BookRix

Very short books have a tendency to be rejected from external shops because they feel that there is not enough content to justify a cost for the book. We abide by industry standards and currently most online shops require a minimum of 2000 words to publish a book.

Remember, your book blurb is required to be a minimum of 140 (max 3000) characters. This blurb is important to catch the potential readers attention to want to read/buy your book. So use your words! If you're lacking inspiration, take a look at some of the book descriptions of your favorite books written by your favorite authors and see how they did it.

You can sell anything you wish. Poems, a short story, pieces of an anthology, anything you want to sell. This is up to you, however keep in mind there is a 2000 word minimum required for ebook publication.

Our free self-publishing services offers writers the opportunity to sell their eBooks in all major online retailers. The 'How to Format your eBook' guide provided here offers simple instructions to create and format an eBook using Microsoft Word. We also provide information on how eBook formatting is different from print formatting.

Rejection Prevention - BookRix, as well as external shops, have quality control over the books placed for sale. Books that don't pass quality inspection will be rejected. When this occurs, they are not sent for distribution to our external shops and they cannot be purchased.

Here are some steps you can take to prevent your eBook from being rejected:

Cover

Put some effort into your eBook cover. A great cover can sell twice as many eBooks than one with a poor cover. It’s the first thing your reader sees and it’s often the first thing you book is judged on.

Be sure the images used on your cover (as well as images used inside your eBook) belong to you and are not protected by copyright. If you are unsure, we strongly recommend creating your own cover art or soliciting someone to create a cover for you.

Using a high quality image is essential for your book cover. Avoid images that are too small as these images can appear pixilated when enlarged for your book cover. Also avoid using images that contain text as it can conflict  with the title of your book and look unprofessional.

Hate messages and/or symbols, sexually explicit images or images containing illegal activity are not permitted.

If you are looking for graphic programs, ideas, tips or even someone to create a cover for you, check out our Art Writers group on BookRix: http://www.bookrix.com/_group-en-teaser-room

For more helpful information about covers, please click here: http://www.bookrix.com/_title-en-bookrix-publishing-tips-tricks-part-3-the-power-of-the-cover

Grammar & Spelling

Good writing involves proper grammar and accurate spelling.

We recommend that you have various readers review your work prior to publishing it. These “test readers” should check specifically for grammar and spelling. Your book will be rejected if it’s poorly written, appears confusing or has too many spelling and grammatical errors.

If you need assistance editing your eBook, please join our “Editing 101” group here: http://www.bookrix.com/_group-en-teaser-room and our members can help you further.

If you feel as though you need some additional assistance, we encourage you to check out our Publishing Tips and Tricks series. Part 7 focuses specifically on spelling, grammar and typos. You can read it for free here: http://www.bookrix.com/_title-en-bookrix-publishing-tips-tricks-part-7-typos-type-nos

Blurb / Book Description

First impressions matter.

When a potential reader views your book, the first thing they read after the title is your book description. Don’t overlook this step. You want to entice your reader by being creative and using descriptive words. Focus on what you want to say, choose your sentences carefully, and make it count.

Books with generic or weak blurbs can be rejected. Put some thought this space. You have a minimum of 140 characters and a maximum of 3000. If you need some inspiration or ideas, look up some of your favorite books and read the synopsis.

Copyrighted Text / Images

If the image is not owned by you, or you have not received permission from the owner to use the image, don’t use it.

Books containing copyrighted material (text and/or images) will be rejected. If you do not own the rights to it, you are not authorized to upload it. Any copyright violation made by a BookRix member is their own responsibility and legal action can be taken by the copyright holder against you.

Author Name, Pen names and Anonymity

To prevent your book from being rejected in external shops like Kobo, iTunes and Amazon, a first and last name are required. A pen name can be chosen, however it must be a first and last name and cannot contain titles such as PhD, Mr., etc.

Table of Contents & Page Numbers

These are automatic. Manual input is not necessary.

A table of contents is automatically generated for your book (with a minimum of cover, body of your text and the imprint), when the chapter feature is used, and you will not need to create an additional table of contents. If you enabled the Chapter function and entered a table of contents manually in your text area, please remove the manual table of contents as this can cause your eBook to be rejected.

Page numbers are automatically inserted into ePub files and eReaders. Please remove manually inserted page numbers in your text, as having them can cause your eBook to be rejected.

External Links/ Shop Names

Avoid a conflict of interest.

