The Tennessee Publishing House, or TPH, is the Christian affiliate imprint of Black Forest Press, and the tax-exempt arm of publishing books, manuscripts, ariticles, flyers, and so forth for CCHM, Inc..
Production:
TPH does two of the big three “P’s.” We do the production and the printing. The promotion we do is minimal, yet it is very worthwhile, and it does get your book some visibility and exposure. TPH does this by notifying the proper book distributor, and having your book placed into their book sales system. We also do something rather special. But that information is only for those who actually publish with us. Every author should get a nice surprise besides receiving the first copy of his or her book – don’t you agree? It is a somewhat expensive gift, but TPH believes it is worth it for an author to have and use. Book exposure and visibility is everything!
Your book is your baby and the publishing process it goes through is very similar to that of a pregnancy. The only difference being that an author will birth his or her book and not a baby. Just remember, TPH will communicate with the author throughout publishing, giving our advice.
In a short overview of the production process, each author will have, at a minimum, two Ph.D.’s reviewing their manuscripts and coordinating their book’s production process. Other TPH staff members have been with us for many years and are very competent in their work, as are the printers we use. Our cover designers have their own successful Graphic Arts businesses and design professionally beyond what they accomplish for TPH.
An author’s manuscript, the galleys, will be sent back electronically or returned by snail mail to the author, for his or her personal proofing and acceptance of our work. If there are changes to be made in the galleys, we ask the author to clearly print those changes, in red ink, so they can be seen and changed in the returned text without being missed. Any special items to be scanned and/or inserted into the body of the text will be done after they are discussed and decided upon; pictures or clip art will not be moved to another place once the initial set up has been made. Any backtracking for making last minutes author changes or author call will be expensive to the author. Decision time for making changes in the galleys, is “up front” and not at the end of the production, printing or publishing process.
If an author wants to do something different with his or her book after it has been published, that can be done and it can be done without incurring tremendous cost. Why? Because the printing process will most likely be Print on Demand (POD) unless it is a color book, and that is a sheet feed process and it will be expensive! Using the roller digital process is truly a great way to go and to test the waters with the printing of a few copies of your book, that is, a limited amount. Large quantities of books, should be printed by an offset sheet feed press. Such options can be discussed during the contracting portion of accepting your book. Please ask TPH to explain to you the difference in cost between using sheet feed presses and going POD.
TPH gives every author 100% control of his or her book and 100% profit from that book. Any profits that do not go to the book will occur if a certain marketing aspect is initiated toward the end of the printing process and/or at the beginning of the marketing phase. All authors have 100% control of the whole publishing process. However, an author needs to listen to our advice. If an author interferes too much with their book’s publishing process, TPH will end the publishing process and return any money that hasn’t already been spent on the book’s production. An author’s book will not go to press before receiving a written TPH Ready for Press form, signed and dated, back from the author.
TPH will do nothing in a production process or during the printing process to make a change unless an author requests such to be done, or if we notice something unusual has taken place. All text material is sent “pdf” to our printer via email, and all covers are sent “ftp,” via the Internet. When an author is having his or her cover designed, an author may coordinate ideas or desires with our cover designer/s. We recommend that authors give their thoughts and cover images to the cover designers before cover design begins.
Cost is a major item with most decent publishers and it is with TPH, because we don’t just publish your book, we mentor each author in the process and teach the author what exactly he or she is going through. If we fail to do so, shame on you and shame on us. An author learns how to work closely with his or her production team and what to expect from them and what is needed of them when such is requested. It is vitally important that an author become involved in the publishing of his or her book so understanding and learning take place, and the expectations of their final book product is exactly what they were expecting to get. Also it is necessary to make a strategy for the promotion of one’s book and that must be discussed with your publishing team, or one or two or its members. Being mentored is a privilege not a right for what you are paying. An author will learn from people who know the publishing business and can keep an author out of publishing trouble.
