Frequently Asked Questions - Book Submission

The most important things needed for submitting your book for publishing are correctly formatted files for Book Interior and Cover. Check out the steps involved in publishing through Pothi.com to determine if these are ready.

Apart from the files, you will need to provide the following information in the Book Submission form

• Book Title
• Author's Name
• Language of the Book (this can not be changed later. You should select the correct language)
• Category/Genre of the book (this can not be changed later. You should select the most suitably category)
• Number of Pages: Number of Pages as in the interior file of your book
• Interior Paper Type: Between Plain Paper and Coated Paper, Plain paper would be good for most books. For gift books or for colored books coated paper can be chosen.
• Book Binding Type: Select Perfect or Saddle Stitch Binding. Saddle Stitch Binding is available for 64 or lesser number of pages. Perfect Binding is available for 50 or more pages. Select accordingly. If a non-applicable option is chosen, we'd convert it to the applicable one.
• Color Scheme: Whether the interior of your book should be printed in black and white or colored. Please note that the book can be priced according to either all pages colored or all page black and white. Selected pages can not be priced as colored. If even one page is to be printed in color, it will have to be priced as a fully colored book.
• Book Dimension (The page size of your book). Must correspond with the page size of your interior file.
• Page Range for Preview: 10 or more consecutive pages from the interior that should be shown as preview. Please keep in mind the following
  • Minimum 10 pages must be given. Otherwise we'd add the pages consecutive to the beginning or end of the range to take the number of 10.
  • The Preview must begin from an odd page, else we will create a preview from the previous page.
  • Only consecutive pages can be shown in the preview. Pages from different places in the book can not be used.

Once the Book Files have passed the technical review by Pothi.com team, you will receive an e-mail with the instructions to update the following and publish the book.

• Who should see the book: If you want public listing of your book, you should select "Everybody". If you want to keep the book private, you should leave it as "Only me"
• Author's Margin: The amount you want to earn per copy
• About the book: Can be skipped for private books. For publicly listed books, it is strongly recommended that you put a good, short succint description. It should be something that tempts users to buy the book. Simply saying "A collection of stories" does not convey much. Make sure that spellings and grammar are correct. If the Book Description does not have correct language, it is unlikely that someone will think of buying the book.
• About the author: Can be skipped for private books. For publicly listed books, it is strongly recommended that you give details which make the readers curious about the author and make them want to read what he has to say. Take care of spellings and Grammar here too.

The book is printed and hence maintained in two parts, the interior and the cover. Interior of the book includes the complete content of the book and all other components of a book that should be printed on the interior pages. These include table of content, preface, foreword, title page, copyright information and anything else you want in the book. Remember that we do not add anything from our side to the book before printing. So, the interior file should be prepared to include everything you want printed inside the book.

The book is printed and hence maintained in two parts, the interior and the cover. Cover file contains the back cover, spine and front cover of the book. These should not be placed randomly. The file should be prepared according to our specifications before the book is submitted for publication.

For the Interior we check the following

• Page size of the file should be a supported Page Size
• Page size in the file should match the page size you have mentioned in the submission

For the Cover we check the following

• If submitted as pdf, the overall size of the cover is correct.
• If submitted as an image, the overall size of the cover is correct at 300 DPI

If these conditions are not met, your submission will be rejected and you will need to send the revised files. Please note that we do not check the following (and everything else) for interior. If we observe an obvious problem, we may sometimes notify you. But we are not responsible for doing so. Any problems in the printed copy due to these are not our responsibility.

• The actual content: We do not check if the content is complete or not, whether something can be modified etc.
• Formatting issues (fonts, spacings, paragraphs, blank pages, margins etc.)

Also note that following potential issues in cover is not checked by us. If we observe an obvious problem, we may sometimes notify you. But we are not responsible for doing so and any problems in the printed copy due to these are not our responsibility.

• We do not check the individual sizes of front cover, back cover and spine. Even if the overall size of the cover is correct, if these things are not created in right size, printed book may look awry. We are not responsible for that.
• If overall size is more than the expected size of the cover, we assume that the extra portions are bleed on all sides.
• We do not check the DPI of embedded images in pdf. If they are low resolution, they will be printed as such.
• We do not check if Book name, Author's Name etc. are written on the cover.

