Chapter 8

Understanding the Book Publishing Process

Authors unfamiliar with the book publishing industry can sometimes stumble on the path to publication by not understanding the definitions and roles of people in editing, production, distribution, and sales. By having clarity on the function, purpose, and order of the book publishing process, authors can be smarter about how they may want to handle each step, and who they enlist for help along the way.

Editing

Editorial help falls into three broad categories:

• Development and content editing, which looks at things such as plot, character development, and narrative voice. This type of edit can often lead to revision and big-picture changes.
• From there you would move to line editing and copyediting, which looks at grammar and punctuation, ensuring consistency in spelling, hyphenation, and capitalization. This type of edit helps shape the material on a sentence level.
• Proofreading is the final stage of editing, but it occurs after your book has been designed and laid out, correcting awkward word or page breaks and maybe some light copyediting as well. The proofread is essentially quality assurance on your final product.

Editing processes should always start at the top and work down. You do big-picture editing and revision first, followed by line editing or copyediting, and end with a final proofread after your book has been laid out.

Design and Production

You shouldn’t get your book designed until you have a final, edited manuscript. Not only does the final copy affect your interior book design, but it also affects your book cover design in the sense that the number of pages your book ends up being will ultimately determine the spine width, which should be included in your cover design.

Your production specifications (trim size and paper weight) will also affect your book’s cover design, so be sure you’ve reached your final decision on those aspects of your book, as well, before you enlist the help of a professional cover designer. Most authors need the cover and interior of their print and ebooks designed simply because they are not professional designers.

It’s rare that you can find a single designer who specializes in print book design, ebook production, and website design. Usually, you’ll need one designer to handle the print book (and sometimes even two—one for the cover and one for the interior), and if your ebook requires complex formatting or design elements, you may need to hire a specialist to assist. Then either you or a designer will most likely want to translate or incorporate your book design into your author website and promotional materials (such as your social media profiles, book advertisements, or sell sheets).

Distribution and Sales

Most self-published authors cannot hire sales help. That’s because there are few retailers or sales outlets that accept a meeting to discuss a single book from a single author. Retailers meet with representatives from major publishing houses to discuss the entire fall or spring list to make the meeting worth their time, not just one book.

However, it is possible for indie authors to get book distribution that equals the distribution of traditionally published titles. By using IngramSpark, authors can make their books available to retailers around the world. But it’s up to the authors to build market awareness and demand for their books, which would also encourage retailers to place orders to have the books available in their stores.

You’ll want to start considering your distribution options as you’re finishing the writing of your book. Consider who your target market is, who would read your book, and figure out where they shop for books. Does your ideal reader shop on Amazon; at their local independent bookstore? Are they in Australia while you’re located in the United States? It’s best not to limit your book distribution to one sales channel or country. IngramSpark makes your title available to a wealth of sales channels worldwide, but even if you choose to self-publish your book with someone else, be sure they’re able to offer you connections to the markets you think your book would sell well in. There’s no need to limit your distribution if you don’t have to.

Marketing and Publicity

“Marketing and publicity” is a large umbrella term for very different activities, including:

Product Optimization
This step takes place before you publish your book as what’s included is essential to the book metadata you’ll enter when you set up your title with your self-publishing company, including:

• Copywriting: write good, persuasive book descriptions for retailers and readers, to draw them in and leave them wanting to sell or read the whole book.
• Keyword and search optimization: make sure your book is easily found through search engines or retailers by describing it in terms people would use to look for something like it online.
• Pricing: choose and set appropriate price points. It’s good to understand what books like yours cost. Price it too high, and readers will choose a different book within your genre. Price it too low, and you may devalue your work and have trouble supporting a sustainable business model.
• Publication Date: choose the best time to publish your book. There are times of year during which certain books perform best, because people are looking for specific kinds of titles during specific times of the year. For example, the start of the year is a good time for diet books and books about personal growth when people are typically contemplating change. For the majority of self-published works, the end of the year is not the best time to publish, as traditional publishers will be claiming the majority of the shelf, ad, and review space normally reserved for books to promote their own titles for holiday sales.

Inbound Book Marketing (Online)

• Produce an effective author website, social media presence, and possibly a blog
• Create and share a content strategy to help attract potential readers based on your expertise and ability to entertain or educate via podcasts, videos, newsletters, or social media posts.

All of these means of promotion can, and should, begin before you publish. It’s good to start building your author platform before your book releases so that when it does, you have a built-in audience to which you can promote your book and who can help you gain traction with new readers.

Industry-Focused Book Marketing
The below takes place before you publish your book, so you can start to build advance buzz. If you want your book on shelves on pub day, you’ll need people in the industry to be aware of it in advance.

• Review campaigns: send review copies to professionals or readers who might review your book; possibly even pay for professional reviews.
• Advertising: Get visibility to librarians, booksellers, book clubs, and others who work in the book publishing industry, and be sure to tell them when the book will be available and where they can order it. There are special online and print publications specifically for industry professionals such as these, so if they are important to you, pursue them.

Getting Media Attention or Book Publicity

• Approach influencers to talk about your book, interview you, or host you at their site or blog
• Pitch traditional media outlets: TV, radio, print
• Pitch online media outlets

Celebrities may do a media tour before their book publishes, but media efforts for self-published authors are best when the book is new, but already available for sale. This way potential readers are able to “buy now” when they read or hear about your book in the media. Be sure to find what makes you or your book unique when you make your media pitch. What you have to say has to be newsworthy, meaning new, unique, or especially timely, in order to land coverage. Books themselves generally aren’t news, but they lend credibility to you and what you have to say.

Launch and Post-Publication Book Marketing

• Set up or speak at events (conferences, book signings, trade shows)
• Decide when to have discounts or giveaways after launch
• Evaluate the news cycle and identify ways to pitch the media again and again on the topics your book covers

This chapter contains content from the following post on the IngramSpark blog:

"Understanding the Book Publishing Process" by Jane Friedman, co-founder of The Hot Sheet