Frequently Asked Questions
by NDAS Clients


Review sec­tions per­ti­nent to ser­vices and/­or pro­ducts needed. See “Contact” for ad­di­tion­al clari­fi­ca­tion.


General Questions

How will my pub­li­ca­tion be struc­tured for a pro­fes­sion­al look?

See this sub­page though there is more.

How do I de­liver my files to NDAS?

  1. Combine files into ar­chives (ZIP, etc.) by ser­vice or­dered. Name ar­chives for ser­vice ap­pli­cable [Cover, Layout, etc.].

  2. If total size of all ar­chives to­ge­ther is 5MB or less then de­liver by email at­tach­ment. If total size is over 5MB then

    1. setup a cloud ac­count, up­load all ar­chives and then email down­load links only, or
    2. deliver ar­chives as at­tach­ments (4mb or less) in se­pa­rate emails; check with us first for gui­dance.
How does NDAS de­liver com­pleted order ma­ter­ials to me?

Finished materials are de­liver­ed by cloud drive links. Con­firm suc­cess­ful down­load; we then delete all files from on­line stor­age.

Fonts

Can I choose fonts for my layout, cover, ebook, etc.?

Provide the font's name—not “file name”—and web address for download. Do not send a font file / image unless requested.

We use only FOS-SIL, OFS-SIL, GNU GPL, or other open source li­censed fonts. If your choice re­quires com­mer­cial li­cens­ing, we may sug­gest a si­mi­lar FOS font.

Free for “per­sonal use” is not free for “com­mer­cial use.”

We have many FOS fonts; for others see the fol­low­ing, though not all are ac­cept­able for com­mer­cial pro­ducts. Fonts found else­where should be iden­ti­fied to us with a web URL, so we may check the li­cens­ing / qual­ity / com­plete­ness for you:

Can I show you a font I want used, even from a­no­ther book?

Pro­vide the font's name—not “file name”—and a web URL ad­dress to ac­quire it. If it is a com­mer­cial font, we may recom­mend an al­ter­na­tive in a FOS li­censed font.

Can I send you a font I want used?

Re­dis­tri­buting com­mer­cial fonts is illegal. This may include ones pre­in­stalled with Win­dows or OSX. For ones found else­where, send us the web URL where you found it, so we can in­spect its li­cens­ing by the cur­rent version.

All fonts have ver­sions like other soft­ware; li­cens­ing can change by ver­sion (sub)­number.

For a commercial [use] font, can NDAS pur­chase it and add the cost to my bill­ing?

If we pur­chase the font, it is li­censed to NDAS; the li­cense is not trans­fer­able through [il­legal] resale, even at the same price. You must pur­chase the font [there­by li­censed to you] and de­liver it with a copy of the re­ceipt. Both will be stored with your pro­ject's files and used only for such.

In general, com­mercial fonts can only be used for print layout; spe­cial li­cens­ing [not always avail­able] is re­quired to embed them in an ebook edi­tion.

Graphics

Do you have images that I can use in my print and/­or ebook cover?

NDAS main­tains a grow­ing stock imagery li­brary. Be­fore pur­chasing pro­ducts or ser­vices, sup­ply upto five key­words for an image search, which must be run over­night. Per­ti­nent re­sults will be pro­vided in thumb­nail previews.

Use of 1 NDAS stock image is in­cluded in cus­tom cover orders. Use of images in pre­made covers are in­cluded in their base price.

You will not re­ceive image files from the NDAS library.

Can you pur­chase images I pick out on­line and add the cost to my in­voice?

Stock Images pur­chased by NDAS are not trans­fer­able un­less pur­chased at a higher resale price. Most stock sites do not of­fer this op­tion. You must pur­chase directly to have rights of usage.

All con­trary claims else­where are false.

Free Images must be at ac­cept­able re­so­lu­tion for use.

For either option, send us the image's web page URL—not screen capture or image thumbnail—to in­spect your choice(s) and ad­vise you.

Can I provide image elements to use in my print and/­or ebook cover?

Pro­vide veri­fi­able docu­ment­ation that you own and/­or li­censed cor­rect rights for use in a com­mer­cial pro­duct. A PDF ex­port of your re­ceipt or signed let­ter of re­lease from a photo­graph­er/­il­lus­trator should be enough. This is for your legal pro­tec­tion as well as ours.

Pro­vide image(s) at suit­able re­so­lu­tion / size for the de­sig­nated work. Con­sult with us before pur­chase, and we will ad­vise you.

We have an “up­scal­ing” pro­cess super­ior to “re­siz­ing” use­ful in some si­tua­tions when an image is not a­vail­able at the ne­ces­sary re­sol­ution.

Editing [service]

What is “Standard Manu­script For­mat”?

It is how your text-only content should be struc­tured by pub­lish­ing in­dustry stan­dards when work­ing with pro­fes­sion­al con­sult­ants. See the Book­shop under “I.A.” for an ebook that explains this and other self-publishing topics.

How do you deliver editor's notes?

All in­line notes and sug­gest­ed changes / cor­rec­tions are en­tered in­to your manu­script via “Track Changes.” You can ac­cept, re­ject and or al­ter changes at your dis­cre­tion. No per­ma­nent changes are made to your con­tent. Ad­di­tion­al edi­tor's docu­ments may be de­li­vered based on the type of ser­vice(s) you or­dered.

