What happens when you decide to engage Disruptive Publishing to publish your book?
Writing and publishing a book includes many different steps and many different types of expertise from different people.
We view it as a process that relies on lots of factors and has many moving parts and as a result it can be difficult to put exact dates on each stage of the process.
We do, however, have a good general idea of how long each part of the process is likely to take and that is what we work toward.
There are 6 major stages to writing and publishing a book, including:
- Writing
- Editing
- Cover Creation
- Formatting
- Publishing
- Marketing
WRITING
Obviously, writing is the first stage.
Whether you have written your book within the supportive environment of the Authorpreneur’s Bootcamp, engaged a ghost writer to write your book for you, or written it all on your own, nothing can happen until you have completed your first draft.
Once that is done, it is time to seek some feedback and get some quotes to help you complete the next 4 stages of the process.
EDITING
Editing is the second stage and a very important part of the process. It is also likely to require the greatest investment and some authors are tempted to skip this part of the process.
We strongly encourage authors to invest in themselves and have their books professionally edited.
You might like to engage a professional editor yourself or we can seek quotes on your behalf.
Once the editing begins, there will be a lot of to and fro’ing which can be quite tiresome and even triggering at times. It can feel like hard work and it can be frustrating but we encourage you to stick with it and do what needs to be done so that your book can be the best it can be.
We usually allow 6 weeks for editing but it can be longer, depending on a number of factors.
BETA READERS
It is not a bad idea to seek out 3-4 people who are willing to read your edited draft and give you feedback including testimonials you can use in your marketing.
We have a feedback form you can pass on to your beta readers should you choose to engage some.
We allow 4 weeks for beta readers to read the book and get back to us with their thoughts and ideas, and a further 2 weeks to implement anything you think is valuable and will make a positive difference to your book.
COVER CREATION
If you haven’t already done so, you can create your cover while your book is being edited.
You might be tempted to create your own cover but we would encourage you to have a professional look over your design and give you feedback, or better still, design a cover for you.
You will need different covers for the different publishing platforms. Different sizes and different formats are required for each one.
Images need to be 300dpi and sized correctly for best results.
You will need to provide 150-200 words “about the book” as well as a short bio of 50-75 words and a headshot for the back cover so we can create a professional looking cover file.
Cover Creation can often be completed during the editing stage providing you have provided all the files and content required in ample time.
FORMATTING
Formatting is the final stage before publishing. This is where we arrange the interior of the book so that it looks and feels good to you while meeting the various requirements of the different publishing platforms.
Each of the publishing platforms have different requirements and therefore require different interior and exterior files.
We allow a further 4 weeks for this stage and once it is complete we will provide you with an ARC (Advanced Reading Copy) in pdf format for you to view and approve.
Upon approval of the ARC we will order a proof copy of the book which is a printed copy.
We allow 4 weeks for the proof copy to be ordered, posted, delivered and proofread by you before moving on to officially publishing the book to each of the publishing platforms we agreed upon.
PUBLISHING
Publishing your book involves uploading the formatted files to the various publishing platforms on your behalf.
This stage can take a couple of weeks to complete but once it is done you will be able to set your launch date for your book and make plans to share it with the world.
MARKETING
We encourage our authors to start marketing their book as early as possible.
Building an audience before your book is released is the best way to ensure you have lots of sales when it does launch.
You will also want to have an ongoing marketing plan to grow your audience and sell more books.
We cover basic list building in our Authorpreneur’s Bootcamp but there are many marketing professionals who would be keen to help you build your reach.
CONCLUSION
I hope this gives you a good idea of what to expect moving forward. At Disruptive Publishing, we certainly like to give our authors as much information and as much warning as we can as we approach the various stages so that you can be prepared and have a good idea of what is coming next.
If there is anything you are unsure of, though, we are only an email away, and we will be happy to answer your questions.
Click below if you would like to book in for a free 20-minute information call and we will be able to give you a timeline for your project using our book planning and scheduling tool.
