In short: Soundnotation is a publishing and distribution partner for music books: instrumental methods, textbooks, biographies, guides, and children’s books about music. Your book is set up as one edition and goes into sheet music shops, bookstores, and ebook stores. If you do not have an ISBN or ISMN, we assign one at no charge. Once the files are ready, the edition can be made ready for distribution quickly. After that, it is up to the shops when the book goes online. That varies by retailer.

You have a method book, a textbook, or a biography. Not a score, and not an ordinary book either. A sheet-music-only route is not built for text and images. A general book route is not built for notation and a specialist audience. A PDF on your own website mostly reaches people who already know you.

These books are already being bought, just on two different shelves: in the sheet music shop next to the pieces, and in the bookstore or ebook store as a book. Soundnotation sets them up as one edition and puts them on both.

This is a general picture. Individual cases vary.

Anything longer than a single piece, and meant for making music, teaching, or reading.

• Instrumental methods, such as an embouchure method or a piano method
• Collections, longer than a single piece
• Reference works and repertoire guides
• History, biography, composer portrait, including prose with no notation
• Textbooks: theory, ear training, harmony
• Handbooks for teachers and conductors
• Guides to the music business
• Children’s books about an instrument or about music

An edition is your book as one title. PDF, EPUB, and audio if needed all go out from the same work to the points of sale. You have one contact, you approve once, and the book then sits on both shelves.

Soundnotation delivers to:

• Sheet music shops, for example Stretta, Alle Noten, Notendownload, Blasmusikshop
• Bookstores and ebook stores, for example Thalia, Weltbild, Osiander, divibib, Kobo, Apple Books
• the Soundnotation Store
• Internationally, for example Musicnotes, Sheet Music Plus, Presto Music

A biography or a textbook follows the same path: raw material or finished files, a review, preparation if needed, then one edition on the shelves that fit it.

Overall: if the files are finished, the wait is mostly on the shops, not on getting the edition ready. If the files still need to be prepared, allow 8 to 12 weeks until the book goes on sale. If you have a fixed date, such as the start of the school year, build in that lead time.

Payment terms depend on the edition and are in the quote, not a flat rate.

• PDF is the fixed layout, for print and for shops that expect a set page.
• EPUB adapts to the device, for ereaders and for stores such as Thalia that need a readable book, not a shrunken score.
• Audio sits as its own file beside the method, like a play-along, or is embedded in a media-enhanced EPUB. It stays part of the same edition and does not go to a streaming distributor.

We only distribute what passes the quality check. If something does not fit, we propose editing for text, images, or notation, and preparation of the files. Images can be reworked for different devices. Hand-drawn originals are prepared for the digital edition and for print.

That has a cost. You see the price in the quote first, and nothing happens without your go-ahead.

Use the contact form. Say what kind of book you have, whether it includes notation, images, or audio, and whether the files are finished or still raw material.