FAQs
How do I self-publish my book?
To confidently begin your self-publishing journey, we recommend you first read our ebook, Untangling the Self-Publishing Process: A Practical Guide to Creating and Marketing a Professional-Quality Book, by Julia Soplop, which is available for digital download. It aims to provide one resource that answers your process questions on how to self-publish your book.
If you need more personalized assistance to navigate the self-publishing process, we also offer consultations by phone starting at $100/hour. Please fill out this form to inquire.
How does your editorial process work?
First, you fill out this form to give us some information about your manuscript and the services you are looking for.
We typically respond within two business days with any additional questions and a request for a 1,500-word sample of your manuscript to help us evaluate the state of it and make service recommendations.
We send you a proposal with recommended services and the prices per service. Pricing is a la carte.
You decide which services to purchase and let us know.
We send you a contract for those services and an invoice.
You e-sign the contract and pay upfront for each service, unless otherwise stipulated. You may purchase services individually or as a bundle. You may add services at any time.
You send us your manuscript as a Word document. (Exception: if your manuscript has already been laid out, you send us a PDF of that document.)
Once we have received your contract, payment, and manuscript, we begin your service. We edit and make comments in Word using track changes. (Exception: if we are reviewing the PDF of a book interior or cover, we may denote edits digitally on the proofs or compile edits in a separate document that lists the corrections by page number.)
When we are finished, we send the manuscript back to you.
If you have questions about the edits, you may elect to have one 30-minute phone consultation with your editor per round of editing. If you have additional questions, you may book further phone consultation at the rate of $100/hour.
Once you have made your revisions, you return the manuscript to us.
We begin your next round of editing.
The cycle continues until we have finished all the rounds of editing you have purchased.
You may add services at any time.
How do you price editorial services for children’s books?
For children’s books and other short manuscripts, we charge a minimum of $100 for editorial services.
Are you a vanity press?
No! We are not. Vanity presses tend to charge authors for the cost of publishing services and they retain publication rights for authors’ books. Yikes! We are different. Our editorial and publishing support clients pay a fee per service and retain publication rights to their own work. They publish their books themselves and handle their own royalties. When we do publish a book through our Hill Print imprint, we cover the production costs, retain publication rights, and offer generous royalties to the author.
Are there types of content you do not accept for editing services?
Yes. We’ll let you know if we feel our skills and content knowledge are not aligned with your book project and we are unable to provide services to you. We do not edit poetry. We do not work on manuscripts that we deem discriminatory or pornographic or that spread science denial or misinformation.
Do you accept unsolicited manuscripts for publication through the Hill Press imprint?
No, not at this time. We will make an announcement if this policy changes in the future.