Designing Your Book
Copyright - Copyright is a form of protection provided by the laws of the United States to the “original works of authorship”. By copyrighting your book, you are protecting the text, photos, drawings, and maps, but not the title. In book publishing, you cannot copyright a book title, names, or short phrases, although they may be trademarked. Whether or not you register for copyright, you, as the author, have exclusive rights to make copies of your book, distribute it to the public, display it publicly, or to transfer ownership.
You are not required to formally file for copyright with the Copyright Office to secure your copyright. You can simply mail a copy to yourself and keep the package unopened to verify by the date on the envelope that you had the material before someone infringed upon your copyright.
Not every book needs an ISBN number. If, for instance, you plan on selling the book yourself directly to the end consumer you do not need an ISBN number. However, if you plan on marketing your book in bookstores and other retail outlets, you must have an ISBN.
Tadpole Press charges a one time fee of $40.00 for the service. This number is permanently assigned to your book and cannot be reused or reassigned.
When Tadpole Press produces a short run title (200-500 copies) for an author it is printed “in-house” at our facilities in Texas. This has some binding limitations. However, projects printed overseas are not limited in size or binding style. Unlike most subsidy publishers, Tadpole Press will design your book to your specifications.
For projects printed “in-house” the binding options are as follows:
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Perfect Bound – with a wrap around matte finished full color cover.
Standard paperback books are an example of perfect binding. The pages and cover are held together by an adhesive which keeps its strength and resiliency for a long period of time. This binding is great for many types of books, including novels and collections of short stories.
- “Old School” Cloth Reinforced Printed Spine – with a matte finished full color, 2 part cover.
The same basic concept as perfect binding is used, except that an additional cloth tape is added to the spine for strength and style. The pages and cover are held together by an adhesive which keeps its strength and resiliency for a long period of time. This binding has a retro chic quality and is good for any type of book.
- “Old School” Spine w/ Translucent Dust Jacket – dust jacket is printed in full color and paired with a solid color book cover.
The same basic concept as perfect binding is used, except that an additional cloth tape is added to the spine for strength and style. The pages and cover are held together by an adhesive which keeps its strength and resiliency for a long period of time. A durable translucent paper that adds to the vibrancy of the color printing is used as a dust jacket. This binding style also has a retro chic quality and is good for any type of book.
- “Lay-Flat” Plastic Comb Binding – with a matte finished full color, 2 part cover. Used on 8 ½” x 11” books only.
We offer plastic comb binding with a soft cover for an additional 45¢ per book charge over the cost of the standard perfect bound book. Plastic comb binding is ideally used for books which must lie flat, such as manuals, how-to books, or workbooks.
- Library Cloth Cover - Full color Dust Jacket in Translucent or Opaque Paper. There is no printing directly on the clothbound hardcover.
For short run books (200-500)
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Cover Choices
At Tadpole Press there are no cover templates to just add your title to. Each cover is created specifically for the project.
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Interior Pages
copies printed “in-house” the interior text pages will always be in black ink. Images and charts & graphs will be scanned and inserted in grayscale. The standard quote includes up to six (6) images. Additional images can be inserted at a per scan cost.
Artwork can include photos, line art, graphs, tables, or any other illustrations. The printing method we use produces good, but not high quality, photos. Digital printing is an excellent option for short-run books that are mostly text with few photos because the print quality is very consistent compared to offset printing. The photo quality is comparable to newspaper printed photos, which is acceptable by short-run standards, but may not be acceptable to you if picture quality is of great importance.
