribution network, but authors are not bound to a contract that restricts their decisions regarding the book. In fact, authors can even decide to take on a conventional publishing route at a later date or even sell the book through their own means because they retain the rights to their work.

You get more control over your own work

Authors are more likely to retain their rights through hybrid publishing, so it’s easier for them to participate in every step of the publishing process.

Though this may sound too good to be true, an episode from Self Publishing School states that hybrid publishing allows authors to decide on the book format or even the stores where their works will be sold. Authors who work with hybrid publishers also have a voice in marketing and sales strategies, making it possible for them to pursue the direction they want for their books. Through this collaborative approach, you get the advantage of working with publishing experts that respect and listen to your opinions.

Books are marketed and distributed better

Despite having more freedom with your book, you also get the privilege of being able to consult with experts during the marketing and distribution process.

The Missing Pages podcast exposes that there are plenty of marketing and distribution issues that can occur in the literary world, which is why it’s crucial that you can supervise the process and keep everyone accountable. You’ll also be putting a lot of time, money, and resources into promotion, and hybrid publishers can ensure that these efforts can reap meaningful results. Given that there are plenty of people overlooking the process, you can ensure that your works will be distributed and marketed properly.

If you want to fulfill your dream of getting published, you should consider working with a hybrid publisher. These publishers can speed up the process, without compromising the quality of the publication process.

Article written by Jianna Tucker

The post 4 Benefits of Publishing with Hybrid Publishers appeared first on Riverside Publishing Solutions.

This page will guide you through the features available within Adobe Acrobat Reader and how you can request changes to the proof you have been given for review. This has been based on installing to a Windows operating system but is very similar for an Apple Mac.

Installing Acrobat Reader

First of all, you will need to install Adobe Acrobat Reader onto your device. This is a free product and can be downloaded direct from Adobe’s website using the following URL:
https://get.adobe.com/uk/reader/, alternatively click here:

Accessing the Comment toolbar

Once the software is installed, you can open the PDF you have been sent for review via the File > Open option on the menu.

Next, select Tools on from the Toolbar at the top of the screen, you will be presented with the available tools within Acrobat Reader, now click on Comment.

An additional tool bar will now appear at the top of the screen with the Commenting features used to mark up a PDF file for correction.

Marking changes to the PDF

There are multiple ways to instruct changes to the PDF file, for example, sticky notes, highlighting text, replacing and deleting text or inserting new content. These are selected from the Comment toolbar, shown above. The instructions for each option appear to the right of the main window, clicking will apply the comment to the current PDF. To apply changes to a specific piece of text, just highlight the text by clicking at the beginning and with the mouse button held down, drag the cursor to the end of the relevant text, as below:

Add sticky note

Probably the simplest method when adding an instruction, the Add stick note option allows the reviewer to add any general instruction to the PDF. An example of using this feature maybe to add an instruction which isn’t specific to one part of the PDF, for instance “Please move this page to appear before the contents” or “Please make all running heads slightly larger”. Selecting this option allows the user to add a sticky note anywhere on the current page, the content of the sticky note will appear in the right margin, as below:

Highlight

The Highlight option can be useful if you would like to give an instruction not covered by the standard options. An example of this would be an instruction to change the formatting of the highlighted text.

Underline text

Although an option of the Comment toolbar, the Underline text option is rarely used, although some publications do contain text with an underline for emphasising. To mark any text which requires underlining, simply select the text on the page and click this button.

Strikethrough text (Delete)

The strikethrough option is used to request deletion of the selected text. Keep in mind that any removal of text could have implications for the remaining text of that section as the following content will need to be repositioned.

Add note to replace text

The Add note to replace text option is probably the most common option when adding comments to a PDF. This option allows the user to replace spelling mistakes, poorly worded sections, images and more.

Insert text at cursor

The Insert text at cursor option is used to insert additional text to the PDF. The text will be inserted wherever the mouse cursor is within the text. As with Add not to replace text, consideration will need to be given to how any inserts will affect the proceeding text.

Unused options

The remaining options within the Comment toolbar are generally not used when returning changes to a PDF. Any further special instructions can be communicated via email.

Things to consider when marking up a PDF for correction

It is worth noting that a PDF proof should not need many changes. The accepted manuscript should be in good enough shape to need very little editing; however, it is sometimes unavoidable and certain mistakes only appear to be obvious when the content is styled, and page layout is created. In order to keep comments to a minimum, it is often better to select and replace a whole section of text, rather than inserting words and deleting, i.e. it would not be advised to add comments as below:

Alternatives to Comments on a PDF

If the above still seems too daunting or you do not have the option to use Adobe Acrobat, then it is a little more difficult to send corrections. Before the age of digitation and PDF proofs, the common way would have been to mark up a print-out, but this is often not practical, and most people are not aware of the traditional proof-reading marks used to add corrections. The other way we can accept corrections is by simply listing changes with a description and a method of identifying where in the proof these changes should apply, an example of this is shown below:

• Page 45, Paragraph 3, Line 4: Replace ‘yesterday’ with ‘today’.
• Page 67, Parapraph 2, Line 23: Insert the text ‘Only some of’ at the beginning of the second sentence.
• Page 59, Paragraph 5, Line 1: Remove semi-colon.

