Questions people actually ask

No. People write to us with finished books, half-finished drafts, folders of unsorted files, handwritten notebooks, and sometimes just a clear idea of what they want to make.

The earlier you get in touch, the more we can help you avoid work that has to be redone later. There is no stage that is too early to ask.

Not at all, and it is the most common way conversations start here. Working out what a project actually needs is the first thing we do, and it is part of the job rather than something you are expected to arrive with.

Describe what you have written and what you would like to end up with. We will tell you what we think it needs, including when the answer is "less than you might expect".

To begin with, just a description. A few sentences about what you have written, roughly how long it is, and what you want it to become is enough for a first reply.

We will ask for the manuscript itself once we have talked, and we will tell you exactly what format to send it in. Do not reformat anything on our account beforehand.

Almost certainly not. A short collection printed for a family is a completely legitimate book, and so is a niche or experimental one. Not everything is written to be sold to strangers.

Tell us what it is for. A book intended for twelve people is a different project from one intended for a bookshop, and knowing which it is changes what we recommend.

Yes: front, spine and back, built to the exact dimensions of your specific book. The spine width depends on your final page count and paper, so covers are built once the interior is settled.

You will see the cover and be able to ask for changes before anything is published.

Yes. Interior layout is one of the main things we do: typeface, margins, chapter openings, running heads, page numbers, front and back matter, and print-ready files built to your printer’s specification.

This is the difference between a book that reads like a book and one that reads like a printed Word document.

Yes. Poetry publishing has its own dedicated home at PoemsPoetry, our sister site, which is built specifically for collections and poet profiles.

The publishing work is the same either way. If you write to us here about a poetry project, it reaches the same people.

Visit poemspoetry.com (opens in a new tab)

Yes. We prepare interior and cover files to KDP’s specification, set up the listing details (trim size, metadata, categories, description) and can walk the upload through with you.

To be clear about the relationship: Cantu Publishing is independent of Amazon. We are not affiliated with, endorsed by, or acting on behalf of Amazon, and we cannot influence anything on their side. KDP is simply one publishing route we know how to prepare a book for.

Yes. Print-on-demand and ebook platforms can list a title across their international marketplaces, and we set those regions up as part of publishing setup.

It is worth deciding this deliberately rather than by default, because list prices are set per region and currency. We will go through the options with you.

It depends on the length of the manuscript, its condition, how much editing it needs, and how quickly reviews come back from you.

We give a realistic timeline with the quote, before work starts, rather than a number that sounds good now and slips later. If something is going to take longer than expected, you will hear it from us first.

Yes, and a lot of authors do. Print-on-demand platforms let you buy copies of your own book at printing cost rather than retail price, and we can place that order for you and have the box shipped to your address.

Thirty, fifty, a hundred copies: whatever the occasion actually calls for. People use them for readings and markets, for stocking a local shop, for contributors and reviewers, or simply for giving to family.

You pay the printing cost rather than the retail price, plus shipping. What that comes to depends on page count, trim size, whether the interior is color or black and white, how many copies you want, and where they are going.

A short paperback is usually only a few dollars a copy. Shipping is real and is quoted on top, so you see the whole number before anything is ordered. Ask and we will price your specific book at the quantity you have in mind.

They do different jobs. A retail listing reaches people you will never meet and requires nothing from you once it is set up. Selling a copy in person generally puts more in your pocket per book, because you keep the difference between printing cost and whatever you sell it for rather than a royalty percentage.

Most authors who sell in person do both. Which makes sense for you depends on whether you actually want to stand at a table, and that is a real question worth answering honestly before ordering a hundred copies.

Yes, as an optional add-on. Campaigns are built around your book’s genre and readership, with demographic and interest targeting, static and dynamic bidding, and cost-per-click structures managed against the budget you set rather than left to run unattended.

This is built on roughly a decade of running custom campaigns. It is completely optional, and plenty of books we work on never run one.

Two separate amounts, and it is worth keeping them apart in your head. There is the advertising budget itself, which you decide and which goes to the platform running the ads. Then there is our fee for building and managing the campaign, which comes in tiers depending on the scale of what is being run.

How much a campaign can achieve is governed largely by the budget behind it. A small budget buys a small, tightly targeted test, which can be a sensible way to learn what works before committing more. We will tell you honestly what a given number can and cannot do.

No. We do not take a cut of your royalties, we do not sign authors to representation contracts, and we do not market books in exchange for a share of the sales.

You pay for the work and for the ad budget. After that, everything the book earns is yours.

We cannot promise that, and nobody honestly can. Advertising puts a book in front of people who are plausibly interested in it. Whether they buy depends on the book, the cover, the description, the price, the competition and a great deal of chance.

What we can be accountable for is that the campaign is well built, properly targeted, actively managed, and honestly reported. If a campaign is not working, we will tell you that rather than quietly keep spending your money.

It depends on the project, and we do not publish a price list because a single number would be misleading for most of the books we are asked about.

Cost is driven by manuscript length and condition, how much editing is involved, the complexity of the interior and cover, whether there are images, and which formats you want. Describe the project and you will get a quote and a written scope. Asking costs nothing.

No, and you should be wary of anyone who does. Nobody can promise sales, rankings, reviews, royalties or an audience, because none of those things are within a publisher’s control.

What we can be accountable for is the work: a well-edited text, a properly designed interior, a cover built to specification, and files that publish correctly. That is what you are paying for, and it is what we will stand behind.

You wrote it, so the copyright in your writing is yours. Hiring help with production does not change that by default.

Beyond that general point, the specifics (rights, licensing, imprint, distribution, what happens to design files afterwards) are set out in the written agreement for your individual project, and we go through it with you before any work starts. Nothing is assumed and nothing is hidden in the small print.

We are a publishing operation, not a law firm, and none of this is legal advice. For anything with real consequences for you, take your own.

Reviews are a built-in stage, not an exception. You see the interior and the cover before publication and say what you want changed.

How many rounds of revision are included, and what counts as a new piece of work rather than a revision, is agreed in writing at the start of the project so there are no awkward conversations later.

Payment arrangements are set out in the project agreement before work begins. Get in touch and we will walk you through it as part of the quote.