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Our Services
Creative Strategists specializes in managing a book project and providing a full range of services from manuscript to final product. Whatever your publishing needs, we're here to help. We endeavor to make the publishing process as convenient and efficient as possible. Whether you wish to take advantage of our full book project management services, or would prefer to choose individual services, you will receive the same quality commitment and professional services. For more information on the services that we offer, select the options that interest you below, or scroll through this page.
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Author Services |
Self-Publisher Services |
Small Press & Publishing
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Family & Friends Private Collection
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Many people say that they have an idea for a book, but how many really go forth and write it? Is it because of a lack of commitment or ability? Or is it because there was not somebody to help guide and motivate them along the way? For those individuals who are serious and want to make the commitment to see themselves get their work in print, the Creative Strategists Writing Coach Program may be the perfect fit.
The Writing Coach and client will have a preliminary phone discussion to determine what the Client’s idea and goals are, what their commitment is, and what problems or stumbling blocks, if any, they have identified. Upon completion of the preliminary discussion, the Writing Coach will devise a proactive recommendation on how to proceed.
A written report will be sent to the client with an overview of the Coach’s understanding as to what the client wants and needs, some initial suggestions on how to achieve their goals, and a breakdown of how a Writing Coach could assist them.
From there, the Writing Coach and client will have regular check-in progress reports, allowing the client to discuss what has been happening, and for the Writing Coach to help the Client stay on track, if needed. The Coach will also provide brainstorming sessions and idea enhancements (not every idea is a good one, or a well thought out one. Professional services are available to bounce ideas off of and to help the Client enhance them), personalized support to the client, and assistance in educating the client on techniques, styles, and tips on how to meet their goals. The Coach will be a partner, guide, and cheerleader to help the Client reach their goals.
We currently offer the following eight Writing Coach options:
Option 1: Up to 2 emails per week;
Option 2: Up to 10 emails per month;
Option 3: Up to 4 emails per week;
Option 4: Unlimited emails;
Option 5: Up to 1 hour in phone calls per month;
Option 6: Up to 2 hours in phone calls per month;
Option 7: Up to 1 hour in phone calls per week
Option 8 (Economical Plan): 20 emails per year, and 2 hours of phone calls per year.
Note: Options 1 - 4 may be combined with options 5 - 7.
As a feature of our Writing Coach program, we wish to provide our clients with the best possible information and evaluation possible. Once the author and client have concluded their work together and the manuscript is done, it is time to have it Professionally reviewed for content and constructive criticism. Creative Strategists will provide you with professional feedback about your manuscript or ideas and provide you with a written evaluation citing strengths and weaknesses, and also offering suggestions about how to improve your manuscript.
How often have you looked at the same mistake and not realized it until someone else points it out? Catching these little oversights is crucial for printed books so that your work is not considered amateurish and unprofessional. Authors are often passionate and invested in their book, but they are often too close to the subject to objectively edit their own manuscripts. At Creative Strategists, we provide our clients with two options for editing, Copy or Creative Editing. As our editors work with your manuscript, they pay attention to detail to make certain that the book retains your style, and that what you are trying to achieve is not edited out.
Copy Editing (or Light Editing) includes reviewing a finished manuscript for spelling, grammar, punctuation, and consistency.
Creative Editing (or Major Editing) includes reviewing a finished manuscript for spelling, grammar, punctuation, consistency, and sentence structure (potential rewording, reorganizing, writing transitions, eliminating wordiness, and reviewing content to ensure proper tone & approach for the intended audience).
As a feature of our Writing Coach program, we wish to have the authors we work with understand exactly what was edited and why, not only to enhance the current manuscript, but also for our client be able to learn from the edits and potentially enhance their writing style for future projects. After the editing has been complete, the Writing Coach, Client, and Editor (optional) will have a verbal conference call to discuss the edits / suggestions / alterations and address any concerns that the client may have.
As a feature of our Writing Coach program, Creative Strategists shall provide assistance and recommendations to our clients to help them find a publishing house to publish their books. If desired, we will even work with our authors as Literary Agents and become the liaison between our client and publishing houses.
