Questions authors ask.

Yes. In South Africa, ISBNs are issued free by the ISN Agency at the National Library of South Africa. Anyone who charges you “for the ISBN” is charging for their admin. My ISBN service costs R550 on its own, for the admin, and it is free inside every package.

You do. Your ISBNs are registered to your own imprint name, your Amazon, IngramSpark and Draft2Digital accounts are in your name, and every right in the edits, covers and files is assigned to you in writing.

Not on Amazon, IngramSpark or Draft2Digital: those royalties are paid straight to you. On Takealot, Makro and Amazon.co.za I hold and ship your stock through my seller accounts, so I keep 15% of the net payout on each copy sold and pay you the rest monthly.

A Complete Book, from a finished draft to a live listing, takes 10 to 12 weeks. Most of that is the copy-edit, which takes three to four weeks for 70,000 words. If your manuscript is already edited, Publish Ready takes three to four weeks.

A 50% deposit starts the work, and the balance is due before your final files are released. The Readiness Call is paid in full, R950, when you book it. Editing is invoiced half at the start and half on hand-over. Packages over R15,000 can be split into three monthly payments. You can pay by card through Yoco or by EFT. All prices include VAT.

Then don’t pay me for it. Untick what you have in the price builder. If your cover is done, I’ll still lay out the spine and back cover to the printer’s specification.

I can submit it. My company, Bluesky Distribution, is a registered Exclusive Books supplier, and my own novel is on the shelf at their V&A Waterfront store. Their buyers choose title by title, so I can’t promise a place on the shelf. Your book goes to the people who make that decision.

You supply printed stock, and I list it and ship orders through my established seller accounts. The setup fee covers listing on all three. Each month you receive a statement and your share of the payouts, under a written consignment agreement that says who pays which fees, what happens to returns, and how to withdraw your book.

Before work starts, your deposit is refunded in full. After that, you pay for the stages already delivered and the rest is refunded. See the refunds and cancellations policy.

Editing and cover design are done by named people. I use software, including AI tools, for checks such as consistency lists, formatting validation and keyword research. Software never rewrites your sentences or draws your cover.

Yes. Only the people working on your book see it, all of them under a confidentiality agreement. I never use your text in my own marketing without your written permission, and I delete working copies six months after your project ends.

No. If you’re stuck with a half-finished draft, the Writing Coach is built to get you to the end yourself.