Publishing Has Changed Enter Digital

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—Free Press Books — Publishing Has Changed While recent years have seen several excellent books on the Underground Railroad, too many remain unpublished as traditional publishers become ever narrower in what they publish, strug- gling to survive in an industry reeling from technological change. Some traditional publishers have kept pace with the rapidly changing production and delivery of books, but many have lagged. Most conspicuous was the disappearance of the forty-year-old international Borders bookstore chain in 2011. The publishing upheaval has meant that Underground Railroad writers have ever fewer opportunities to get their works into print through traditional publishing houses. Publisher-subsidized books are ones on which traditional publishers gamble that a book's sales will be large enough to yield a profit to the publisher and therefore permit it to front all publishing costs. Because of this financial imperative, subsidy publishers must be very careful in choosing the books that they elect to publish, which means that books of specialized or narrow interest that will attract only limited audiences are very unlikely to be taken on by subsidy publishers. Enter Digital Publishing While subsidy publishers have narrowed their offerings, online digital publishing has mushroomed since the advent of the Internet and easily digitized book composition, and today publishes hundreds of thousands of titles on topics which otherwise would not see the light of day. Digital publishing has also opened the doors of self-publishing to literally anyone wanting to put something into print. Some well-known authors who self-published their works are Stephen Crane, e. e. cummings, Deepak Chopra, Benjamin Franklin, Zane Grey, Rudyard Kipling, D. H. Lawrence, Thomas Paine, Edgar Allan Poe, Ezra Pound, Carl Sandburg, George Bernard Shaw, Upton Sinclair, Gertrude Stein, Henry David Thoreau, Mark Twain and Walt Whitman. A few well- known, self-published best-selling books are Irma Rombauer’s The Joy of Cooking, What Color is Your Parachute by Richard Bolles, Poems by Oscar Wilde, Chicken Soup for the Soul by Jack Canfield and Mark Hansen, and In Search of Excellence by Tom Peters and Robert Waterman. In 2011, John Locke’s Vegas Moon became the first self-published e-book to sell a million copies. Quick inexpensive digital publishing has grown hand in hand with an entirely revolutionized delivery of books, with the Internet replacing bookstores as the top book marketing channel. Ama- zon.com has become the world’s largest bookseller and its e-books now surpass its print sales. Inexpensive digital book production and fulfillment services such as Lightning Source and Cre- ateSpace have made self-publishing affordable, respectable, lucrative and fast for authors. While traditional publishers take months to get an author’s finished book into print, digital publishing usually accomplishes it in 48 hours or less. While traditional publishers and bricks-and-mortar bookstores sit on bulky inventory in expensive stores and warehouses, digital publishers side-step this entirely with print-on-demand publishing and direct-to-buyer fulfillment, reducing costs and making books much more affordable. And the best digital publishers routinely employ excellent customer service for their authors, too often an alien concept to traditional publishers. The payoff from new publishing technology accrues not just to digital publishers but especially to their authors. With their legacy costs burdening them, traditional publishers typically pay author royalties of 8 to 10 percent while royalties can easily reach 25 percent or more for digitally published hardcover and paperback books and 70 percent for e-books.

