How do I download a free PDF copy of my paperback?
Simply go to our home page and enter the bar code number from the back cover of the paperback you bought where it says Free Scanned Book Download.
Why are there so many typos in my paperback?
The book descriptions we ask booksellers to display prominently warn that our books contain numerous typos. Most book sellers display our descriptions. But if they don't, unfortunately, there's nothing we can do.
We created your book using OCR software that includes an automated spell check. Our OCR software is 99 percent accurate if the book is in good condition. However, with up to 6,000 characters per page, even one percent can be an annoying number of typos.
We carefully proof read the books we expect to sell enough copies to cover the cost of proof reading. But that could add more than a thousand dollars to the cover price of the rest. And nobody wants to pay that.
If you need to see the original text, you can download a copy for free.
Why is the index and table of contents in my paperback missing (or not working)?
The book descriptions we ask booksellers to display prominently warn that our books are not indexed. After we re-typeset and designed your book, the page numbers change so the old index and table of contents no longer work. Therefore, we usually remove them.
Since many of our books only sell a couple of copies, manually creating a new index and table of contents could add more than a hundred dollars to the cover price. And nobody wants to pay that.
If you need to see the original index, you can download a copy for free.
Why are illustrations missing from my paperback?
The book descriptions we ask booksellers to display prominently warn that our books are not illustrated. We typeset our classics paperbacks using OCR software. Therefore, they don't have illustrations.
We would really like to manually scan and add the illustrations. But many of our books only sell a couple of copies so that could add hundreds of dollars to the cover price. And nobody wants to pay that.
If you would like to see the original illustrations, however, you can download a scanned copy of the original book for free by using the form on our home page.
Why is text missing from my paperback?
The book descriptions we ask booksellers to display prominently warn that our books may be missing text. Unfortunately, all or part of a page is occasionally missing from our copy of a book. Or the paper may be so discolored from age that you can no longer read the type.
We would really like to track down and buy multiple copies of those books to compare and manually proof read and correct any missing text. But many of our books only sell a couple of copies so that could add hundreds of dollars to the cover price. And nobody wants to pay that.
If you would like to read the original scanned book, you can download a copy for free.
How can I check the quality of a paperback before buying it?
Simply click the details link on our search results page to see a random 2,000 character except from the book.
Can I buy a paperback of the scanned book rather than your re-typeset version?
We have tried reprinting books without re-typesetting them, but the discolored paper and faded type of the original copy creates printing problems. Sometimes the original book (which usually comes from a library) even has hand written notes, underlined sentences, or paragraphs highlighted in yellow. Reprinting all that as is, looks really bad. If we only expect to sell a couple of copies, retouching hundreds of pages could add hundreds of dollars to the cover price. While most people prefer we re-typeset and design a book (with some exceptions), we continue to develop the technology necessary to restore the original rare book so we can reproduce it as is. Hopefully, we can offer that service in the future, but not yet.
What would it cost to manually retype, proof, typeset and design a book for me so it's perfect?
Proofreading a book alone can cost $13 or more per double spaced page. So a 200 page book could cost $2,600 plus typesetting and design and printing costs. Therefore, it would be less expensive to download a scanned copy from our website for free and take it to a copy shop instead. Alternatively, you could do the proof reading and just pay us the cover price to print and bind it for you.
How can I help?
Some kind readers have offered to correct the typos in a favorite book. The best place to do that is Wikisource. By typing a correct version of the book there you make it available to everyone in the world. Furthermore, other readers can help you with the job of proof reading. To automate the task, simply download the scanned version of the book from our website. Open the PDF with Adobe Reader or Adobe Acrobat. Highlight the text with Select All from the Edit menu. Create a web page for the book. (See Wikisource instructions.) Select Paste from your browser's Edit menu to paste the book into Wikisource. You and other readers can then proof read and correct the book. Distributed Proofreaders provides a similar service but you need to email a scanned copy of the book to them first to get their approval.
Who owns the book's rights?
The book is likely in the public domain in the USA and, therefore, anyone is allowed to publish it here without permission. Please see the list of what books are in the public domain. That means we can't assign book rights to you.
Why buy the paperback? Why not dowload?
If you like to read on a computer, you can download any book from our site for $9.99 (or you may find a free copy on the internet). Our paperbacks are bought mainly by libraries and people who prefer to read a paperback than a computer screen. We only charge for scanning, editing, typesetting, designing, printing, binding and shipping of books--we don't charge for the content of books in the public domain.