Following are the standard page/trim sizes we support

• 5"x7"
• 5"x8"
• A5 (5.83"x8.27")
• 5.5"x8.5"
• 6"x9"
• 7"x9"
• A4 (8.27"x11.69")

To pass through our review, you need to make sure that

• You format the book in a supported page size
• You select the same page size in the Book Submission Form.

There are other things that we do not check in our review, but which you should take care of while formatting your book to ensure it looks good in print e.g.

• There is at least 10 mm margin on all sides of the pages
• You have used a print-friendly (sans-serif fonts recommended) at a suitable size - not too big, not too small.
• Font Type and Size does not change abruptly in the document
• Pages are Numbered
• If the book is a collection or has chapters, there is table of content with page numbers
• There is a title page in the beginning, which has the name of the Book and the Author/Publisher
• A new section starts on an odd page (right side of a printed book). If needed leave a blank page to achieve this.
• Chapter and other headings have consistent style

Many other tips are available in the Self Publishers' Resources Section of the site.

Formatting of the book means preparing the interior book for printing. A formatted book should be printable as it is and it should look good after printing.

Trim size is the actual page size you want in the printed book.

To ensure that your cover file is ready for submission, you should take care of the following

• The final formatting of your interior is done so that you know the page size and total number of pages in it.
• You have correctly calculated the overall size of the cover as well as the individual sizes of front cover, back cover and spine from our Cover Design Specification Page
• You have designed your cover image at 300 DPI
• You have designed the cover in a single page containing Front Cover, Spine and Back Cover. Separate Front and Back Covers should not be submitted, nor should three piece covers.
• You have placed the Back Cover on the left, spine in the middle and Front Cover on the right side of your Cover (except with RTL languages)
• You have put the book name/author name and other usual details at the right places on the cover

Through the Book Submission Form.

The description of the various fields are given below

• Title: Book Title
• Interior File: Your finally formatted, ready to print Interior File. If your Interior and/or Cover Files are not yet ready, do not submit the book. First prepare the files. The specifications for preparing interior file is here.
• Cover File: Your print ready Cover file prepared according to our specifications.
• Binding Type: Saddle Stitch Binding is center pinning. Perfect binding is usual soft cover binding you see in book stores. Hardcover binning in case binding, with cover pasted (not dust jacket). Saddle Stitch Binding is available for 64 or lesser number of pages. Perfect Binding is available for 50 or more pages. Hardcover binding is available for 150 or more pages. Select accordingly.
• Color Scheme: Whether the interior of your book should be printed in black and white or colored. Please note that the book can be priced according to either all pages colored or all page black and white. Selected pages can not priced as colored. If even one page is to be printed in color, it will have to be priced as a fully colored book.
• Orientation: If the binding it to be done along the long edge, you should choose portrait orientation. Most books fall under this category.
• Size: This is the page size of your book. It must correspond with the page size of your interior file.
• Paper Type: This is for selecting interior paper type. Between Plain Paper and Coated Paper, Plain paper would be good for most books. For gift books or for colored books coated paper can be chosen.
• Lamination: How do you want your cover lamination to be? You can select between glossy and matte.
• Preview Range: 10 or more consecutive pages from the interior that should be shown as preview. Please keep in mind the following
  • Minimum 10 pages must be specified
  • The Preview must begin from an odd page.
  • Only consecutive pages can be shown in the preview. Pages from different places in the book can not be used.
• Author: Author's Name as it appears on the book. This will be listed as it is. So, if a pen name has been used in the book, the same should be filled here too. If there are more than one authors, use the + sign to add more.
• MRP: The price of the book.
• Subtitle: Optional subtitle of the book.
• Who can buy? Select "Only Me" if you want to keep the book private. Select "Everybody" if you want others to be able to buy a copy.
• ISBN: If you have an ISBN for the book, please fill it here. It is optional, but once entered it should not be changed. Different editions of the book and different formats (paperback, hardback, e-book) should all have different ISBNs. Do not use an ISBN that doesn't belong to you and is not being uniquely used for this book. It can create problems in listing your books on various retailers.
• Can ship to: If you have a higher-priced edition outside India, or for any other reason do not want us to ship outside India, you should select "Only India" as the option. Else, you should select "Everywhere".
• Language: Language of the Book. You can select up to two languages, if your book is multi-lingual.
• Category: Genre of the Book. You can select up to two, if it belongs to multiple genres.
• Publisher: If somebody other than author is the publisher, fill up the name here. DO NOT use our name as the publisher.
• Book Description:About your book. You want to write something that will entice the readers to buy it.
• Author Description: About the author.

