FAQs
Frequently Asked Questions
This page contains answers to some frequently asked questions.
Please feel free to call us if you'd prefer to talk. We're happy to answer your questions personally.
Visit Our Team
Absolutely! We love to meet our authors, and many travel to Washington State to meet our staff. If you would like to visit us, please be sure to set up an appointment through our site.
Yes! Call or email us to arrange an informal visit and meet your Publishing Consultant and other staff.
Design & Layout
That's mostly up to you! What we can guarantee is that it will look professional and as attractive as, if not better than, any other book on the market. Gone are the days when you could tell a self-published book by its dull or amateurish cover. We have many experienced graphic artists on staff who are ready to partner with you to design the book cover of your dreams.
Company History & References
We have scores of authors who are happy to communicate with potential authors and tell them about their experience with Redemption Press. If you'd like, ask us for a reference. You may also want to review these blog posts where authors tell their Redemption Press stories:
Also, we have an A+ rating from the BBB. Here's a link to our profile with reviews.
Redemption Press was founded in January 2014 by Athena Dean Holtz, the pioneer of the independent publishing movement in the Christian market. She originally co-founded WinePress Publishing back in 1991, paving the way for credibility in self-publishing. Unfortunately, the company eventually closed after falling into the hands of a wolf-in-sheep's-clothing.
That story is told in Athena's memoir, Full Circle: Coming Home to the Faithfulness of God, and the book is offered for free to authors considering publishing with us. Redemption Press is firmly in the hands of a solidly experienced and professional leadership and strives to be the best at what we do for the glory of God. We are accountable to Him for the honesty, integrity, and quality of our work.
Imprints
Redemption Press, where your message is our mission, is our overall brand of excellence in publishing. Redemption Press books are required to undergo the most layers of editing of any of our imprints, and because of that, they offer a reader the cleanest, most developed, and professional quality book. Due to our confidence in their quality, marketing services and cover design are upgraded for Redemption Press titles.
As a publisher, we constantly seek new publicity, marketing, and promotional venues for our authors. Books under consideration for exclusive opportunities, national conferences, or high-end placement must first undergo all four editorial levels (content, line, copy, and proofread) to meet the criteria for the Redemption Press imprint and the requirements of our partners.
Because we help many authors at various levels of skill and targeted placement, we've created additional imprints to serve them without the energetic editorial requirements we place on all works bearing the Redemption Press imprint.
Reliant Publishing is the imprint designed to help new authors publish with the basic essentials they need, including cover design, layout, printing and distribution. Books published under this imprint also receive a copy edit.
Encore DTP (Direct to Print) is specifically for authors who've been in print before, and perhaps they aren't happy with their publishing arrangements or their publisher has gone out of business. If they simply want to get their print book and e-book back into print and distribution, we happily utilize their print-ready files to funnel them back into the sales channels again.
Please bear in mind that we also offer traditional offset printing techniques, which enables authors to choose special embellishments on the cover (foil, embossing, matte, and spot gloss lamination) as well as hardcover, full-color coffee-table books, and casebound children's books. These specialty processes are not available in the print-on-demand technology.
Some quality-control conditions do apply, since the Redemption Press imprint requires a high level of editing and content quality. Though many authors coming in with Encore have already been in print, a $250 review fee is required to have our editors determine if the level of writing and editing would allow the book to be published with one of our other imprints.
If additional editing is required to help meet specifications, the $250 will be applied toward the editing cost.
Please be advised that most books will require additional levels of editing, unless the book has already undergone multiple levels of editing by professional editors currently working in the inspirational book market.
Printing
Absolutely. We are proud of our work and happy to send a sample. Just give us a call or send us an email, and we'll have a book sent to you.
Although this is one of the most commonly asked questions, it is difficult to answer because every project is unique.
For books that have already been in print and are not undergoing any changes other than a new ISBN and publisher name, the average turnaround time is between four and eight weeks. For books that include editing, illustrations, special formatting, or other non-standard work, the timeline will be extended. A normal turnaround time with editing and formatting runs from six to eight months depending on a variety of issues.
