Copyright - Copyright is a form of protection provided by the laws of the United States to the “original works of authorship”. By copyrighting your book, you are protecting the text, photos, drawings, and maps, but not the title. In book publishing, you cannot copyright a book title, names, or short phrases, although they may be trademarked. Whether or not you register for copyright, you, as the author, have exclusive rights to make copies of your book, distribute it to the public, display it publicly, or to transfer ownership.
You are not required to formally file for copyright with the Copyright Office to secure your copyright. You can simply mail a copy to yourself and keep the package unopened to verify by the date on the envelope that you had the material before someone infringed upon your copyright.
Keep in mind, that when a work is created (written by you) copyright is automatically secured by the fact that you wrote it yourself. You secure a record of that fact by sending yourself a copy by mail with a Federal Postmark. Creation of a work is the key to determining copyright protection, not publication. A work is automatically protected from the time it is created until the copyright expires. For authors / self-publishers, protection extends for the length of the author’s life, plus 70 years. When a work is published, the copyright notice is printed on page two (the copyright page), identifying the year of the publication and the name of the copyright owner. You may use the word copyright, but the © symbol is necessary for international protection.
Understanding the ISBN - The ISBN (International Standard Book Number) is the thirteen digit number on the back of a book. The purpose of the number is to identify the publisher and the book title, and to allow for efficient marketing of products by booksellers, libraries, universities, wholesalers and distributors. Booksellers use this number to order, price and keep track of inventory.
Not every book needs an ISBN number. If, for instance, you plan on selling the book yourself directly to the end consumer you do not need an ISBN number. However, if you plan on marketing your book in bookstores and other retail outlets, you must have an ISBN.
Understanding the EAN Bar Code - The EAN BARCODE is your ISBN number transferred to an OCR (Optical Character Readable) image. An EAN BAR CODE is not necessary in most cases. However, if you plan to distribute your book through major bookstores and retail outlets, most likely, they will require a bar code.
If you would like an ISBN number for your cook book, Blue Crab Press will provide one for you under our name as your Publisher. We will register your cook book for you and provide an EAN Bar Code and ISBN number on your cook book as well as listing your title in Books in Print that is used by all major book sellers to locate titles and authors.
Blue Crab Press charges a one time fee of $40.00 for the service. This number is permanently assigned to your cook book and cannot be reused or reassigned.
Binding Choices
When Blue Crab Press produces a short run title (250-500 copies) for an author it is printed “in-house” at our facilities in Texas. This has some binding limitations. However, projects printed overseas are not limited in size or binding style. Unlike most subsidy publishers, Blue Crab Press will design your cook book to your specifications.
For projects printed “in-house” the binding options are as follows:
- Perfect Bound – with a wrap around matte finished full color cover.
Standard paperback books are an example of perfect binding. The pages and cover are held together by an adhesive which keeps its strength and resiliency for a long period of time. This binding is great for many types of books, including novels and collections of short stories.
- “Old School” Cloth Reinforced Printed Spine – with a matte finished full color, 2 part cover.
The same basic concept as perfect binding is used, except that an additional cloth tape is added to the spine for strength and style. The pages and cover are held together by an adhesive which keeps its strength and resiliency for a long period of time. This binding has a retro chic quality and is good for any type of book.
- “Old School” Spine w/ Translucent Dust Jacket – dust jacket is printed in full color and paired with a solid color book cover.
The same basic concept as perfect binding is used, except that an additional cloth tape is added to the spine for strength and style. The pages and cover are held together by an adhesive which keeps its strength and resiliency for a long period of time. A durable translucent paper that adds to the vibrancy of the color printing is used as a dust jacket. This binding style also has a retro chic quality and is good for any type of book.
- “Lay-Flat” Plastic Comb Binding – with a matte finished full color, 2 part cover. Used on 8 ½” x 11” books only.
We offer plastic comb binding with a soft cover for an additional 45¢ per book charge over the cost of the standard perfect bound book. Plastic comb binding is ideally used for books which must lie flat, such as manuals, how-to books, or workbooks.
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Library Cloth Hard Cover- Full color Dust Jacket in Translucent or Opaque paper. There is no printing directly on the clothbound hardcover.
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Cover Choices
At Blue Crab Press there are no cover templates to just add your title to. Each cover is created specifically for the project.
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Interior Pages
For short run cook books (200-500) copies printed “in-house” the interior text pages will always be in black ink. Images and charts & graphs will be scanned and inserted in grayscale. The standard quote includes up to six (6) images. Additional images can be inserted at a per scan cost.
Artwork can include photos, line art, graphs, tables, or any other illustrations. The printing method we use produces good, but not high quality, photos. Digital printing is an excellent option for short-run cook books that are mostly text with few photos because the print quality is very consistent compared to offset printing. The photo quality is comparable to newspaper printed photos, which is acceptable by short-run standards, but may not be acceptable to you if picture quality is of great importance.
Every cook book that we bind "in-house" is guaranteed to be able to withstand a fifty pound (50 lb) test pull on the pages.
