When you are sick, you will not go to an engineer or a teacher, or other professionals who, while they can be highly experienced in their domain, nevertheless, they will not be able or even allowed to treat your illness. To be treated, you will have to go to your GP (General Practitioner), who, in her/his turn, will not treat you if you require the attention of a specialist such as a cardiologist, a dermatologist, or the like. Your GP will not ask you to find the symptoms of your illness or treat yourself, but rather will send you to a “specialist” who knows what is required to treat you.
The same applies to book publishing. Indeed, while writing a book is a huge task, however, publishing and marketing it is a greater set of tasks that requires talented professionals who are specialised in every aspect of book publishing and marketing.
Many authors fall into the trap of self-publishing to get out of it deeply deceived and demoralised, and most of the time abandon writing altogether, although their writings might be of interest to readers and/or of great value. Their deception lies in the fact that they are not professional book publishers or marketers. They don’t know how to assess, edit, typeset a manuscript, design a cover and satisfy the legal requirements, or even market the final product. But they are pushed to self-publish their manuscripts due to the rejection of their manuscripts by publishers, unscrupulous interested associations and printers who are only interested in providing costly seminars and workshops, or print a 100 copy of a book for a 1,000 dollar. The result is the production of unpolished product that is lacking all the necessary elements of a successful book, and therefore, fails.
Authors, in general, believe their writings to be the best and do require neither assessment nor editing or proofreading. This is, unfortunately, wrong. Any writing needs to be assessed, edited, copy-edited (if required), polished, proofread, and sometimes even changed. Moreover, a book needs a good title and a good cover to boost its chances of success. Even the choice of colours of a cover requires careful attention that should be in line with the content, as some colours negatively impact on the sale of a book.
To be honest, while the content of a book must be of the highest standard, however, the production and above all the marketing of a book are the essence of its success.
At Horizon Publishing Group, we look at and assess every manuscript we receive to ensure that the books we publish are of the highest standard and appealing to the wide range of readerships. However, we cannot publish every manuscript we receive under the traditional publishing scenario mentioned under “Publishing with HPG”. Therefore, we have put in place a system to assist authors who need professional assistance with all aspects of publishing and marketing to bring their writings into life.
Thus, after the first assessment, while we might reject to publish a manuscript under our traditional scenario due to different reasons, however, we can still publish a manuscript under other scenarios instead of “Self-Publishing”.
Authors who are contemplating self-publishing are welcome to contact Horizon Publishing Group by e-mail or in writing. Nevertheless, the work(s) must be submitted to Horizon Publishing Group in accordance with HPG Manuscript Submission Guidelines, Terms and Conditions.
Horizon Publishing Group will work in very close collaboration with each author individually to put her/his/their work in the best format and will guide the author through the whole publishing and marketing process to make the best of their creations.
In anyway, the author's work will be edited, proofread, and typeset. The work's title will be discussed, and the cover will be created in collaboration with the author's own ideas and vision. ISBN, Barcode, and other serialisation will all be applied for and obtained by Horizon Publishing Group. Marketing strategy will be discussed with the author. That is what we call: