Yes, only a handful of our illustrators are capable of doing detailed, lifelike illustrations. It takes much longer to do, and requires significantly more skill. There is a charge of $20 per illustration for any book requiring this type of illustration. Note, the vast majority of our authors (over 95%) are perfectly fine with a cartoon style and do not need to upgrade. You’ll have an opportunity to opt for premium, lifelike illustration after making your deposit, and will get to see a few examples to help you decide if it’s right for your book.

Our standard books are done at 8.5X8.5 inch size, and all are produced at the industry standard 32 pages. Sticking to the same size every time really streamlines our process, allowing us to keep our rates extremely affordable. If you’d like a different size, no problem! But there will be an additional $500 fee added to your final payment upon completion of the project.

We can absolutely do whatever you want, but there will be an additional $500 charge for custom layouts that differ from our standard text-on-the-left, illustration-on-the-right (as shown in the example book in the video at the top).

We do not. With all the print-on-demand services available, it’s very impractical to self-publish your book in any other way. The files we give you are best uploaded to Amazon (via KDP) and Ingramspark, which will allow you to order inexpensive or free “proof” copies to see the book before listing it for sale. You’ll also be able to order as many copies of your book for physical delivery as you like at a heavily-discounted rate.   

Yes! We’re happy to do work for publishers of all sizes, and give full legal release of our work without any demand for a share of the royalties.

If you publish your book with Ingramspark (recommended for hardcover), they will make your book available to be ordered by brick and mortar bookstores. That doesn’t mean you can expect to see it in the front window at every Barnes and Noble, but if it’s having some success it will trickle into some physical bookstores for sure. And we can advise you on how to submit your book to librarians as well.

That is not included in the basic package, but we do operate a book advertising agency (www.bookads.co) and a book promotion site (www.buckbooks.net) that can both be helpful tools to sell your book. Let us know if you are interested in these services upon completion of your project.

Yes! We will do this after completion of the entire book, inside and out. It’s the very last step. We’ll need some text on the back from you (the book description usually suffices, but quotes are nice if you have any), and an author photo and bio are nice additions if you have them.

We start with the book cover, and our illustrators will try to ace the right look and feel for your book on the very first attempt. We hope to get it right the first time for efficiency’s sake, but are willing to do unlimited revisions and even switch to new illustrators if the first few attempts can’t get the style quite right.

Yes! You’re welcome to give detailed ideas for each and every illustration, or let the illustrator make those judgments based on the story and that illustrator’s strengths and weaknesses. There are pros and cons to both approaches, so it’s really up to you to decide what route you’d like to take. 

Yes, but then we’d have to KILL you! 🙂 You will be able to type or record any messages that you would like to relay to the illustration team, and they will be forwarded to them, but unfortunately we must keep the identities of our illustrators a secret to keep them from getting stolen from us!

We will refund up to 100% of your deposit if you request a refund before we begin the editing and illustration. Once we begin work on the project and begin investing time and money into the book ourselves, we will only be able to refund up to half of your initial deposit if you are unsatisfied with our work or need to cancel the order for any reason before completion. Of course, if we are truly negligent for any reason or need to terminate the project due to circumstances that we’re at fault for, we will offer a full refund no matter how much we’ve invested into the project. 

Yes! The first book in your series will always be full price, but each book after your first one will be a minimum of 25% off our standard rates. For really large series (more than three), we can often do even better than that. Contact Us for quotes on large orders. 

If everything goes smoothly and no revisions are needed, the project can be completed as quickly as 60 days from the time the order is placed, but our average turnaround time with a few rounds of editing and revision is more like 90 days.

No, we do not. For the time being, we are sticking to what we do best, but in the future we plan to expand to take on a wider variety of illustration projects. 

Yes! We do it all, and with minimal upcharges for these items. 

Yes and no. If you have your own illustrator, you do not need our service. If you have your own editor or feel like you don’t need one, we do not offer discounts to discourage our authors from cutting corners just to save what would likely be $100 at most. Even if your manuscript has already been edited, we still prefer to give it another round of edits ourselves to make sure it’s up to professional standards.