If it is possible to send the file through e-mail (within the limits imposed by GMail), you can mail us file at writer@pothi.com. Include the following in the mail.

• All the information required in the Book Submission form in the body of the e-mail
• Interior and Cover Files as attachment in the e-mail
• Your Pothi.com username in the body of the e-mail

If the files are too big even for e-mail, write to us at writer@pothi.com including other details except the attachments. We'd arrange an ftp account for your to transfer your files.

If it is possible to send the file through e-mail (within the limits imposed by GMail), you can mail us file at writer@pothi.com. Include the following in the mail.

• All the information required in the Book Submission form in the body of the e-mail
• Interior and Cover Files as attachment in the e-mail
• Your Pothi.com username in the body of the e-mail

If the files are too big for e-mail, write to us at writer@pothi.com including other details except the attachments. We'd arrange an ftp account for your to transfer your files.

If you do not have an ftp client (or if you are not sure what those are), download and install an ftp client on your machine. Filezilla is a free client available for multiple Operating Systems.

Once you have the ftp client installed (assuming it is Filezilla), open it and enter the hostname, username and password as sent to you and click connect/quickconnect. It should connect to the server and in the panes below you will see files on your local machines. Browse to reach the files you need to upload, right click and select upload. Wait until the upload is complete and successful before closing the ftp client.

Do not click on the link to open it in browser. To access ftp server, you need to use an ftp client. If you do not have an ftp client (or if you are not sure what those are), download and install an ftp client on your machine. Filezilla is a free client available for multiple Operating Systems.

Once you have the ftp client installed (assuming it is Filezilla), open it and enter the hostname, username and password as sent to you and click connect/quickconnect. It should connect to the server and in the panes below you will see files on your local machines. Browse to reach the files you need to upload, right click and select upload. Wait until the upload is complete and successful before closing the ftp client.

Generally you should hear back from us within one working day. You should wait for up to two working days. If you do not get a mail back in that period, send us a mail at writer@pothi.com. Before sending us a mail, please check your spam folder once. Also, note that these are two working days. So, count out weekends [Saturdays and Sundays] and other holidays.

In order for the books to print well, we need the files to be according to some specifications in terms of layout, image quality and size. These specifications are available here. If you do not understand the specifications, then you should

• Either design a generic cover using our Free Cover Design Wizard.
• Or get a Unique Cover designed by going for our paid Cover Design Service.

If you do not understand image size and/or resolution, you can read about it here. In general, it is not possible to correct it if your image is low resolution. You will need to recreate your cover at a higher resolution. Some pointers are given in the above article. If you are not comfortable with it, then you should

• Either design a generic cover using our Free Cover Design Wizard.
• Or get a Unique Cover designed by going for our paid Cover Design Service.

Please read about image resolution and sizes here.

Pothi.com supports some standard sizes of the books. The page size in your Interior File needs to be one of those supported sizes. Also, it should match the size you have selected in the Book Dimension field of Book Submission Form.

You will need to correct the errors in the original file and send it back by replying to the e-mail you received.

We do not check submissions for all possible mistakes. We only look at some technical specifications. Please check out this FAQ to see what are things we do and do not check in the files before approving.

You can take our formatting service.

You can

• Either design a generic cover using our Free Cover Design Wizard.
• Or get a Unique Cover designed by going for our paid Cover Design Service.

If you are on windows, to check the size of an image at 300 DPI, please download and install irfanview (http://www.irfanview.com/). Open the image in that and go to image->information. In the resolution field, fill 300 in both the boxes and click "Change". Then see the size in "Print Size from DPI".

To know how to create an image at correct size and DPI, check out the following

• Article about image size and DPI on Pothi.com
• Cover Designing Article at Pothi.com's blog