“Publishing—the Gentleman’s Profession”

The publishing industry is one of the largest parts of the media sector. Every day, thousands of books are published, tens of thousands of magazines are sold, and hundreds of thousands of newspapers are read over breakfast all over the world. This is the result of the efforts and talents of the many people involved in the publishing industry.

Most authors don’t know what goes on after they have written their book/article/Op Ed piece. Knowledge of the process might help you plan your work better, get a better understanding of the journey that your writing will take once it leaves the authorial womb, and also who all the people are that touch your works on their way to getting words before a reader’s eyes. I wrote the overview document below for a writer’s festival held on Bowen Island in July 2008.

If you would like to see some samples of work that I have done in the last few years, you can find them on this page.

The Publishing Process: In a Nutshell

Why should you read this?

The publishing process can be long, torturous and very confusing. The aspiring writer should become familiar with it, if just to be aware of the steps, and to remove the barriers erected by fear of the unknown that can stop you from getting to the writing. This article reviews the publishing process, as I have experienced it over the last 20 years, and contrasts the traditional view of author and publisher (as two separate and often oppositional parties in the act of building a book) with the possibilities available through the self-publishing route (where author and publisher are the same person, potentially assisted by specialists in various parts of the publishing process). There are differences in the stages of publishing depending on whether an author works with a publisher or plans on self-publishing their work, but ultimately, the same things have got to occur if a book is going to be successful.

Acquisition: Let’s make a deal!

In the traditional publishing model, the first step is the acquisition process. While there are publishers who state that their mission is to inform & educate humanity, even they have to make a profit in order to keep serving society. Publishing companies have got to make money, or there’s no point in doing it.

The publisher really has a daunting task in order to be successful. Deciding what market the publisher wants to be in (there are many niches and genres within the realms of fiction and non-fiction), discovering what sells in the chosen categories, finding gaps in what is currently on the market, then either discovering or commissioning likely candidates for successful books that fill the gaps, takes a fair amount of effort. But it’s only the beginning. The publisher has defined a machine which should produce profitable products on a regular, predictable timeline.

This is where the author comes into the process. Authors create the raw material for the publisher to refine into a book, and like other raw materials, it is either discovered (like jewels or precious metals) or made to order (like a cash crop or farmed salmon).

In the traditional publishing model, the raw material is the author’s manuscript. And, like gold and jewels, it has got to be worth the effort of exploration and digging before a publisher will consider spending the time or resources to refine it. Essentially, what this means for an author is the material, writing style and the overall structure of a work has got to be important and/or interesting, flowing, and well structured, or require very little adjustment to be made so, before a publisher will even finish reading it. This is true in both fiction and non-fiction publishing firms, and if you don’t already have a big name and want to write fiction and have a publisher sign your title, you have to grab a reader on page 1, and hold them throughout the first chapter.

When the author IS the publisher, acquisition is only limited by your ability to be self-critical, and that you and anyone you ask to read your work are willing to be honest about the work. A publisher has to pay others to read submitted manuscripts, and they need to keep the costs down (meaning you have one chance to impress, and it will be on page 1). The fortunate part of self-publishing is that the author gets as many reviews as they can find willing reviewers. Of course, this can be variable, as informal reviewers will have their biases, foibles and experience to balance your against project, in addition to the high probability that they won’t want to hurt your feelings, so may not give you feedback that will really help your work.

Whoever you choose to do a critical read of your book should be someone who reads LOTS of things, both in quantity and variety. Most writers will tell you that the way they learned to write is by reading everything they could lay their hands on.

In the traditional publishing realm, a publishing house will only look at submissions from new authors if the material is something that is currently in great demand, or something that has been brought to them via a known and trusted source (existing author, literary agent, or a senior editorial staff member). Whatever the case, if the manuscript needs lots of work, you can most likely forget hearing back from the publisher, except for the obligatory “Thank you for your submission, but unfortunately…” form letter.

Publishers generally use a profitability “rule of thumb” for titles they have agreed to publish. This is usually represented as a percentage of the total costs of producing the book, where the prepress costs (editing, design, proofreading, indexing, etc.), printing, binding, sales and marketing and delivery should work out at no more than 45% of gross sales value of the initial print run. For example, a 300-page black-only book with no illustrations, with an initial print run of 10,000, and selling for $25, a publisher will probably budget $6–10,000 for the prepress costs (publishers are notoriously thrifty!), depending on the complexity of the text. When colour is involved in the book, the prepress and printing components rise accordingly. Costs can be saved by doing as much work yourself (for free?) as you can, or by using standard templates for the layout, or skimping on the editorial cycles. Some people think this won’t make a difference, but ultimately, the reading experience will not be satisfactory, and the word of mouth from this will either be non-existent or negative. An initially negative experience will stick with the name of the author, so it really is hazardous to “short-cut” the process.

Development or Substantive Editing: will it fly?

Once a new work has been accepted by a publisher, the developmental or substantive editing begins. This is where presentation, fact checking and logical structural fixes (chronology, readers' flow, consistency of style, and the symmetry of the work) are addressed. This is a delicate process, as the blood, sweat and tears of the author may need to be rearranged to truly do credit to their work. Many authors are exuberant in the thanks they give to their editors, while others write of the regret they now feel (once success has arrived, with the resulting power over the process) that they didn't dig their heels in at changes suggested and carried through by their publishers. In the traditional publishing world, the author gives up much control, due to the capital involved in getting the work ready to be put onto paper, between covers, and onto the shelves.

