what takes so long to get a book published

Last updated on July 9, 2019

No affair how you piece information technology, writing a book is a big, long, circuitous job. Most first-fourth dimension writers assume that once they end their draft manuscript, the heavy lifting is consummate. All they have to practice is expect for their publisher to put a few things together, and they'll take a beautiful volume in their hands. Right?

In our age of instant gratification, you'd retrieve so. And it'southward true that if y'all decide to self-publish, you may have just i-3 months to wait between delivering your manuscript and receiving a book in return.

But if you lot're aiming for publication with a traditional publisher—the kind who pays you lot for the correct to publish your book and takes intendance of all the details for yous—you tin can expect to wait a good 9-18 months before your book hits shelves.

Why on earth does it take so long? If y'all ask a publishing pro, their answer will likely be something like, "Because it takes that long to prepare the volume well for publication."

What does it mean to get a book "gear up" well? Funny y'all should ask…that's exactly what this blog is about. Below, yous'll detect a detailed timeline explaining what yous can wait in the publication process. While this timeline won't fit every single publishing visitor, you tin think of it as a adept snapshot of a typical publication process.

12-xviii months prior to publication: Editorial team is "filling the listing."

This means the editors are buying books and slotting them into the publication schedule. Most houses publish on a three-season cycle: Wintertime (January-Apr), Summer (May-August), and Autumn (September-December). All the books for a given season are launched to the in-house sales team at the same time. You may deliver in what seems like enough of fourth dimension for publication next summer, but if the summer list is already total—or if you missed the summer sales launch (fifty-fifty just by a few days)—you'll exist slotted for the autumn.

nine-12 months prior to publication: Last title/subtitle and marketing copy are due.

Even if the book isn't yet written, the marketing team volition exist looking for a rocking championship and compelling copy, so they can start planning their work. (FYI, "copy" mostly includes an author bio and a thorough description of the book'due south content.) A jacket pattern meeting volition be scheduled, where the editor will pitch the book to the art team to get the cover underway. And the editor volition begin filling out "fact sheets." (Cue eyerolls from every editor at every house, everywhere.) A necessary evil, these one-page documents contain all the information the sales team will demand to know in order to brainstorm pitching your book to booksellers far and wide.

9 months prior to publication: Delivery!

You send your infant to your editor. You promise you'll hear back from her right-freaking-away. Alas, it's far more than likely that you'll end up waiting for her to reply….and waiting…and waiting. Take it from someone who's been at that place: your editor is feeling TERRIBLE that she hasn't replied. Merely she is up to her ears in manuscripts needing editing—and it'due south a triage situation. First-come up, kickoff-served around hither! She will truly become to it the minute she tin.

Also: The unedited manuscript may be sent around the house for reads past other departments.

8 months prior to publication: Editorial feedback arrives.

We'll requite your editor the benefit of the doubt, and say she's going to take merely four weeks to deliver feedback. (Results may vary.) Y'all receive a developmental edit, covering global problems and requesting revisions. Or maybe she has done a combo dev edit/line edit, roofing both the big moving picture and the line-by-line work she would like to see. Either way, she'll at present give you a far-too-brusque menstruation of time—relative to how long information technology took her to deliver her editorial feedback—to complete your revisions. In one case y'all turn the manuscript effectually to her, she will read it once more and offer a second round of content editing. (Her turnaround will be faster this time, because the managing editor is breathing down her neck to get the book into production.) You'll get about three and a one-half seconds to consummate your revisions on this round. But you lot'll do it, and your editor volition corroborate information technology, and your babe will motion onto production!

Also: Effectually this time you'll receive a cover design and jacket copy for review and blessing.

6-7 months prior to publication: The book goes into production.

Hurrah! As the author, the hard work is now complete. In this phase, the volume will be "transmitted"—handed over from the editorial squad to the production editorial squad—and it will enter the technical editing stages. The starting time thing you'll become from production will be a strangely marked-up manuscript: the copyedit. You'll exist responsible for reviewing this manuscript, accepting or rejecting the copyeditor'south changes, and making any final additions or deletions from the text. Once you send back the copyedit, you will no longer be allowed to make significant changes.

Also: Y'all'll receive sample page layouts then you tin can corroborate the interior design.

6 months prior to publication: Catalogs make it and the sales squad sells the book in!

The term "selling a book in" refers to the sales team taking the seasonal catalog, forth with additional materials similar encompass design and sample content, to the booksellers. Contrary to what many new authors think, getting your book into bookstores everywhere doesn't happen automatically. The salesperson for each account—including Amazon, Barnes & Noble and the major book distributors, Ingram and Baker & Taylor—meets with the buyers each season, and does her all-time to sell them on the merits of your work. The goal is to get the bookseller to take a "big position" on your book. This might mean ordering 1,000 copies or it might mean ordering xx,000 copies—information technology depends on the size of the bookseller and the size of the publisher. When a publisher says no to "crashing" your volume onto the list in a shorter timeframe, information technology's because the volume volition not be catalogued and sold into the booksellers on schedule. In 99% of cases, it'southward in the book's interest—and thus, the best involvement of the author—to publish on a schedule that will have the book ready well with the booksellers.

Likewise: Your PR squad is starting to pitch you to long-lead magazines (People Magazine, the women'southward magazines, Time Mag, etc) and Television set shows (Good Morning America, Today, CBS This Morn and of course, Oprah's Super Soul Sunday).

four-6 months prior to publication: The volume is designed and proofread.

Now that any and all noun edits are consummate, your book is ready for typesetting! This means the words from the polished manuscript will exist "poured" into the page layout format you've canonical. One time the interior is designed, the typeset pages—a.one thousand.a. proof pages or galley pages—will be sent to you lot and the proofreader simultaneously. As the proofer goes over your words with a fine-toothed comb, correcting any typos and other errors, y'all volition have your final chance to read the book earlier it goes to press. No major changes are allowed at this bespeak, as they may cause the text to "re-menstruation"—requiring the interior designer to make adjustments to each and every page that comes after the changes. (Big "no-no" in the publishing earth!) Many houses will go on to proofread for another round or two before considering the volume ready for press.

Also: You and your editor may begin sending the typeset pages to more well-known writers for cover endorsements. Cover proofs—designed front, back and spine of your book—volition also exist sent to you for approval during this menstruation. The uncorrected proof pages may turned into paperback-way "bound galleys," which are sent to reviewers in hopes of generating buzz for the book earlier information technology's published.

3 months prior to publication: Files are sent to the printer!

And there is much rejoicing at the publishing house. Your volume is on its style!

2-iv weeks prior to publication: Early copies arrive.

Early copies of the book arrive at the publishing house, and sometimes the "author copies" promised in your volume contract will be sent directly to your business firm also. You hold your book in your very ain hands for the first time. Ahhh!

Publication day: Yous made it!

It took a long time, a lot of hard work and blast-biting, but the 24-hour interval is finally here. Congratulations! Now, all you have to do is sell information technology!

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Kelly Notaras is the founder of kn literary arts and the author of THE BOOK You WERE BORN TO WRITE: Everything You lot Need to (Finally) Become Your Wisdom Onto the Page and Into the Earth, published by Hay House. An editor for 20 years, she's worked at HarperCollins, Penguin, Hyperion and Sounds True. She speaks regularly at the Hay House Author'due south Workshops and offers consultation by engagement. Find out more than about how she can help you with your book.

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Source: https://knliterary.com/a-publishing-timeline-for-first-time-authors/

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