From the Editor's Desk: How to Publish a Book

Novice authors may not be fully aware of what it takes to transform a finished manuscript into an actual, physical book. Misunderstanding creates space for scammers and con artists to exploit gullible writers of good faith, and there’s quite enough of that around these days. Misunderstanding also creates room for doubt and discouragement to grow, and we have even more of that in the world than we need. In the hopes of encouraging more first-time writers to pursue book writing and publication, here is a brief overview of what publishing your book looks like. (Note here I am focused on what we call “traditional” publishing. I am working on a following post that will help explain publication possibilities in the new age of hybrid and self-publishing.):

​1. First, you need to have a story to tell and a manuscript that tells it. So the initial step is that you have to write a book. That’s the hard part, right? Maybe, but there’s still an awful lot left to do.
               
2. If you are a novice writer, you may not be in the best position to judge whether your story is as effective as it could be, so you may need to hire a developmental editor. If you trust a group of friends or a writing circle, those can be a good source of critical feedback. Take it seriously!
 
3. You will need to revise your manuscript in response to the feedback you get. Revision is a critical process, which means that you should accept some feedback, perhaps reject some of it, and develop yet new departures in your story in response to this process. In other words, every good book has been revised, and revised, and revised, multiple times. This is not an indication that you are a poor writer. It’s a part of the process that every great writer embraces.
 
4. When you are satisfied with your manuscript, you need to draft a proposal for consideration by an agent or an acquisitions editor at a press. This aspect can be very opaque, and most novice writers will find it helpful to secure the guidance of a coach or a trusted, experienced author who can guide them. I’ll be putting together another subsequent post on the essentials of proposal drafting. This step is, perhaps obviously, the largest obstacle you will face to seeing your work in print.
 
5. Once you have passed the most daunting part of the process and have your proposal accepted by a commissioning agent or editor, you will then be asked to submit your manuscript. This, however, is much more than just mailing it in. Every publishing house will have its own style-sheet, and you will be required once again to revise your work in accordance with the style sheet. This can be a lot of work, but your manuscript will not be accepted for publication if it does not conform in every particular with the publishing house’s rules for standardization, punctuation, citation, etc.
 
6. Once the house has received your manuscript, it will send your work out for copy-editing. Here the editor will identify all the mistakes you’ve made, the errors you’ve overlooked, or the poor prose formulations your eyes had grown accustomed to. Ordinarily, the copyeditor will send your manuscript back to you “marked-up,” which means you will see all the changes s/he made.
 
7. Yep, you guessed it: revision time again. Once you get the manuscript back from the copyeditor you need to go through and accept all the changes s/he made. Modern word processing programs have a function for all of this; in Microsoft Word it’s the “Track Changes” function, so get a little acquainted with how that works. Note that this will be the LAST CHANCE for any major or substantive revisions to your manuscript.
 
8. Once you send back what should now be your perfected manuscript, the publisher will render your draft pages into what are called “page proofs” or “galleys.” The publisher will have already designed a format for the book, i.e., what your chapter titles look like, what the subheads look like, how photos and maps are handled, etc. This is where your book really starts to look like a book. You will be sent the page proofs for your review, which is the very last chance to identify any minor errors that have somehow slipped through. You will not have an opportunity to make major corrections, because at this stage major corrections would change the pagination. It is too late for major revisions. But you will be able to correct a misspelling or a minor typo, for example.
 
9. Once you have page proofs, you can work on collecting what are called “blurbs.” These are the one or two sentence endorsements by other people that you read on the back cover of the book. You are responsible for collecting blurbs, if any, because presumably you as author are in the best position to identify people who can best endorse the story you are trying to tell. Obviously it is helpful at this stage to have already made some very famous friends.
 
10. Speaking of covers: At some point in the process the publisher will commission a designer to design a full (front and back) cover. You will be asked to approve the design. If you have ideas yourself, most publishers will readily want to hear your input.
 
11. For many of us, indexing is the very worst part of the process. Once the page proofs are finalized, you can begin work on your index. Not all books need to be indexed, but for those that do, the process is long, tedious, and can be mind-numbing. Some authors love to index their own books, as it introduces them to their own work in a way they hadn’t seen before. For most of us, we are only too happy to farm this out to someone else. Note that depending on your publication contract, the publisher may expect you to bear the costs of hiring an indexer, which may run $1000-2000. Be sure to clarify expectations on this at the outset.
 
12. Once the index is done and dusted, your book is sent off to the printer, who actually assembles the final product. Most publishers subcontract their printing to vendors in other parts of the world. India is a very popular site for such work these days. Your book will join a queue and wait its turn. Expect several months until you actually see the finished artifact. My book took about six months from the time I submitted the index until I received my author’s copies.
 
13. In the meantime, you should be, and the publishing house will expect you to be, marketing your book! Social media, podcasts, word of mouth, anything you can do to get the word out. (I’ll also have a bit more to say on this later.) A successful book is not only a great story, but the result of marketing hustle, so if you want copies to sell, be prepared to put in a lot of work on this end of the equation.
 
Not every experience is precisely the same, and as I say, the new world of self- and hybrid publishing gives writers more options than in the past. But in the main, the above is the process from files on your computer to book in your hand. It’s a lot of hard work, but if you know what to expect ahead of time, you’ll see that every part of it is manageable, and maybe even delightful. As always, I and many other writing coaches are available to help.

--David J. Snyder