Your eBook will be rejected from external shops if you post links to books and/or products within your book. In addition, you are not permitted to mention names of online shops. Books containing names to online shops, such as iTunes or Barnes & Noble, will also be rejected.

Authors are free to insert links to their author page, sources for education and finance, help sites, businesses, etc., However “Direct-to-buy” links are not permitted.

Word, Line, & Page Breaks / Formatting

Presentation is everything.

Words on a page attract a reader but the way they are laid out on a page is equally important. The formatting of your eBook is essential to it being well received.

Most external shops have formatting standards that they require all authors to abide by. Stores like iTunes will reject books that have more than 2 line breaks and/or page breaks. This extra spaceing can cause blank pages in an eReader. Colored or bold fonts can also cause a book to be rejected.

Most eReaders are designed to break words for you. When a word at the end of a line doesn’t fit properly, don’t worry. Continue typing and the BookRix  editor will break a word when necessary. This also applies to hitting the “Enter” key on your keyboard and manually breaking a word. Doing this will distort your text and can cause your eBook to be rejected.

Keep it classic and clean and don't use the "Enter" key in excess as this will minimize your chances of getting rejected from the external shops.

Hate Messages

Hatred is not permitted.

Books containing hate messages directed to any race, ethnicity, gender, political party, religion, etc., will be rejected unless depicted in the plot of the story.

Illegal Activity

Illegal activity is not permitted.

Books containing illegal activity such as pedophilia, how-to’s for crimes, etc., will be rejected unless depicted in the plot of the story.

Book Pricing

Determine the appropriate price for your eBook.

A good thing to consider when pricing your book is the number of pages it contains. For example, if you penned a short story and intend to sell it for a high dollar amount, a potential buyer could be turned off by the price. If your book is priced too high, you may receive a message from us encouraging you to adjust it.

For helpful tips about pricing your book, please click here: http://www.bookrix.com/_title-en-bookrix-publishing-tips-tricks-part-10-pricing-your-book

Click below for more Publishing Tips and Tricks:

Become Active
http://www.bookrix.com/_title-en-bookrix-publishing-tips-and-tricks-part-1-become-active
Link Cleverly, Earn More Money
http://www.bookrix.com/_title-en-bookrix-publishing-tips-tricks-part-2-link-cleverly-earn-more-money
The Power of the Cover
http://www.bookrix.com/_title-en-bookrix-publishing-tips-tricks-part-3-the-power-of-the-cover
The First Words Matter
http://www.bookrix.com/_title-en-bookrix-publishing-tips-tricks-part-4-the-first-words-matter
Choose a Good Title
http://www.bookrix.com/_title-en-bookrix-publishing-tips-tricks-part-5-choose-a-good-title
Get a Good Review
http://www.bookrix.com/_title-en-bookrix-publishing-tips-tricks-part-6-get-a-good-review
Typos? Type No’s!
http://www.bookrix.com/_title-en-bookrix-publishing-tips-tricks-part-7-typos-type-nos
The Book Blog
http://www.bookrix.com/_title-en-bookrix-publishing-tips-tricks-part-8-the-book-blog
Become Active on BookRix
http://www.bookrix.com/_title-en-bookrix-publishing-tips-tricks-part-9-become-active-on-bookrix
Pricing Your Book
http://www.bookrix.com/_title-en-bookrix-publishing-tips-tricks-part-10-pricing-your-book

Click HERE for our ePub style guide that will help you prevent your eBook from rejection

Click HERE for Marketing Tips that will help your book get noticed

Let’s face it. We all know books are judged by their covers,  so to help you make your eBook as attractive as possible (especially when it’s for sale in the massive eBook market)  BookRix partnered up with Getty Images to bring you more choices for your eBook covers.

With this feature you have access to over 1 million images with thousands subject options. A simple keyword search will get you exactly what you are looking for. From a serene landscape to sci-fi spaceship, you will be able to find the best image for your creative needs.

To start your search, simply enter your keyword in the field, “Search your item”, and then click “Search”.  For example, if your book is a thriller you can search with words like “mystery”, “murder”, “mysterious", etc. You can also complete keyword searches for multiple words (separated by a coma and a space). For example, you can search “woman running on a beach” or “man, glasses, dark hair, middle-aged”.  It’s best to try various keyword searches to make sure that you find exactly what you are looking for.

Tip: If you are looking for a cartoon feel for your image (commonly used in Chick Lit), you can insert the word “Vector” as one of your key words.