Redemption Press is not a "fast food" publisher. We never compromise on quality for the sake of speed. If you want to speed things up, however, a quality-controlled, fast-track option may be available.
The quality of your finished book will appear similar to, if not better than, what you would expect to find in any bookstore or library. For trim sizes of 6″ x 9″ and smaller, the text stock used is 50# crème, and for trim sizes larger than 6″ x 9″, the text stock used is 50# white only.
Your cover is printed on a high-quality laminated cover stock, with a matte or gloss finish, in vivid colors. Please call us if you are interested in receiving samples.
Important Book Ordering Information
After you place your book order, an invoice will be sent to you. Once paid, it takes approximately 2-3 days for the payment to process, and then your order will be submitted to our printer.
It takes approximately 5-7 business days for orders to process, and another 5-7 days for shipping. Color prints, hardcover, and orders over 250 can take additional time.
If you are ordering books for an event, please make sure to allow up to 3 weeks for your books to arrive.
As a hybrid publisher, we are your partner in publishing. You get the best of traditional and print-on-demand publishing services, including personal support and custom publishing packages designed to meet your specific needs.
What most people don't realize is that a traditional publisher usually takes up to two years to publish a book, and the author is involved in the process to some degree, but has no control whatsoever.
Because we are your partner, we walk you through the entire process, and you have much more control and input than with a traditional publisher. Perhaps most importantly, you retain all rights to your book when you publish through us (see below).
Sales
That's entirely up to you! Very seldom does a book sell itself; even leading publishers in the industry invest large sums of money in marketing, advertising, and promoting books.
If you are publishing your book to facilitate or build your ministry or platform, to bring to speaking events, or to share with friends and family, Redemption Press's services will easily meet your goal. If you wish to become a best-selling author, that's possible too, but it will take marketing, creativity, and work on your part! Your best opportunities will lie with our full-service imprint, Redemption Press.
Because of the database systems involved, it takes from four to six weeks after publication for each book's data to reach bookstores. We advise authors to hold off on any promotions until bookstores can search for, find, and order your book. All our books are registered with Books in Print, thereby giving all bookstores-whether Christian or secular-access to your book.
Maybe. Shelf space in bookstores is very limited, and it would be impossible for every bookstore to carry every book published. However, because of our distribution agreement with wholesalers like Ingram, Baker & Taylor, and Spring Arbor, bookstores can order your book and get it in a short time frame.
Most importantly, your book will be listed in every bookstore's database of titles, making it easy for readers to special order your book from their favorite bookstores.
Services
We are a hybrid publisher, not merely a print-on-demand publisher. That means, we are not simply printing your book, we are publishing it-offering services such as multiple levels of editing, formatting, cover design, coaching, marketing, publicity, and distribution.
We offer three publishing imprints with varying levels of services, so authors may select the services which best meet their needs, with the guidance of professionals in the Christian publishing industry.
Yes, we offer a complete range of publicity and marketing services, and we've recently significantly improved them! Please speak with one of our publishing consultants about which PR and marketing services are currently offered. Because the publishing world changes so quickly, we adapt to stay current on what's working today.
Yes. However, creating indexes is time-consuming and complicated work, and there is an additional charge for this. To keep the cost to a minimum, we recommend that you create your own index during the last phase of your publishing process. This has the advantage of greatly reducing your cost and ensuring that you get exactly the items you want included in your index.
Yes. Author-requested changes are free if the correction is deemed to be a typesetting or formatting error. However, because of the time involved for our staff, there are standard fees for all other changes after your book has been typeset. To help avoid such fees, we provide you with ample time once the editing process is complete, so you can make all necessary changes to your manuscript before typesetting.
Absolutely. We have authors from many different countries. However, except for those authors residing in the UK, non-U.S. authors will have to pay a little extra to have their books and other printed material shipped to them.