As you can probably imagine, the above could possibly lead to misunderstandings if not produced clearly and is often easy to make a mistake identifying page number or paragraph etc.

Summary

We hope this page has helped explain how to submit corrections when receiving an Adobe Acrobat PDF for review. If you would like any further information, please contact us using the details on our contact page.

The post How to Request Changes to an Adobe PDF Proof appeared first on Riverside Publishing Solutions.

At Riverside Publishing Solutions, we have often referred ourselves as a “hybrid publisher”, however, based on what there is out there, I think perhaps we are more like a hybrid “hybrid publisher”, let me explain…

It appears a lot of Hybrid Publishers have been set up as an alternative to conventional publishing, often by individuals from other publishing houses, but Riverside Publishing Solutions have evolved from providing prepress and printing services to publishers. Our original business model was to provide these services to established publishers which we still do to this day, however, more and more we have been approached by individuals who wish to publish a book as a self-published author. The term “self published” should be just that and we consider every author who comes to us as an individual publisher. In that respect, we are effectively a service provider, but what we can do beyond these services is to provide much more. For instance, as an individual author it is almost impossible to find a distribution channel to sell books to a wider audience and to be available to book sellers. Due to the large amount of books we work on, we have our own distribution network and under our imprint, any book is available to be purchased in book shops and websites globally.

The difference between Riverside Publishing Solutions and many of the other “hybrid publishers” is that we do not work with contracts and every author retains the rights to their work. We only have terms and conditions for books we sell via our distribution network or our own website. Therefore, if an author decided to take a conventional publishing route at a later date, that is purely their choice. Also, being that the prepress and print is paid for by the author, any books the author sells by their own means is 100% profit for them and books we may stock can be collected at any time as they belong to the author, not us. Many other companies would force the author to buy back their own books.

One of the first questions we always ask potential customers is “What do you hope to achieve from publishing your book?”. This is very important and must be answered honestly. Fortunately, almost all of our customers are realistic and there are many viable reasons why an author may choose to self-publish, below are some examples:

• I have written a book as I like to write and I am not looking to be a best-seller, I just want a small amount of books for family and friends (often referred to as “Vanity Publishing” and some do not wish to even officially publish with an ISBN number)
• I have written a book to support my main business (Usually coaching or reference material for a business)
• I have several books already published and self-publishing means I have more control and profit
• I already have a market lined up and would only expect to sell a relatively small quantity (an example of this would be a memoir from somebody who served in the military who often have no problem selling amongst colleagues in the forces)
• I wish to self-publish to attract conventional publishers on future titles (this has happened on a few occasions)
• I have had this manuscript sitting around for a long time and I just want to do something with it
• The book is time sensitive and I cannot wait for the time it takes to be published
• If just one person gains from my experience, I will be happy

The above are just some common examples of why an author may wish to self-publish but it does show how conventional publishing is not for everyone.

One thing every author should consider if not already an established author or well-known, and hoping to sell to the wider public, is how the book will be marketed. Even an amazing novel will not be seen unless people know about it, and to achieve this is no easy task. We feel the number one element of selling a book, is the author. There are plenty of marketing specialists available, some may mislead an author into thinking they will sell lots of books and take large sums of money, however, if the author is not known to the wider public, the best way to start is to be involved as much as possible. Angie Langley has had great success in selling her books at fêtes and country shows or Christmas markets, her love of meeting people, her personality and telling her story is what sells her books. Some of the most successful self-published authors have started from nothing other than great stories, take for example LJ Ross (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-tyne-58305836). I may as well mention that we provide Dark Skies Publishing with our typesetting services for these books.

As mentioned in the previous list, one of the biggest reason to self-publish is to support your career. Books are a good way to provide additional information to clients, particularly if offering services like coaching or education, we have worked with football coaches, healing professionals and life-style gurus. We have also produced books for musicians; gone are the days when CDs are handed out at the end of a gig so why not instead offer a signed copy of your book? fans often jump to the chance and will pay good money.

I hope to have helped in explaining what we at Riverside Publishing Solutions actually refer to when we say “Hybrid Publishing”. It doesn’t have to be a scary term and at all times during the process of producing a book, the author has full control and is solely in charge of the decision making, with the advantage of our experience to guide along the way.

If anybody reading this would like to know more, please do get in touch. One of the most wonderful things of being in this business is hearing the stories and meeting the people who take tie to write a book.

The post Self-Publishing and How it Can Work for You appeared first on Riverside Publishing Solutions.