Every document benefits from being read by fresh eyes. The more familiar we are with our own writing, the more difficult it becomes for us to see misspellings, errors of grammar and other typos. A good proofreader will spot these and remove them from the document.

Proofreading concerns itself with the spotting and correcting of general spelling and grammatical errors, while editing and copy editing consist of looking at the overall text to check for consistency in style, tone, characterisation and formatting.

Each project is priced individually and cost is dictated by a number of factors, including word count, whether the document/manuscript is being proofread only, or proofed and edited. If your manuscript is for publication, the design and print costs have to be calculated; design costs are determined mainly by the number of pages in the book and the type of cover chosen, while print costs are determined by the number of books being printed, whether or not the book has colour, the size of the book, and the type of paper used.

The author owns both the rights and the copyright.

Preferably in a Word document and without any design elements included. It is also better not to have photographs embedded in the text as these will have to be removed by the designer at a later stage. A hard copy of the document or manuscript is also required before work begins.

This depends on the size of the manuscript and the amount of editorial and design work to be done. Typically, a book will take between two and three months to produce.

The graphic designer will generate a bar code.

Red Hen Publishing will supply your ISBN; this is the International Standard Book Number and is a 13-digit number that is unique to your book. You need an ISBN if you want to supply your book to libraries, distributors and most bookshops.

There is always an element of risk in publication and the market is hard to determine. However, if you have written or compiled a book on a specialised topic, for example, the history of a parish or a sports club, you will have a very specific audience that can be directly targeted. Red Hen Publishing can offer informed advice to self-publishers, gained from overseeing the publication and launching of many titles since 2006.

Ghostwriting is the process whereby a manuscript is written for a client (known as ‘the author’) by a professional writer. In the process, the ghostwriter interviews the author in order to compile the author’s story. The ghostwriter then transcribes the interviews and writes the story to a pre-agreed length, creating a manuscript whose tone and voice closely reflect that of the author.