If you have a finished draft and want to know what it actually needs, write to us or call. A manuscript review is the usual starting point: we read the whole thing, then talk through structure, voice and the shape of the book you are trying to make. Nothing gets quoted until we have read the pages, and you are free to take the notes elsewhere.
Most disagreements about a book project come from a handful of assumptions nobody wrote down. Here is what BeSpeak Books does, what stays in your hands, and what we will ask you to confirm before anything moves to typesetting.
Structural editing, line editing and proofreading work on the manuscript you wrote. We question the order of chapters, flag a chapter that repeats an earlier point, tighten sentences and catch inconsistencies. We do not invent scenes, replace your voice or write new material in your name. If a section needs more than editing, we say so plainly and you decide whether to write it yourself or leave it out.
A project moves through two revision rounds before typesetting. The first usually follows the structural notes, the second follows line-level edits. After that, changes are limited to corrections rather than new direction, because layout and print-ready files are already being built around a settled text. If you want a third round, we will tell you what it costs in time and what it does to the schedule.
You keep full rights to your manuscript and full royalties from every edition. BeSpeak Books does not take a share of your sales and does not hold your copyright. What we prepare is the editorial and production work: interior layout, cover direction, print-ready files, ISBN registration and print-on-demand setup through Canadian printers. The account with the printer is set up so you remain the publisher of record.
An ISBN identifies an edition so booksellers, libraries and printers can find it. It does not protect your text and it does not create a publishing agreement. Registration is handled per edition, which matters if you later release a hardcover alongside the paperback or a revised second printing. Family history projects often get reprinted by relatives, so we register with that possibility in mind rather than treating the first run as final.
Print-on-demand suits memoir, local history, cookbooks, poetry collections and practical guides, but it is not the same as an offset run. Paper stock choices are narrower, very long books cost more per copy, and colour-heavy interiors behave differently from text-only pages. We flag these constraints during the manuscript assessment, before layout decisions lock in a trim size or a page count you cannot easily change later.
We do not quote from a description alone. A manuscript review looks at length, genre, condition of the draft and which services you actually need, and the quote follows that read. Nothing starts until you have the quote in writing and agree to it. If the review shows the book needs less work than you expected, the quote will say so.
If you are not sure whether your project is ready for a full edit, write to us anyway. A short note about the manuscript is usually enough for us to tell you which stage makes sense next.
Nothing is submitted from this section. The message form lives on the contact page, and it is the only place on the site where a request is actually sent.
Send a short note about your draft and we will read it as a working manuscript, not a finished product. Tell us the genre, roughly how long it is, and which edition you have in mind — paperback, hardcover or ebook. If you are still deciding, say so. We work with first-time authors, family historians and business owners, and the review is the same first step for all of them.
Nothing is scheduled and no work begins until you have a clear quote in hand. Authors keep full rights and royalties throughout.