News independently reported on today’s Underground Railroad The Free Press Prizes, the Underground Railroad community’s top honors Datebook, the Underground Railroad community’s central calendar Lynx, the central registry of Underground Railroad organizations Free Press surveys of the Underground Railroad community

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Add to this revolution that no publisher - traditional or digital - is dedicated to Underground Rail- road books. Underground Railroad Free Press Books fills this void by specializing in books on the Underground Railroad and related topics with digital publishing, fast fulfillment, a full range of author services, and close attention to its authors. Realizing that the Underground Railroad story needs to be told as widely as possible and that most publishers are not willing to back books on specialized topics appealing to relatively small audiences, we established Free Press Books as a ready outlet for books on the Underground Railroad and related topics. How Free Press Books Works Free Press Books offers a graduated array of author services each step of the way from concept development through marketing a book once it is published. Our authors may purchase any or all of our services as their needs and budgets require. Concept Development We advise on the front-end considerations of topic choice, possible topical tie-ins, the author’s writing process, research suggestions, book structure and length, front and back materials, prospective marketability of the topic, marketing channels, pricing, promotion and other general advice which the author might request in rounding out a book concept. Editing We work closely with our Word Spectrum affiliate in providing the full range of editing. Our experience is that editing needs can vary significantly from book to book. Editing may include story line development, continuity, style, structure, English usage, what to include or not in a book’s front and back materials, and how each of these considerations may affect marketing. Free Press Books also offers indexing, a complex aspect of book preparation which many authors do not want to tackle themselves. Proofreading Word Spectrum performs expert proofreading for correct English usage including grammar, syn- tax, spelling, punctuation, word choice, subject-verb and pronoun-antecedent agreement, and awkward “eye catchers.” Publishing: Two Options for the Author When an author’s book is complete and ready to be published, we offer our authors two options to get the book into print and out to market. Authors already comfortable with online digital publication processes or wanting to learn them may elect to work directly with their choice of digital fulfillment sites. In this case, authors may elect to show Free Press Books as their publisher if the book meets our standards. Free Press Books may also advise on self-publication if the author desires. Authors unfamiliar with or uncomfortable working directly in digital publishing or just not wanting to do so may have Free Press Books perform the publishing. For hardcover books, we use Light- ning Source, the pioneer digital publisher of print-on-demand hardcover books. For paperback books, we use CreateSpace which we have found to be the most efficient and responsive online digital publisher. For e-books, we use Amazon Kindle Publishing and/or Barnes & Noble Nook Publishing, the two global leaders in e-book publishing. Fulfillment and Author Royalties Free Press books are printed on demand at the time of an on-line or bookstore order. The order is transmitted electronically at the instant of the order, is printed in the number of copies ordered in a matter of hours, and is then shipped or mailed. Books usually arrive to purchasers in a matter FREE PRESS BOOKS of days after their orders. The print-on-demand system helps to reduce the cost of books to authors, Free Press Books and purchasers by eliminating expensive inventory and other costs. Light- ning Source, CreateSpace, Amazon Kindle Publishing and Barnes & Noble Nook Publishing all offer direct print-on-demand fulfillment of orders to all book purchasers and book sellers. Free Press Books authors receive royalty payments from sales of their books directly from these fulfillment outlets. Marketing Free Press Books offers graduated marketing services ranging from quick spot advice on marketing questions to full marketing plans. Our book marketing is performed by an experienced pro- fessional staff member with extensive marketing experience who practices marketing and has taught marketing at the graduate level. Our marketing plans generally cover the book as marketing concept, analysis to identify and analyze a book’s prospective markets, pricing and promotion. At the author's discretion, all Free Press books receive a notice of publication to Free Press’s 16,000+ readers, prominent advertising in Underground Railroad Free Press for one year, a long- term illustrated display ad on the Free Press website, and links there to the book at Amazon.com and BarnesAndNoble.com, all at no charge to the author. Free Press Books Author Services Our editing and proofreading prices are set according to industry standard prices. Service Price Concept development Quoted at fixed fee or hourly rate after consultation with the author Editing