Custom Publishing

Odyssey Books offers a complete publishing, design & print production service for authors who want to self-publish. Keep 100% of your rights and royalties.

Unlike other author publishing services, we have a focus on developing a mentoring relationship with our authors. Not only do we polish your manuscript and design stunning book pages and covers, we can guide you through distribution and promotion opportunities, navigate the world of social networking, and demystify publishing industry terminology and processes.

If you would like to work with Michelle, Paul and Jess on your voyage to publication, contact us today!

Editing & Proofreading

We offer editing and proofreading services with fast turnaround times at reasonable prices. Our editing rates are based on word count, so you can work out the cost of having your manuscript edited before proceeding.

Correction of grammar, misspelled/misused words, punctuation, syntax and incorrect structure.
We make suggestions where we see opportunity for improvement in subject matter and terminology, order of layout and presentation of data.

Book Design & Typesetting

Good book layout is more than just typing your manuscript in Word and saving it in PDF format for your printer. Choosing the right fonts, line spacing, kerning, margins, bleeds, page numbering, and getting headers and footers to work properly can be problem areas for the self-published author. Do you have lots of images in your book, bullet lists, info boxes, fancy page decorations or other formatting requirements? Let us take care of your book layout for professional, striking results.

Customised Cover Design

They say you can’t judge a book by its cover, but we all know the cover is often the first thing a reader sees before deciding to pick it up.

Whether you supply images for your cover, or we find them for you, we will create an elegant or dynamic, eye-catching cover design.

No templates! We create all our designs from scratch, ensuring you have a truly unique cover for your book. See examples here.

eBook Publishing

Due to the growing popularity of eBook readers such as the Kindle, Nook, Kobo and iPad, eBook sales have begun to exceed paperback sales around the world. Your novel or non-fiction book can join in this revolution with our eBook conversion services. We will provide fully tested eBook files in ePub (Nook, Kobo, iPad) and .mobi (Kindle) formats, as well as resized cover images to be used as thumbnails in the various eBook online stores.

Promotional Bookmarks/Bookstubs, Postcards & Posters

Receive professionally designed full-colour promotional materials, ready for your favourite printer, or we can arrange printing for you. Using your book’s cover art and sales information, this printed material will be ready to hand out to potential readers, fans and buyers.

Distribute your promotional materials at industry events such as book fairs and trade shows
Use them in your direct mail campaigns
Include them with any merchandise you give away or sell in person

Custom WordPress Author Websites

Self-published authors need a platform – an online home – where they can promote and sell their books. While seeing your book on the shelves of your favourite bookstore is a thrill all authors should enjoy, the reality is more readers are looking online to discover and buy new titles.

A WordPress blog is an ideal way to build a fan base, by allowing readers to glimpse the lives of their favourite authors – or their favourite book’s characters. Blogs are a versatile and easy to maintain platform, even for those who don’t have web design skills.

Social networking, such as Facebook and Twitter, is also very easy to integrate into a WordPress website and can expand your reach to your fanbase.

Printing

We can assist with selecting the best printer or print-on-demand (POD) service for your needs, and ensure that your files meet the specific requirements of the chosen printer.

Our clients say

Thanks to Michelle for making my book look great and for making the CreateSpace publishing process so easy! As a self-publisher, I knew that I wanted to go beyond the stereotypical amateur product and end up with a top quality, professional book that I could be proud of. Michelle provided me with excellent copy/content editing, formatted the interior and cover, and took care of uploading all the files for publication. I was able to concentrate my energies on writing and creating my marketing plan instead of wasting weeks or months learning how to do a bunch of tasks I’d never do again. My book is now in print far faster than I could have gotten it out alone, and no one who sees it can believe that it’s self-published.

- Nancy L. Hill, Nature Whispering,
148 Ways to Have Magical, Mystical Experiences in Nature

If you have have been writing a book and are to the point of final design I highly recommend Odyssey Books. I attempted to create the pdf for Epilepsy Unveiled on my own until I was nearly insane and then contacted Odyssey Books and worked with Michelle throughout the entire process of designing my pdf for the paperback verson and also formatting Epilepsy Unveiled for Kindle and Nook. It seemed every time Michelle sent a “final” pdf I found a mistake I made within the chapters that needed to be corrected. Michelle was very professional and never complained when I asked her (several times) to make a correction to what should have been the finished product.