When it comes to marketing your book, Creative Strategists has worked hard to design an impressive and efficient variety of promotional vehicles so you can customize your Marketing Plan to meet the needs of your specific project. Marketing and promotions are very often crucial to the success of a book project. We will help you to promote to the trade through proven means, and to also provide you with materials to promote to the general community. Our marketing and promotional offerings include the following:
Design Press Kit: Creative Strategists will write and design a Press Kit comprised of both a formal Press Release that you can submit to both local and national media, as well as a Mock Review that you can provide to any potential reviewer as a guideline and sample for their review.
Promotional Bookmarks: Creative Strategists shall design and print 5000 2 x 6" promotional bookmarks (4/C glossy, 2 sided, 10 point card) that you can use to hand out for all promotions and include with all book orders.
Informational Handout: Creative Strategists shall write, design, and print 5000 4 x 9" informational handout cards (4/C glossy front, Red/Black matte back, 14 point card) that you can hand out to generate awareness and information about your book.
Book Buyer Synopsis: Participation in the Book Buyer Synopsis Program will bring maximum exposure to your titles. Creative Strategists will write a 75-word description of your title that shall accompany your bibliographic information in various specialty catalogs used by the Publishing Trade.
Promotional Postcards: Creative Strategists shall design and print 5000 4 x 6" promotional postcards (4/C glossy front, Red/Black matte back, 14 point card) that you can use for any direct mailing campaign to family, friends, and trade locations to announce the upcoming release of your books, as well as hand outs for all promotions.
Buyers Guide Advertisement: The most tangible program that could enhance sales for any book would be a physical catalog display that covers the vast book buyers market. Distributed to 35,000 book buyers worldwide, featuring forthcoming titles of small-sized to large publishing companies, this very helpful resource has proven to be an industry one-stop browsing manual for forthcoming titles.
ARC Program: The Advanced Reading Copy (ARC) Program enables you to send advanced-reading copies to library accounts prior to publication. It is an ideal program to promote new or breakout authors. There are two separate programs:
Adult: Galleys mailed to 350 major public libraries;
Young Adult: Galleys mailed to 335 school media specialists and public libraries.
Books for this program would either be taken from the initial print-run before the book is available for sale, or Creative Strategists would arrange for Galleys to be printed in the quantity required for each of the program options.
Inserts Program: Regardless of your promotional budget, you can prepare an effective sales message using our Bookstore & Library Informational Handout Insert Program. This highly targeted program provides an Informational Handout to 350 book buyers, allowing you to supplement or even replace your direct mail efforts.
Magazine Advertisement: Advertisement in Foreword Magazine, a bi-monthly magazine showcasing titles exclusively from the explosive independent publishing market. Readership is a premium blend of over 20,000 librarians and chain store booksellers, along with nearly 1000 prominent book buyers who make buying decisions that affect the reading habits of millions of readers.
Magazine Advertisement: Advertisement in one of the following seven prominent magazines distributed directly to book buyers worldwide with much larger circulation numbers. Which magazine your book would be promoted in would depend upon the type of book that it is. The magazine options are:
Forecast: Forecast is a monthly magazine promoting soon-to-be published hardcover adult novels. Forecast enables clients to speak to retailers and librarians about future bestsellers and other noteworthy titles so they can make well-informed decisions. With a circulation of over 50,000, Forecast is the best way to promote new hardcover titles to retailers and librarians.
Paper Clips: Paper Clips is a monthly magazine featuring prepublication trade paperbacks and mass market titles. Paper Clips enables clients to speak to retailers and librarians about upcoming adult paperbacks. With a circulation close to 35,000, Paper Clips is a great way to promote new paperback and mass market titles to retailers and librarians.
Books for Growing Minds: Books for Growing Minds serves as a comprehensive guide to children’s and teen selections and features titles of interest to all levels, from toddlers through young adults. Each issue contains special theme collections that cover a variety of subjects, as well as a featured series section that highlights new series and recent additions to the most popular children’s series.
School Selection Guide: The School Selection Guide is geared specifically for school libraries. Printed in two volumes, one for Kindergarten through Grade Six and the other for Grades Seven through Twelve, the School Selection Guide is circulated to almost a combined 90,000 librarians in the Fall, Winter, and Spring seasons. It presents a sampling of new titles, award-winning titles, selected series titles, nonfiction and reference titles for all ages, and adult titles suitable for teenaged readers.
Spirit: Spirit is a quarterly preview of notable religious and inspirational titles for both adults and children with a circulation of over 28,000 copies. Featuring more than one hundred fiction and non-fiction titles, Spirit allows you to promote your new book with title listings for mind / body / spirit topics that include world religion, family life, scripture and cooking.