Basic: 1,250-2,500 words/hour $35/hour Heavy: up to1,249 words/hour $45/hour Developmental editing $70/hour Book layout $70/hour Indexing $100/hour Proofreading $35/hour Pre-publication Account set-up No charge Hardcover book jacket $700 Paperback cover $500 International Standard Book Number (ISBN), hardcover $125 ISBNs for paperbacks and e-books No charge Library of Congress Control Number $50 Specification conformance of uploaded book and cover $100 Final corrections if not done by author $70/hour Revisions $70/hour Fulfillment Direct fulfillment costs of the online agency with no Free Press Books markup if Free Press Books is contracted to arrange fulfillment Marketing Basic book and author website with links to online book sellers $500 Registration of an internet domain unique to the book $100 Website updating $70/hour Basic Marketing Plan $3,000 Lists book profile, product versions, book attributes, author attributes; identification of prospective markets; version pricing; recommended advertising, public relations, public education and publicity FREE PRESS BOOKS

Mid Marketing Plan $6,000 Basic Marketing Plan plus market analysis, possible price modifications, social media account set-up, and more detailed promotion Broad Marketing Plan $9,000 Mid Marketing Plan plus mass emailing to author's contacts and development of promotion and social media content. Broader distribution channels Fulfiller cost with no markup Notice of publication to Free Press readers No charge Ads for one year in Underground Railroad Free Press No charge Display ad on the Free Press website No charge Links on the Free Press website to the book’s online sellers No charge Getting Started What We Publish Free Press Books publishes books and monographs on the Underground Railroad and related subjects including but not limited to abolitionism, slavery and biographies. Authors may propose other topics. The General Requirements Free Press Books wants its authors and Free Press Books to be recognized for superior quality of their publications. Books published through Free Press Books carry our imprint and name and are required to meet sound standards of English usage, factual accuracy and design. Books are published by Free Press Books only after our final acceptance following review. Free Press Books considers works which possess the following attributes. Related to the Underground Railroad, allied topics or other topics as agreed Written with correct English usage or which can be conveniently edited so Long enough to be considered book or at least monograph length Conforming to the guidelines of Free Press and its fulfillment partner firms The First Step Email us a brief prospectus including a description of the book, its intended audience(s), a table of contents, an introduction or sample chapter, expected length, number of illustrations, sched- ule for completion of the manuscript, and a brief curriculum vitae, all in either Microsoft Word .docx or .doc format. Complete manuscripts should not be emailed unless requested. Preparing Your Manuscript for Publication The following is adapted in part from Preparing Your Electronic Manuscript (Association of Amer- ican University Presses). For questions of style, including the formatting of notes and references, please consult the Chicago Manual of Style. Observing the following guidelines while preparing your book will save you valuable time, effort and expense during the publishing process and help to prevent costly errors. If possible, prepare your book on the same system—both hardware and software—from start to finish. Compose your book in Microsoft Word 2004 or later. Book Structure For authors electing to have Free Press Books manage publication of their books, start by setting up your manuscript in standard 8½ by 11 size with one-inch margins on all four sides. We will reset page size, margins, gutters, mirroring, pagination and other final formatting for you for publication into the book size which you select. For authors who will deal directly with our online fulfillers, FREE PRESS BOOKS follow the set-up requirements on the Free Publishing Resources page at CreateSpace.com, and, if an e-book is planned, also on the Kindle Publishing Guide at kdp.Amazon.com. Compose your entire book — its front material, content and back material — in a single file. Front matter may include and should be arranged in the following order: copyright information including international standard book numbers (ISBN) and Library of Congress control number (LCCN) if you have one, dedication page, table of contents, foreword and prologue. Only the copyright information and table of contents are required. Back matter, all of which is optional, may include and should be arranged in the following order: acknowledgements, bibliography, index and endnotes. Place any images, tables, cross-references, etc. where you want them in the book Beginning with the first page of the body of the book, auto-number pages for the entire book rather than by chapter. If front material pages are numbered, use lower-case Roman numerals. Separate front material from the body with a next-page section break. Continue end matter pagination from the body of the book. Use Microsoft Word styles to create headings for chapter and (if any) subchapter titles. Use Word's Insert Tables and Index command to