We have published books in Russian, Spanish, Arabic, Korean, and German. Due to the complex issues that arise with foreign language fonts and formatting, there is an extra charge for books published in languages other than English or Spanish.
We offer three imprints, as discussed above, one of which will address your publishing needs.
You will notice that certain benefits are only offered to authors who choose the more rigorous levels of editing required with the Redemption Press imprint because we believe that all books benefit from-and need-editing.
Don't worry, many of our staff are writers themselves so we understand this can be a sensitive area! However, we are obligated to give you the very best advice we can, and so we need to emphasize the huge benefits that the editing process offers. Once they see how quality editing raises the quality of their books, most authors are grateful for this gentle, yet honest, approach. Books that are published, and not simply printed, need to be edited.
We want to provide you with a book that you are proud to hand to your ministry, family, and friends.
Technology
While this makes the process more difficult-it's not impossible! If you do not have easy access to a computer with the ability to receive emails and attachments, a surcharge will be added to the submission fee to cover extra time, expenses, shipping, and handling of sending hard copies of cover proofs and text galleys via our selected courier.
Also, many retail mail and shipping stores offer computers with internet access, as do most libraries.
Please call 360-226-3488 for more information on how we can help publish your book.
Terms & Policies
Yes. A link to our publishing agreement is at the bottom of each page on our website; anyone can review it before contacting us and we're happy to explain the details.
Yes. You retain all rights to your book(s) when you work with us, and you are free to print your book with other publishers at any time. If you choose to contract with another publisher after publishing the same book with us, that publisher might have restrictions, though we will not. Please discuss this with any future publishing partners.
Distributors require the right to sell your book for one year after the publication date. You may take your book out of print any time after that. Even if you sell the rights to your book to another publisher within the first year, it will take them longer than that to get your book printed, so it shouldn't be a conflict.
No. You simply tell your readers where to purchase them and leave everything else to us.
If you want to purchase copies of your own book-to take to a speaking engagement or some other function, for example-you will receive a significant discount depending on how many you purchase. To get an author discount, the minimum order is only five books.
Yes. From a theological viewpoint, we might be considered Bible-based, following the Apostles' Creed as a framework for acceptable doctrine. We publish a wide spectrum of material for Christian authors but do not publish for authors adhering to Mormon (LDS) or Jehovah's Witness doctrine or espousing new age spirituality. Our imprints address the level of editing a must book undergo.
Redemption Press owns the ISBN numbers. We know how important it is to provide each of our authors' books with an ISBN number, so we purchase large blocks of numbers to make the process as smooth as possible. Why is this a good thing for you? Because anyone looking for your book will be able to order it by ISBN number from us or almost any bookstore.
Some people mistakenly suggest that whoever owns the ISBN also owns the rights to your book. This is false. We own the ISBN purely as a convenience for our authors, and you retain the rights to your book.
You do. The "rights" to a book implies ownership. When printing with Redemption Press, YOU own all the rights to your book. A contract with a traditional publisher will usually involve you relinquishing rights of your book to the publisher, freeing the publisher to alter, price, promote, and package your book as he/she sees fit. Some print-on-demand publishers also retain the rights to your book, restricting you from future opportunities.
Yes. The copyright registration will be in your name. The copyright submission is made on the date of publication to ensure that your completed project is covered. You will be billed separately for all associated fees, so they are easy to track.
Yes. Libraries can order through the major distributors we work with.
You do. Retail prices are subject to change as market conditions and costs warrant, and you can set those new prices.
Yes. To better serve our authors in the marketplace, we mark our just-in-time manufactured books as "returnable." Without this capability, major distributors and bookstores will not even handle a book. However, as books are printed on-demand to fulfill each order with no provision for warehousing, this means any royalties and printing costs paid for books that are subsequently returned must be deducted from the author's account.
We believe that making our books returnable provides a considerable benefit to our authors. However, an author may request in writing to opt out of this advantageous arrangement.