When you self-publish, you get the freedom AND the responsibility of making the capital decisions yourself, and they are not light decisions to make. In the self-publishing world, authors often disregard this stage, thinking that the work is clear and to the point. They are often very tired of writing, as it is a strange task, often compulsive, which some writers have compared to a disease rather than a job or hobby. The idea of revisiting the work, grinding your way through rewrites, is akin to starting a marathon, soon after finishing one.

Unbearable? Close. Necessary? Almost certainly. Do people's egos get in the way? Sometimes. That's why editing is a skilled job.

A publisher will force an author to go through this phase. If you are self-publishing, force yourself. You spent the time to write the work; you owe it to yourself to ensure it can stand up for itself.

Copy Editing: Can you stand to fly with it?

The next phase is copy-editing. This is like the fine-tuning and detailing that you would do to a custom-built car before your first show. All the grammatical detail is checked: spelling, spacing, subtle agreements (like the same word choices throughout, the table of contents agrees with the chapter names, names are consistent, and the elements of the book are identified in preparation for the book design) checked and corrected. Note that this is not something that an author (even one with an editorial background, and years of experience) should do for themselves. Authors have a difficult time seeing what’s really on the page, as they have spent so much time with their heads down assembling the words and sentences. They simply can’t see the problems without leaving the work for a significant amount of time (and who wants to do that, if your goal is to get it out there for the world to enjoy?

All copy-editing changes should be passed through to the authors for agreement, and it takes time, an eagle eye, and an understanding of the implications for later in the process. The ability to keep on the good side of the author is also a character attribute of a good copy editor.

Book or Page Design: check out the fine leather seats!

Book design follows the copy-editing phase closely, often overlapping the process. This is a very important but often little understood part of making a book readable. In the increasingly competitive world of book publishing (3,000 books are published EVERY DAY), how will your work stand out against others in the same niche? Will a reader pick up your book, amidst many others? Will they be invited into the work, and be encouraged to stay with it? Is it easy to read, easy to find your way around, easy to cross-reference (if that's the kind of book it is)?

The book designer keeps all these things in mind when they create and refine the many elements that make up a book. The typeface, the paper, the width of the margins, the running heads, the chapter titles, the page numbers, and navigation aids (contents pages, glossaries, footnotes, indices, images) should all be married to create a pleasing and useful book.

Cover Design: you WANT to turn heads when you’re flying, don’t you?

Cover design is separate from book design, more “flashy” but also contributing to the purpose of helping the reader access the material. The cover has to grab a potential buyer, invite them to pick the book up and examine it. Above all, it should promise the reader that the book will deliver something. Title, colour, image, typography, back cover blurb, spine and size all affect this equation.

Marketing, although separate and somewhat arcane, is really crucial, and heavily affects cover design.

Marketing: nobody’s coming with you if you don’t tell them you’re going…

Marketing includes everything from word of mouth, promoting the book by sending it to reviewers and mavens, people regarded as either experts or arbiters of taste (if you’ve read Malcolm Gladwell’s “The Tipping Point,” you'll have a much broader and clearer understanding of what mavens are and do), getting publicity through interviews, articles, public speaking events, popular blogs and websites, and any kind of referrals or praise you can get from people who have read the book.

If you are self-publishing, build a web site for your book, and make sure you know what web marketing is, and how it works. Search Engine Optimization is a huge part of this. Traditional or self-publishing, the key words are network, schmooze, and think outside of the box. You can never stop talking about your book—except when your audiences eyes glaze over. Stop before they get to that point, and find a new audience. The old show-biz axiom holds true to marketing: “Leave ’em wanting more.”

Distribution: it’s great, but I have to print some more before you can have one…

Distribution (also called fulfillment in the traditional publishing world) can be handled by quite a few printers now, but depending on the quantities being printed, there may be more efficient/economical ways to send the books out. Print-on-demand means having few physical copies of the book at hand, but when something takes off, the numbers don’t make sense. Amazon has an amazing service where you can cross-link your book’s website to theirs, if they think there is a bit of money to be made. All of the distribution deals you look at will have various chunks of the sale price taken off, of course. You will need to understand the relative value propositions of each—larger percentage, but higher exposure? Better web statistics? Smarter “we also recommend this…” site behaviour… it’s like choosing a cell-phone package!

What happens next?

When a book takes off, and virtually every author who puts “pen to paper” is betting a lot that it will, what are you going to do? Suddenly, agents, marketers, publishers and all manner of people will suddenly “show up” because you have a hot property. There will be high-pressure sales techniques employed, with dangled carrots about co-edition deals, international marketing, movie or television deals, media interviews, and any other kind of opportunity where money is to be made or influence will be gained. My advice to authors is to expect these offers, study them carefully, then get solid advice from someone with experience who is not associated with the people making the offer(s); follow your gut and your brains about them. Get YOUR OWN lawyer, agent, and accountant. And don’t sign anything until you have sought advice from people you can really trust!