create the table of contents to the second level if you employ subchapter titles. If your book will contain notes, use endnotes rather than footnotes with all endnotes together at the end of the book, not at the end of chapters. Start your endnotes on a separate page after an inserted page break. Reference numbers in the text should be in superscript which will hap- pen automatically using Word’s Insert Footnote/Endnote Command. Formatting Eliminate all formatting that is not essential to your manuscript. In general, the plainer the formatting, the easier it will be for you or us to edit and design your book. Do not use right-hand justifi- cation or font styles other than italics or underlining. Superscripts and subscripts may be used. Single-space the entire manuscript. Program space between paragraphs by using the Format Paragraph command and select 6 points of spacing after paragraphs. Use only hard returns (starting a new line by using the return or enter key) where you want a new paragraph or list item. Do not insert line breaks or other extra spacing between paragraphs, notes, bibliographical entries or anywhere else as this confounds conversion onto e-books and causes other problems for the book’s print version. Use only one space after colons and at the ends of sentences. If you wish, use the auto-hyphenation feature of your word processing software but do not use manual hyphenation at the end of lines. Do use hyphens where they normally occur in compound words or compound adjective phrases. Do not indent paragraphs or use manual tabs, all caps, small caps, the lowercase "L" for the number one or the letter "O" for zero. Tables are tricky. If your book is going to be offered as an e-book, which is strongly recommended these days, it cannot contain tables. In this case, find the best way to convey as plain non- tabular text the information that you would have put in a table. Tables may be included in printed books. In this case, be sure that table width does not exceed the content width of your book’s final printed size. Submitting Your Book to Free Press Books for Review All books including those formatted by authors for their own unassisted online fulfillment must be reviewed and approved by Free Press Books to carry the Free Press Books name and imprint. Deliver your book to Free Press Books as an electronic Microsoft Word file in either .docx or .doc FREE PRESS BOOKS format but not as a .pdf file or hard-copy printout. Email files preferably under 10 megabytes in size. Compress or "zip" if necessary. For larger files such as long books or those with a significant number of illustrations, mail the file to us on compact disc to the address of the letterhead or contact us for how to use Free Press Books’ online facility. When sending your electronic files, please note your computer’s operating system version and version of Word in which your book has been written. We complete an initial review of your manuscript usually within two weeks and inform you of any changes which are needed in your book or otherwise recommended. Once any revisions are approved, your book is ready to be published by Free Press Books or self-published. At this point, Free Press Books provides written confirmation if the book may be published under the Free Press Books imprint. Getting Your Book to Market If Free Press Books handles fulfillment, your paperback book is uploaded to CreateSpace and/or your hardcover book to Lightning Source, which then make the book available online at Ama- zon.com and, if the author chooses, at BarnesAndNoble.com. Availability for sale at these websites usually takes about 48 hours. Authors may also elect several forms of expanded distribution including European availability, bookstores, other online retailers, libraries, academic institutions and CreateSpace Direct. This is recommended so that users of traditional bookstores may order your book there and that libraries may stock it. If the author wants the book also made available as an e-book, Free Press Books performs the conversion from the print version (or the author may do so), and the e-book is uploaded to the websites of Kindle Direct Publishing and Barnes & Noble Nook Publishing for sale as an e-book. As e-books now outsell print versions, selling your book also in e-book format is highly recommended. E-books, too, take about 48 hours from uploading to availability for purchase. Authors should note that e-book fulfillment houses routinely state that conversion from print format to e-book remains a work in progress. Getting Paid A book's retail price depends on publication costs which in turn depend on book length, publication mode (hardcover, paperback or e-book) and royalty level set by the author within pa- rameters specified by fulfillment houses. Generally speaking, publication costs per book copy are fixed and it is the royalty's flexibility which drives the retail price and therefore demand for the book. A Free Press book's royalty level is chosen by the author from choices offered by Light- ning Source for hardcover books, CreateSpace for paperbacks, and Kindle Direct Publishing for e-books. The author’s royalty relationships are with these fulfillment houses and not with Free Press. Royalties are paid directly to authors by the fulfillment houses according to schedules and policies set by them.