Imagery: Imagery is a semi-annual graphic novel catalog sent to bookstores and libraries with a circulation of over 61,000. Each issue features recent and forthcoming graphic novel and drawing titles, as well as best-selling series.
Vistas: Vistas is a semi-annual regional title showcase. There are four individual regions, containing titles from different regions of the country, including the West, Great Lakes & Midwest, South, and Northeast. Vistas has a circulation of 50,000 to both library and retail consumers.
In addition to as a supplement, or instead of any of the above plans, Creative Strategists also offers several promotional vehicles that are ongoing, requiring monthly payments until you decide that you no longer desire the service. These include:
Informational Author Website: Creative Strategists will design an author website that includes information about the author, information about the books, links to any book reviews acquired, announcements about author events and appearances, order and contact information, and if applicable: a gallery.
Author Website with Bookstore: Creative Strategists will design an author website that includes information about the author, information about the books, links to any book reviews acquired, announcements about author events and appearances, order and contact information, if applicable: a gallery, and a real-time storefront with online order taking capabilities.
Family & Friends Private Collection
Did you ever want to see your book in print, to be able to hold a finished copy of something you created, but have it only for yourself, family, and friends? Creative Strategists has designed the Family and Friends Private Collection Plan just for you! Since the book is for a Private Collection and not for sale, we can provide you with a finished product in your hands for a fraction of the time and cost of an entire project. You can have as few as five books (paperback binding), or as many as you would like. We can even provide you with additional services, such as our talented artist network, cover design, and editing services so that your book looks just like one from a real publisher, only it will be yours for your private collection. With the Family & Friends Private Collection Plan, you no longer have to wish that you had your own book in print, now is can be a reality.
The decision to publish your own book is often both an exciting, and also a bit frightening prospect. There is nobody more passionate about your books than you, and moving forward to self-publish is a commitment to that passion, and to the book that you have written. However, before you get too involved in the publishing process, it is wise to have a professional evaluate and critique your manuscript to make sure that you are heading in the right direction.
Creative Strategists will provide you with professional feedback about your manuscript or ideas and provide you with a written evaluation citing strengths and weaknesses, and also offering suggestions about how to improve your manuscript, and how our services could help you to meet your goals.
Many times a manuscript can go through numerous revisions, edits, and updates. Every time something is changed within the book, it is possible that the correction could alter the initial intent and meaning of the author, the format, the structure, or numerous other inconsistencies. Rather than simply edit your manuscript and assume that everything is correct from there, we offer to have a different individual provide a formal proofread to ensure the manuscripts textual correctness.
At Creative Strategists, our proofreaders will help to ensure that all inconsistencies, formats, and alterations have been properly incorporated into the manuscript. We would assess the accuracy of the editor and make sure that all edits have been correctly incorporated into the pages. We then reexamine all elements of the book to confirm consistency and meet the requirements for the final publishing specifications and design. Finally, any minor corrections due to formatting or slight alterations would be caught and corrected in a professional proofread.
If the proofreader sees any inconsistencies in the manuscript or materials being reviewed, they would alert the project manager, and any suggestions to improve upon the manuscript would be relayed to the client.
The process of creating an index can be a long and arduous one. For our non-Fiction clients, Creative Strategists offers to provide professional indexing services to our clients in conjunction with our editing and production services to guarantee you with the most accurate and custom index as the manuscript is being examined. Our editors work alongside of our detail-oriented indexers to design an index that will meet the needs of the audience while being as functional and user-friendly as possible.
Since indexing requires such a thorough and analytical exploration of your book, we must thoroughly review your manuscript to take into account the complexity of material, the density of items per page, and the level of indexing requested before making a final estimate.
Creative Strategists can obtain your book's copyright; Library of Congress Catalog Number (LCCN) for sales to libraries; International Standard Book Number (ISBN) which is a mandatory sales tool providing the basis for identifying books in all industry wide systems; and the Bookland European Article Number Scanning Symbol (EAN Barcode) which is necessary for sales to bookstores.