ATTENTION: Edited manu­scripts are re­turned in your de­li­vered for­mat, either DOC or ODT. You may re­quest both; in this way, you can re­view Track Changes in Micro­soft “Word” [DOC(X)] or Open­Office / Libre­Office “Writer” [ODT].

Can I see an example of your edit­ing?

Distri­buting an­other author's copy­righted con­tent is il­legal with­out signed (not emailed/­verbal) per­mis­sion. If con­tent is under con­tract to a pub­lisher or other en­tity, an­other signed per­mission from an au­thor­ized re­pre­senta­tive may be re­quired.

All con­trary claims else­where are false.

Do I need MS Word to work on my edit­ed manu­script?

All FOSS office suites re­com­mend­ed by NDAS can open / save / save as / create / con­vert MS Of­fice files. (See “Re­sources >> Of­fice”.) If you en­count­er a problem in an old(er) ver­sion of MS Word, then con­tact us. We have pro­cedures that may solve your problem.

What if I en­counter a problem in open­ing / view­ing my edited manu­script?

  1. If you made changes to the file, then at­tempt to ”Save As” and enter a new file name. In this way, you might save work com­pleted so far.

  2. Con­tact NDAS; ad­dress the email by name to the editor who worked on your manu­script. Your editor or quali­fied staff will assist you. We archive edited manu­scripts for 30+ days against com­pli­ca­tions.

Layout, eBook and/­or Print [service]

What are ”ACNs [Author Change Notes]”?

An industry standardized sys­tem of no­ta­tion. It pro­motes ef­fi­cien­cy and pre­ci­sion in your final “pro­duct” review and com­mu­ni­cat­ing changes and cor­rec­tions to a pro­fes­sion­al lay­out tech­ni­cian [LT]. See the Bookshop under under “I.A.” for an ebook that explains this and other self-publishing topics.

How do I create ACNs for an ebook-only pub­li­ca­tion?

The layout technician [LT] de­livers a PDF ex­port of con­tent as if it were a print edi­tion. You then have stable pages, para­graphs and lines for ACN re­fer­ences to in­di­cate cor­rec­tions.

Can you create an ebook in my vendor's format?

All ebooks are first com­piled in the global ePUB format. You can upload this in any vendor self-pub­lish­ing portal.

Yes, Amazon KDP (Kindle Direct Publishing) ac­cepts an ePUB file. It has always done so.

Upon request, the ePUB can be con­vert­ed to pro­prie­tary / al­ter­na­tive formats. This can in­clude AZW and/­or MOBI (for KDP and a few others), though this is un­ne­ces­sary. You will re­ceive the ePUB as well.

What if my ebook is re­jected by a self-pub­lish­ing por­tal?

Occurrences are [very] rare, as we triple vali­date ePUB files 3 se­pa­rate ways. Re­turn to NDAS with the speci­fic er­rors ex­actly as re­ported by your ven­dor's por­tal, so we can ef­fect­ive­ly ad­just for problems en­countered (at no fur­ther charge).

Cover [service or product]

Can I start my cover de­sign be­fore finish­ing my in­ternal con­tent / book?

Not recommended. A cover is not an il­lus­tra­tion for your (e)book. It is first and fore­most “Pro­duct Packag­ing” which serves the CBR [Customer to Buyer to Reader] sales transition process. You can­not effectively pack­age a pro­duct until after the prod­uct—your con­tent—is fi­nished and final­ized.

Print Edition

The pub­lica­tion's trim size, paper type/­weight, and final physi­cal (not num­bered) page count must be known. These at­tri­butes are re­quired to cal­cu­late spine [panel] width in cover de­sign. Trim zones and paper weight (thick­ness) may also vary from one print press to an­other, even for the same print format.

eBook Edition

It might seem that the above does not apply to an ebook cover; think again. Whe­ther or not you pro­duce a print edi­tion, you might change your mind later.

Content developed for the back cover will be used for meta­data in an ebook. Again, this dimen­sion of “packag­ing” data should wait until con­tent is final­ized, even for an ebook.

Properly organ­ized work in pro­per phases to be com­pleted by con­sul­tants sup­ports ef­fi­cien­cy and in turn fi­nan­cial savings. If you fail to plan pro­per­ly, you will in­crease time to publi­ca­tion com­ple­tion and there­by in­crease your finan­cial cost in ser­vices.

Mock-up [product]

Can I pay extra to have the mock-up master PSD file?

Mock-up master files pur­chased by NDAS do not in­clude re­dis­tri­bu­tion and/­or re­sale rights. For mock-ups created at NDAS, we do not re­dis­tri­bute or sell our mas­ter files.

Is spine thick­ness ad­just­able for “print” book mock-ups?

In most cases, No. Mock-up tem­plates do not con­tain true 3D objects; they have 2D linked layers with edit­able areas. In gener­al, spine thick­ness can­not be changed.

I cannot find a mock-up for my print format; do you have others?

For covers creat­ed else­where, pro­vide your for­mat's front fac­ing di­men­sions (width x height) plus spine thick­ness for a print edition. While spine thick­ness cannot be changed in gener­al, slight re-di­men­sion­ing of ob­ject layers (in some cases) might be pos­sible to create a mock­up al­ter­na­tive for a print book of non-standard di­men­sions.