I have an old book. Can you tell me what it's worth? Would you like to buy it?
Sorry, our staff are not trained in antique book valuation and we don't buy old books.
Why did you publish this book?
Our mission is to make out of print books available again.
I bought a paperback. How do I get a free book club membership?
To join our book club for free, simply go to our home page and enter the bar code number from the back cover of the paperback you bought.
I can't find a book on Amazon (or my local book store). Can I buy the paperback from you?
Please find the book by entering the title, author or ISBN in the Search form at the top of our web pages and then click the paperback link. (Please don't include the subtitle after the colon.) That will show the book sellers you can buy the paperback from. Alternatively, you can click the download link to buy the book in PDF format. We don't sell paperbacks directly.
Who distributes your books to book stores and libraries?
Book stores and libraries can order our books from our wholesalers: Ingrambook.com in the U.S., Bertrams.com and Gardners.com in the UK and Libri.de in Germany for German books. Each ship worldwide. If they list the book as out of stock, you can still order it. They will just get our local warehouse to ship it to them. Since our books don't have a cover price you can add any markup you like. We don't sell paperbacks directly; we let our wholesalers and retailers do that.
Can you send me your book catalog?
You would need to search our book catalog from our website since it's way too big to print out.
How do I return my paperback?
Could you please be so kind as to return the book to the book store you purchased it from, if it's not too much trouble? We can't accept returns directly since much of your purchase price went to the book seller, the distributor and the wholesaler so only they can refund that money. If you bought the book at Amazon, please see their refund instructions here.
Why is a book not available as a paperback? Can you let me know when it is?
We are trying to make each unique downloadable English title available in paperback. Unfortunately, we can't automatically let you know when we print a book. You need to check our website from time to time. We will print non-English language titles as we get distributors in those countries.
What's your address, phone number, personnel?
We don't list our personnel, address and phone number because it's more efficient to contact us via our Contact Us form.
I work for a University. Can I get a "desk copy" of a book?
We no longer provide printed desk copies. Instead, you can download a PDF copy of the book for free by entering the barcode from the back cover of a paperback, on our home page.
Can I get a free review copy of a book?
We provide book reviewers who work for magazines and newspapers with free digital review copies. Simply click the Contact Us link at the top of our website and enter the book's ISBN number. Could you please provide your email address at the magazine or newspaper you work for, or URLs of reviews you have written for them, if you don’t mind? We no longer provide printed review copies. Unfortunately, we don't provide free copies to people mentioned in the book, the author's relatives, websites, blogs, book stores, libraries, scholars, professors, Wikipedia contributors, etc.--but you can download a copy from our website for $9.99.
I'm with a non-profit group. Can you donate copies of your books?
I'm very sorry but we had to stop donating books due to the difficulty in verifying requests. Instead we make unsolicited donations to causes our staff are already familiar with.
I'm a publisher. Can we buy foreign rights for one of your books?
Since we are a global publisher, we don't sell foreign rights to our books. But if you would like to distribute our books in your country, please let us know.
I'm a website owner. Do you have an affiliate program?
We can provide an affiliate program to sites with half a million monthly visitors. If you qualify, simply let us know via our contact form.
I'm an author. How can I submit a manuscript?
We don't accept manuscripts from authors. We license large numbers of books from other publishers.
Can I reprint parts of a book?
For permission to reprint text, simply enter the book's details at our text agent's site.
For permission to reprint an image, simply upload a copy of the image to an online storage service, then submit the Image URL box at our image agent's site.
I have some questions about a book?
You can find any of our books by using the Search form at the top of every web page to search by title, author or ISBN. Simply click the Excerpt link under the title in your search results to see all the information we have about the book. In many cases that includes a 2,000 character excerpt. Unfortunately, our customer service staff don't have any more details about a book than what is in our search results and listed on the book's Excerpt page. However, you could download the books at no additional charge if you were a book club member, or for $9.99 otherwise. If you buy the wrong book, simply login to your account and click the replace link at the bottom to get the correct book. Unfortunately, to get additional details you would need to hire one of our researchers to retrieve and study the actual books and that, unfortunately, would cost more than just downloading the books.
Where can I see the book's cover?
If you click the paperback link on our search results page to pick a bookseller, you should see the book's cover image at one of them.
Short Q&As
Q. Do you publish hardcovers? A. No.
Q. Do you use acid-free paper? A. No.
Q. Where do you publish from? A. Nashville, TN.