The art for your book's cover is one of the biggest attention-getters for an author. The art in effect is the book's first salesperson. It must be captivating and alluring to potential readers, drawing them over to pick the book up and seeing what it is about. To help provide our clients with truly magnificent and engaging covers, we have both in-house artists who can handle most every cover requirement, as well as a highly-developed Artist Network, providing our clients with the ability to have a variety from some of the most talented and award winning artists today. Our network continues to grow daily, providing the best possible service to our clients.
All artwork is completely original and unique, designed specifically for your project. Artwork can be designed both for our client's book covers, as well as fulfilling any internal artwork requirement that you may have.
The cover design of your book may not be as flashy or appealing as the illustration, but is every bit as important, if not more so. Here at Creative Strategists, our talented Graphic Designers would take the cover illustration, picture, or cover image and coordinate all cover components to insure that the client has a captivating cover that meets the needs of the client and also adheres to the strict requirements of the book publishing trade.
The Graphic Designer personally will select the fonts, layout, and design of the cover to make it as appealing as possible. This includes all components, such as the book's title, subtitle, series name, and author name on the front cover; all book spine materials; and back cover matter, including any blurbs, reviews, EAN Barcode, ISBN, and price box; and finally all materials included on the dust jacket sleeves, if applicable, as well as the author photo.
As a Self-Publisher, you are the publisher of your own book. You want every aspect of your book to look professional, just as if you did not publish it yourself, but as if you had a large publishing house publishing the book for you. This includes your logo. It is an often overlooked symbol by most self-published authors, but it really creates the image of your company, the publisher of your book, as credible, trustworthy, and professional.
Here at Creative Strategists, we'll make sure that your logo design is polished and distinctive, and is designed specifically with your book's spine placement in mind.
As a Self-Publisher, a logo for your book shows the image of the publisher, you. However, you are in effect creating a new publishing company, even if that company only publishes a single book, yours! Nothing makes a business look more professional than well designed business cards, letterhead, mailing envelopes, and shipping labels. Each is a reflection upon you and your new company.
Here at Creative Strategists, our Business Development experts can assist you with the image of your company, by designing these customized materials for you. We will take the custom logo that we designed for your company and create these materials with the same look and feel throughout each piece. Upon completion of the design of each piece of your Publisher Identity materials, we will coordinate and manufacture each in whatever quality and quantity you desire.
Once all aspects of the publication process has been complete, it is time to pull together all of the materials and put it into a format that the Printers can use to manufacture your book. Here at Creative Strategists, we do it all for you, beginning with typography, page design and layout, all the way to a complete typeset camera ready proof in the format required for the printer that is manufacturing your project. We also will scan and manage any photographs, illustrations, tables, or graphs to ensure that they meet the specifications of the printer.
Printing a book can vary tremendously from printer to printer, including the requirements and specifications for each, as well as quality and price. Creative Strategists handles all printer negotiations and then supervises the print job, a process that involves dozens of decisions and a tremendous amount of attention to detail. Throughout the entire printing process, we monitor quality control for you, checking and rechecking every detail.
We also offer a wide selection of book sizes and binding choices, full color or black and white. We will make sure that the printer we select to manufacture your book will provide a final product that meets the specifications that you desire for the book project.
Distributors and wholesalers are companies that would take your books and then sell them to various book stores, libraries, and other locations interested in purchasing your books. Some distributors and wholesalers require exclusive arrangements where only they can sell your books, whereas others will simply offer your book and place orders with you or your fulfillment company as they come in.
Here at Creative Strategists, we know how important it is for you to find a distributor or wholesaler to carry your books. Unless they agree to do so, it becomes very time consuming for you to try and get your books into stores. Most major book chains will only deal with distributors or wholesalers, making it imperative for you to be represented. As such, we have designed two options for our clients to utilize:
Option 1: We will provide contact information and recommendations for you to attempt to foster relationships with distributors, wholesalers, and book chains; or
Option 2: We would complete and submit your application packet for representation by key distributors, wholesalers, and book chains.
Fulfillment companies are places that warehouse your books, take orders, and ship books for you. While Creative Strategists is not a fulfillment company, we would be willing to maintain small quantities of books that can be sold through an online store (see Marketing Plans) that we would design for you. Larger quantities and responsibilities could be explored if desired by you. To provide the best service possible, however, we can connect you with reliable fulfillment companies that could provide more complete storage and order taking services.
Creative Strategists
P.O. Box 6460, Holliston MA 01746
Copyright © 2006 by Creative Strategists. All rights reserved.