Once you have found an image that you like, simply click on it to see a larger view in your cover display preview. Keep in mind that the quality of the image is delivered in a higher resolution after the image license is purchased. You can fit the image to scale so that it fills the proportions of the cover size. You can also choose to have a grey text background behind your text to make it easier to see your book title in a very illustrated image. Choose your title font and color and then “Proceed to check out”.  You must have a PayPal account to process the payment. Once your payment is complete, you can always reference your purchased image in “My saved images” or “Your own images”.

Choosing a Getty image will allow you to upload the graphic for commercial use in a high resolution quality which is required by the external shops. Once you have purchased the image (for only $9.99), which includes the license usage, you’re free to use the image again and again, indefinitely, for any book on BookRix. This is great news if you have a book that is part of a series and can use the same cover art. Unfortunately, the license is for BookRix eBooks only and can’t be used for print books.

In the near future, you will be able to tailor your title placement to better suit your cover graphic. This will make customizing your cover to make it unique and attractive as possible to attract those readers to your eBook!

Edit Book Content will take you to the BookRix editor where you can either upload a file or add text directly.

How to upload a file

BookRix makes it easy for you to upload your work to our site. If you already have a file in your computer, you can use the File Upload button which inserts the text into in our BookRix Editor. Currently we support the following formats: .doc, .docx, .odt, txt, .rtf, .epub. To make things even simpler, if you use the Heading feature in Microsoft Word, the heading text will automatically be converted into chapter titles. You can also include images in the file you are uploading.

Once you’ve uploaded your file, you can use our BookRix editor to make updates, modify your text or add new chapters to your book. Please see the section below for more information regarding our BookRix editor.

Important: If you choose to edit an existing book and decide to upload an additional file, it will replace all the previously stored book content.

Tip: To help you create a perfect ePub file and prevent getting your eBook rejected from sale, please carefully read through our ePub Style Guide

How to Use Our BookRix Editor

The best thing about our BookRix Editor is that it’s so simple to use. If you want to create your book from scratch, click the Type in Content button to begin using the BookRix Editor. This is the same page you would see after selecting file upload.

In this section, you can Add New Chapter, Delete chapters (select the trash can icon) and even change the order of your chapters. This can be done by dragging the arrow button near the Chapter numbers up or down.

Once text has been added to the chapter field, you can make other changes using the tool bar. Options from left to right: Alter text with Bold, Italic, and Underline; Change text alignment from left (default), center or right; Undo or redo an action; Add an image or link; Show/hide block elements (this displays each time of text inside a block). If you aren’t sure what a tool is used for, simply hover your mouse over the icon and a description will appear.

Tip:  Always save your changes.

Creating an eBook on BookRix is easy! Log into your BookRix account and click the Create New Book button highlighted on the upper right hand side of your screen. You’ll be prompted to enter a book title. But don’t worry, this can be changed at any time. After you enter the title, click Create Book to get started.

On the book editing page, there are three options to choose from: Edit Book Content, Edit Book Info, and Edit Cover. Completion of all three fields is required to share or publish your book, but you can decide which section to fill out first.

Please note: There is a 2000 word minimum to publish and distribute your ebook.

After you have filled out all the information in the 3 required fields (content, book info, and cover), please select whether you want to sell your eBook in the external shops or publish your book for free, only on BookRix.

If you select Only on BookRix  and determine who is allowed to view your book (All Users or Friends) you can now click Publish Book. If your book is missing information, you will receive a notification directing you to the section(s) requiring your attention with a pink outline around the fields. If your book is published for free on BookRix you can edit it an any time. If you wish to remove the book from public view you can undo the publication by clicking Undo Publication when you are in the Edit Book section.

If you select All shops, you are agreeing to sell your book in the shops that we distribute to (Amazon, Barnes & Nobel, Kobo, iTunes...). From here, click on Sell Book and then choose your price from $0.00 to $49.00.  Check the box that you have read and understood the Author Agreement and then click Sell Book.

If you have already published your ebook on Amazon, we can still move forward. But to do this, we will need the ASIN number associated with your ebook on Amazon. Currently, Amazon is the only exception we can make. If your book was published and sold on iTunes, we would be unable to accept your ebook for publication. To move forward with BookRix, you would need to remove your ebook from iTunes completely. Once removed, you would be able to use our services.

If you haven’t filled all of the required fields of the necessary areas (Content, Book info, Cover), you will receive a notification alert.  Then you will know which area is missing content because a pink line will appear around the Edit Book Content, Edit Book Info and/or Edit Cover button(s).