A Publisher's Conversations with Authors: The Stages in the Process of Publication

 

(photo by Frank Perez)

It is Tuesday. Time to tall turkey. Monday's madness is over, and Wednesday will take us over the hump, so Tuesday it is--for some serious discussion with authors. Tuesday talks mean to address authors in waiting and self-published authors who would like to go a more traditional route or who would at least like to take their steps with a publisher by their side.

Today's topic is about the publication process itself. You have a manuscript in hand, now what? There are several stages.

So, let's take each stage separately.

Stage One. Completion of the Manuscript

• You have finished writing the manuscript and have carefully proofread it, but you are NOT ready to move to Stage Two. There are a few things you need to do first. If not done, this is the stage that often dooms a manuscript never to move to Stage Two and on into becoming a book.
• You proofread, right? For what did you proofread? Spelling? Ran it through the spellchecker? Certain your own eyes will catch your own errors? Think again. Spell checkers miss things, and our own eyes routinely miss our own errors; we read what we expect to read. So, yes, do another cleaning by yourself. Check all the things you possibly can, all the things that could trip you up:
• Spelling, of course. No matter how many times you check spelling, there will be typos. Check any published book. Those things are really good at hiding until the printer outs them--after the fact. Keep in mind that if you are an American submitting to a British publisher and vice versus, it is a bit risky to change your spelling to match that of the publisher's location. You will, for sure, make mistakes. Generally, publishers will not insist on their own variant of English, or if that is the case, then the publisher's copyeditor will handle it.
• Match your Table of Contents to the manuscript. Generally, you do not need to include page numbers. Those will change when the book is typeset, and the typesetter will handle that. Surprisingly, though, sometimes an author modifies a chapter title and forget to modify it wherever it occurs, including in other chapters that refer to it.
• Check your structure. Are your bullets set up properly, properly indented by the ruler (not by hand spacing), and are there at least two bullets for each "list"? Are there at least two sentences for each paragraph? Are long quotations (5 lines) inset? Are subheads uniform? If you have one H1, do you have another? Ditto for H2 and H3. Are paragraphs lined up (i.e. indented the same amount)? These are the seemingly "little" but important things that can cause your book to be rejected as amateur.
• It is really helpful to ensure that you use single spaces between sentences (the double space dates from typewriter days) and that you are using em dashes, not en dashes.
• Are your graphics in order, if you have any? Are they separated from the text in another file, marked appropriately, with the text showing where they belong? 
• Have you adhered to the publisher's style sheet--APA Style Manual, Chicago Manual of Style, or the publisher's inhouse style sheet?
• Are your permissions in order? If you use someone's graphics or words, there are legal limits to what you can include without written permission. Your publisher will ask you to present those and will have forms if the person or publisher providing permission does not.
• If you can answer "yes" to all of the above, then you are getting close to done. Now, send the manuscript to 2-10 friends and colleagues who can point out things you probably cannot see: leaps in logic, lack of clarity, and the like.

Stage Two. Submission of the Manuscript

• Now that your editing is done, you are ready to submit the manuscript. Assumedly, before you even began writing, you had researched where you would be sending our manuscript as your first choice and slanted your book in that direction. Even better if you had queried the publisher in advance so that you could move in a helpful direction from the very beginning. Now is the time for that re-contact. Make sure that you have downloaded or acquired the formal proposal form for the publisher if you have not already submitted it prior to finishing the book. Typically, a publisher is going to want a proposal before receiving the entire book, so if your manuscript is now ready for submission, the assumption being that you have already got the green light from the publisher, you need to check to make sure anything stated in your proposal that is critical to your book is in your manuscript.
• Remind the publisher of the proposal (include a copy), write a cover letter, and include your manuscript. If you have not previously submitted a proposal, then make sure your cover letter contains whatever would go into a proposal. Most publishers' websites will indicate what to put into a proposal/cover letter.
• Determine the method of transmittal. Most publishers today prefer email. 
• Decide whether you will be sending to one publisher, individual publishers one at a time, or multiple publishers simultaneously. See our conversation on this topic.
• You can expect to wait from one week to a couple of months before hearing from a publisher. Polite follow-up after that time is expected. Sometimes packages do not arrive, and sometimes publishers get swamped. A query on the status of a decision is not out of line.

Stage Three. Acceptance of the Manuscript

• The book may be accepted as submitted, You will receive a contract. Read it carefully, and take it to intellectual property rights lawyer. This is the most important document and action associated with your book, and you need to get it right.
• The publisher may require substantive revisions before accepting the book. You will need to decide whether or not to do them. Generally, it is a positive sign and a good thing to do.
• The publisher may offer an alternative. 
• Some publishers have a hybrid division in which costs and profits are shared with the author; in this way, the publisher can take a greater risk on a book. So, while you may have been hoping for a traditionally published book, you may find settling for a situation in which you share the risk is the only way or even a good way to get your book published, If your book sells well, you will be in a good position to get a traditional contract the next time around.
• A publisher may like the book but may find that the writing does not quite meet the publisher's standard. Rather than turn down the book, the publisher may suggest that you improve the book, perhaps working with a developmental editor, and re-submit.
• A publisher may ask you to wait. Some books are seasonal, and a publisher knows the timeline from acceptance to release. Sometimes a publisher will want a book but already have a backlog. Sometimes a publisher with a backlog will not have time to really consider the book and will ask you to resubmit at a later time. You can choose to do that or to submit to another publisher.
• The publisher may turn down the book. In this case, it is on to the next publisher unless you made simultaneous submissions (it is ethical to let all publishers know this), you just wait for the next publisher to respond. If the publisher who turned down the book has comments, take them to heart even if they hurt a little. (No one likes to be told that his or her baby is ugly.)