Being a writer is an entirely different field than being a book designer which I found out the hard way after much frustration and wasted time. If you need a pdf for your paperback or a conversion for Kindle and Nook stop right now and contact Odyssey Books and let them make the final version of your book more than you expected it to be. The price was very reasonable and I am extremely pleased with the design of Epilepsy Unveiled. Thank you Michelle.

- Lola Burritt, Epilepsy Unveiled

I received my proof in the mail and I have to say it looks FANTASTIC. I want to thank you and your team for the outstanding service you have provided for me. I am stunned at how fast you were able to publish my book. Yet I can sit my book next to any book in my local book store, and feel proud. No one would ever know it was self published. Michelle you made me feel as though you cared about my project just as much as I did. I would tell any author who decides to self publish to partner with Odyssey Books. Thank you for helping me to achieve my dream of becoming a published author.

- DeDe Hunt, Empty Spaces

Just wanted to say what a wonderful job you did with my uber-complicated reformatting job. There were pages and pages of listings which had been collated over many years and in several different software formats. Try as I may I could not reformat the pages to look professional enough for publication and wasted several months of valuable time getting nowhere when the book could have been out there in the lead-up to Christmas. Then you came along and in a few short weeks you transformed nearly 750 pages of muddle into something approaching perfection. The calm, methodical and understanding way you dealt with my serious, and serial, problems, brought me back from the depths of despair. On more than one occasion, the large tome written, I was on the verge of packing it in. I cannot thank you enough for all you’ve done, and had I known what a bargain your services were to self-publishing authors, I would not have hesitated putting my hand in my pocket much, much earlier. I’ll be in touch with the next title.

- Alun Evans, From Old Tom to the Tiger

Michelle is by far one of the most considerate professionals I’ve had the pleasure of working with in a long time. My cover was crafted with expertise, the redesign of my interior to match my cover was a perfect fit, and the customer service was impeccable. I promise you won’t be disappointed.

- Nina S. Cofield, Echoes Resound Forever

Words that describe Michelle as she helped me self-publish a novel: efficient, straight-forward, knowledgeable, professional, punctual. I thoroughly enjoyed working with her. I couldn’t have asked for a better partner in this complex endeavor.

- R.C. Hodges, Drought in the Years of Plenty

Michelle did an excellent job of editing and proofing my book; she was exactly what I needed. My book had been already scrutinized for mechanical errors, but Michelle’s professional eye caught additional errors that my friends had missed. I’m glad I hired a professional editor; although I had some friends proof my book, and although they were well intentioned and well educated, there is no substitute for a professional editing job. With Michelle you get a seasoned editor at a very reasonable price. Since she is well known in the publishing community for her editing I thought she would have the skills required, and she earned every penny.

- A.K. Nicholas, Lights, Camera, Nude

I just wanted to thank you for your service, I cannot believe how easy it was to self publish my Seniors Travel Tips book using both of your services. It was affordable and easy – if I can do it, anyone can do it. The book looks so professional inside and out. The cover is great and the inside looks professional. I highly recommend your services to anyone.

- Bronwyn White, Seniors Travel Tips

I’d like to thank you for your work on the interior file and the full cover for my book Dangerous Secret. You went way beyond simple competence! Your professionalism and talent created a wonderful frame for my writing and I’m both proud of and delighted with my novel because of your work.

- Renée Goudeau, Dangerous Secret

I am absolutely thrilled with the job Michelle did formatting my second book, “The Life of a Stripper.” She was very quick and professional to respond to all my emails and extremely patient with all my many questions. When it was time for me to upload the file to Amazon, she supplied me with a detailed and lengthy description of how to go about it. I am not a very techy person, so this helped me a lot. The book looks better than I expected and I would not hesitate to use her services again. Thank you Michelle! I can’t thank you enough for the great work!

- Romana Van Lissum, The Life of a Stripper

As a first time book publisher, I would like to say that I feel very lucky to stumble upon Michelle and her crew. They helped me tremendously to get over my last hurdle, making my book cover look professional. They are easy to work with, do excellent work, very creative, and are an inspiration to me in my future book writing endeavors. I am planning on using their expertise again in the near future.

- Dennis Cheslik, How to Lower Home Energy Bills: From A to Z

Michelle, thanks SO much for your ultra professional and efficient formatting of my manuscript! Your work is impeccable and it was a pleasure dealing with you. To anyone needing help formatting their manuscript for CreateSpace publication (and who doesn’t, if you use MS Word? , I would wholeheartedly recommend Michelle. She’s reliable and her fee is quite reasonable.