What is Beta Publishing?

Beta Publishing (sometimes called Preliminary Edition Publishing) is a special form of publishing designed for budding writers who cannot afford the fees that Vanity Publishers charge, lack the resources or skills to self publish and/or wish for assistance in promoting their manuscript to a conventional publisher. Beta publishers prepare a book for publication the same as conventional publishers with one major difference. Beta publishers do not initially print the books in large quantities. These small print runs enable writers to have professionally produced copies of their book in their hands within a few weeks of submitting the manuscript, and minor changes can be made between print runs. Bigziddlezot Multimedia beta edition books are limited to Multimedia CDROM and are useful for submitting to larger publishing houses, sharing with friends or selling to raise revenue for self-publishing. Although we specialise in children's books, we do consider other genre.

Why Beta Publish?

By submitting a manuscript for transformation into a Beta Edition, the writer is able to have their work professionally proof-read, typeset and formatted into a book with none of the usual costs involved with vanity publishing, self-publishing or persuading a larger publishing house to publish for them.

Beta Publishing is an excellent way to market-appraise a publication prior to release and is also a great way to create a demand for your book. Once a demand is created by the Beta Edition, publishers will be more inclined to express an interest in it and you could find that the Beta Publisher may re-accept the manuscript for conventional publishing or sponsor your publication for publishing through an affiliated publishing house

What about Copyright?

When you submit your manuscript YOU will still continue to hold copyright and intellectual property rights on your manuscript, and Bigziddlezot Multimedia will only have assigned to us a limited copyright holding with permission to beta-publish in the multimedia format for your benefit and to re-coup the costs of publishing. This does not affect your future use of the manuscript nor does it place any limitation on the choices you have in relation to your present ownership or future assignment of copyright to any other party or to Bigziddlezot Multimedia.

What about the cost? Who pays for it?

Our publishing is free! Bigziddlezot Multimedia will agree (in writing) not to charge you anything for publication and accept that you will not exact any charges upon us. We will agree to do all the preparatory work and then provide you with a free copy of the finished book. This becomes your payment for the printing rights to the beta edition. If you wish for additional copies to send to prospective publishers or your friends and colleagues, or copies for you to sell to friends, bookstores, at markets or seminars, We will make these available singly or in bulk at or below market prices.

What sort of things does a Beta Publisher do to prepare the manuscript for Beta Publishing?

We can provide a free editorial or co-writer/ghost-writer service if you have difficulties putting what you want to say into words.

We do not normally type hand-written manuscripts (although we can arrange this for you for a fee). The manuscript is usually accepted in computer format (Mac or IBM). Bigziddlezot Multimedia has access, through our parent publishing house (L&R Hartley), to computer systems with several hundred different word-processing programs (such as MS Word, WordStar, Word Express, Corel, Lotus, PC Write, Sun Office, Mac Write, etc.) so the programme that you normally use for computer typing should not pose any problems.

Once Bigziddlezot Multimedia accept your manuscript we will lay out the pre-typed text into book format using a computerised professional publishing programme and then may include such things as:

* Spell-checking the manuscript

* Compiling poetry or essays into anthologies

* Correcting syntax and grammatical errors

* Standardising paragraph and quotation formats (so all chapters use the same format)

* Creating a Table of Contents and/or index

* Scanning illustrations, photos, etc for your book

* Adding audio or video clips if available and appropriate

* Contracting a foreword, preface or blurb writer at our expense

* Contracting a graphic artist to design covers and/or in-book illustrations, once again, at our expense

* Final proof-reading

* Computer engineering of text, graphics, sound, etc. into a multimedia package

* Printing/reproducing/packaging copies on Multimedia CDROM

* Designing promotional material to accompany the publication if required.

If I submit my manuscript and Bigziddlezot Multimedia accepts it, can I change my mind about having it Beta Published?

How to submit a manuscript