From rough copy to finished product, we can make your words and images sing with clarity and precision.
We help self-publishing authors prepare their books and upload them for print-on-demand (POD) sales online as trade paper books and e-books.
There are many self-publishing, POD services. The services we generally work with are KDP (Kindle Direct Publishing, an Amazon company), IngramSpark, and Lulu. We have also worked with Draft2Digital but haven’t worked with them yet. There are others as well.
With some POD services you can publish your book at no upfront cost to you if you prepare the book yourself, meaning all the editing, and the interior and cover design. Or you can pay additional fees to have their professional editors and designers do the work for you. Some POD companies do charge a fee to join or other fees.
Mud Flat Press can do part or all that work for you. We will consult with you once without charge, and together we will decide how much of the work you want to do yourself and how much we should do for you, and we will continue to consult with you at every step along the way.
• We can edit your manuscript from developmental editing to simple proofreading. See “An Introduction to Our Editing Services” by Alec Clayton.
• We can format, design, and paginate your book interior.
• We can design your book cover, using artwork provided by you or created by us.
• We can advise you on how to create an account with the POD publishing company, walk you through the process of uploading your book to their service, and making decisions about metadata, pricing, and more.
We charge you only for the work we do. We do not get a cut of the sales of your book(s).
Our prices are comparable to or cheaper than what POD companies and some other professionals charge. The more of the work you do yourself, the less it will cost you.
We do not offer distribution or marketing services, but some POD companies do.
“Without qualification, I heartily recommend the folks at Mud Flat Press. Alec and Gabi Clayton combine an invaluable set of publishing skills from multiple perspectives: author, editor, graphic designer, computer skills and literary insights. It has been a great pleasure to have their gentle guidance through the publication process of my first book.”
~ John Knold, PhD
The Mud Flat Press Imprint
We are not seeking submissions, and we do not offer all books we work on the Mud Flat Press imprint. If we come across books that strike us as unique in style and originality, and a story we believe in, we may enquire about publishing them under the MFP imprint. If the author says yes, we still do not get a cut of the book’s sales. We do put up information on this website about the book, and the author(s) and the illustruator(s).
Editing Services
Separate from our book publishing services, we offer editing of stories, papers, articles and other written documents.
There are many types of editing with a lot of overlap between types. If you search online you’ll discover that every professional editor has his or her own definition of developmental editing, copy editing, proofreading, line editing, substantive editing (sort of the same thing as developmental editing). And then there are sub-categories of these such as heavy and light copy editing and fact-checking. Generally speaking, developmental editing leans more toward structure and helping the writer find the right tone and the best possible flow of words, and copy editing focuses more on grammar and spelling.
Your editing needs may also vary depending on whether you are doing a self-published book or preparing a manuscript to submit to an agent or publisher, and on what type of publication you’re writing for. For example, many online publications are laxer in style requirements and are more casual in tone than print publications or academic journals. Most newspapers insist on using the AP Stylebook, while books and magazines often prefer using the Chicago Manual of Style. We are experienced in these, and we like to tailor our editing services to the writer’s needs. We will have a consultation with you before getting started so that we understand exactly what you need.
We also have a web and graphic design arm of Mud Flat Press where we design websites, logos, brochures, business cards, banners, t-shirts, etc. See more information here.
See our rates here. (PDF format)