What makes Publisher.co.za different?

As an indie bookstore, we pride ourselves on empowering all local, self-published authors by offering them a platform through which to sell their work. However, we want to protect our customers from the disappointment of buying a book from our store, only to find that its quality is poor.

To combat this, we’ve introduced a quality rating system to guide you in your book-buying choices. If one of our titles has received our “Quality Assured” stamp of approval, you can rest assured that it has been vetted by our team and meets trade publishing standards.

How it works

All books that are submitted for listing on the store are briefly evaluated by our team members with regards to three factors:

1. Writing and editing: Words are the building blocks of books, so using them correctly is vital. During evaluation, three chapters are selected at random and evaluated for basic things such as use of language, editing and proofreading (or lack thereof). This is not a reflection of the actual content (or story) – only a thumbs up that the text itself is of good enough quality to ensure a pleasurable read.
2. Book interior: No one enjoys reading a book with a font that’s too small, too distracting, too cramped, or too poorly printed. When we evaluate the interior, we look at layout, font, readability of the text, design elements, printing quality and paper type, to ensure that you have a pleasant and easy reading experience.
3. Cover: As book lovers, we never toss out our books after reading them – we collect them, display them on our shelves, and pass them around between friends and family. A poorly-designed cover, badly printed on inferior material, ruins this part of the experience. A poor cover is also often a dead giveaway that a book has not been professionally produced. When evaluating covers, we look at the design, the material and the printing to ensure that you get a product that is attractive and durable, and that you can display on your bookshelf with pride.

Quality Assurance

Each Publisher.co.za team member gives the book a score for these categories, and the grand total determines whether the book meets our criteria to earn a Quality Assured badge. Now book buyers need no longer worry about buying books with great looking covers only to find that the content is poorly written, badly presented or difficult to read. The entire package must come together to earn our Quality Assured badge.

If your book is listed and does not display our Quality Assured badge, get in touch with us – maybe we can offer some feedback or put you in touch with our friends in publishing, who can help you improve the quality of your book for your next print run.