Stage Four. Readying the Manuscript for Publication

• Once a book has been accepted and you have signed a contract, the process is out of your hands for a while. The publisher will assign the book and ISBN, which is the number used by all bookstores and libraries to identify and order a book. The publisher will obtain a shelving number from the Library of Congress. For small presses, the a control number will be assigned, which will be converted to a shelving (catalogue) number once the book is received for shelving (though there is never a guarantee that even with a number that a book will be placed on the shelves--too many books and too few shelves). Generally, the book will be in the card catalogue from the time that it is assigned a number. 
• At about this time, the publisher will register the book with Bowker, which provides the ISBN, and will establish a retail price. This ensures that the book is listed in Books in Print.
• Right off, the editor gets a swipe at it for content and will make inquiries or require adjustments. Then, the copyeditor gets a swipe at it, to ensure proper punctuation, spelling, grammar, style, etc.--all those things that you were supposed to check before sending it in; no matter how "clean" you manuscript is, a copyeditor will find errors. It always happens, even with experienced authors.
• After the copyeditor, the typesetter gets to get it ready for the printer. When the typesetter is done, you will receive galleys for proofreading. At this point, you are only looking for missed errors or errors caused in the typesetting process. You cannot decide to rewrite a section of the book; it is now too late. Most publishers allow a couple of weeks for return of the galleys. If not returned, generally publication proceeds without author input. (This is not good. Always return your galleys.)
• Somewhere along the line, parallel with the work of the copyeditor and/or typesetter, the graphic designer prepares the cover. You may be asked to help in getting endorsements, providing a bio and photo, and writing a back cover description. You may be allowed some input into cover design, but most publishers retain the right to make the final cover design decisions, and this is typically stated in the contract.
• Once cover and galleys are approved, the book will be sent by the publisher to the printer. At about this time (and sometimes earlier), the book will go on sale for pre-order on the website of the publisher and at some of the online sellers, like Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

Stage Five. Releasing the Book

• When the book goes to the printer, a release date will be placed on it. That is a permanent date associated with the publication of your book. The date can be immediate; the book can be purchased right after the first printing. Or, the release date can be 3-4 months later, allowing for some months for pre-order. 
• In some cases, there is value to spending 3-4 months getting pre-publication reviews of the book. In this case, an Advance Review Copy (ARC) will be prepared. Sometimes, the ARC is a separate book with the ARC information distorting the cover; other times, a label indicating that the book is an ARC is affixed to the cover.
• Once the release date has arrived and the book is physically printed, the publisher will receive inventory (generally, with costs of warehousing, most publishers these days are not carrying large inventories and are relying on print-on-demand for fielding orders on a regular basis).
• Immediately after release, the book will go into the wholesaler/distributor's catalogue so that bookstores, libraries, and others can order it. 
• After release, the author will receive the number of author copies of the book specified in the contract.

Stage Six. Selling the Book

• The first step in selling the book is the preparation of a press release, which is generally done by the publisher, who also distributes it. The author can and should do additional distribution, especially to local media.
• Some authors like to have a "launch." Right now, with a pandemic and many cities in lockdown, that is not the most reasonable approach. Some authors are using Internet-based launches, making presentations by Zoom and other applications. In the old days, authors often launched their books with a bookstore book-signing event. (These rarely pay for the cost of doing them unless the writer is famous, and rarely sell out the modest number of books that bookstores buy for them, but authors enjoy doing them, and they can build local attention for the book.) Better places for launches are libraries (yes, really), coffee shops (yep, some actually cater to authors), book clubs, organizations associated with the authors, charity events, fairs, and the like.
  
• Publishers will attempt to promote the book through pitch letters and trying to get authors onto podcasts, radio shows, and television. There are many other venues for sales; most of the ones listed above for book launches work for sales.
• Most publishers promote their books actively on social media. The ones with the deeper pockets advertise though many a small publisher has found that advertising does not pay for itself. You, as author, will be expected to do a lot of the work on promotion. You will need to have a strong platform to do that easily and well, and you will need to work and adjust with various forms of promotion to find the sweet spot for your book.
• There will be opportunities to exhibits and competitions if you are so inclined and have the funds. Publishers will generally enter books into the no-fee competitions (which are usually the better competitions, anyway) and will leave the fee-based competitions for authors to choose to enter or not at their own expense.
• Annually, or with larger publishers as often as quarterly, you will receive a statement of sales, accompanied or followed by a royalty check.

The process described above is that associated with a traditional publisher and most hybrid publishers. If you want to self-publish, then the process may look quite different and is not the topic of this blog post, If you decide to self-publish, make sure you check out the credentials of the publisher in advance. Ask around. Google. Information is available if you look for it. Check out our conversation on how to decide.

Lesson for today's Tuesday talk: Build a strong foundation with a good book; get it off to a good start by doing a good job at each stage of production!
The mistake that most new writers make is to put the cart before the horse. Publishers want to see a platform and that the market is ready for your book. Getting a platform ready to support a proposal is important. Getting a proposal ready to support a book is equally important. When you understand the steps in book production, you can do a better job of guaranteeing that a publisher will express interest in your book.

Read more posts about publishing HERE.

The Tuesday talks reflect real discussions between the management of MSI Press LLC and our own authors or those would-be authors who come through our doors but don't make the cut--yet. If you have a topic you would like addressed, leave the question in the comment section. Chances are, in our 17 years of publishing first-time and experiences authors, we have had a conversation with one of our authors that we can share with you.