When can I buy your book?

When friends ask when my next book (Chasing The Will) will be ready and I say I’m almost at the end of the first draft, they often expecting to see it in print in a month or so. When I suggest it might be another eighteen months before they get to read it, they often wonder why. So here’s why and also a way in which a month is also possible!

After the first draft is ready it will blast through at least two re-writes. This will sharpen up the content, take out unnecessary waffle and check the writing ‘flows’ correctly. It also gives you the chance to see if it makes sense. Did you go over a subject twice or did you leave out something that’s required so it makes common sense?

Some writers will go on for another ten or twenty re-writes, but that could and can take years.

The writer needs to get comments checked – did someone actually say that and do you need to get clearance to use it?

The poor old writer will also need to have their forwards cleared by now; this adds to the marketing of the book if it’s non-fiction and can be very helpful in moving sales upwards if your forward is written by a well known person (preferably in the right field).

If you have a publishing deal for your book, it’s all quite straight forward now; it just takes time. Hopefully you’ll have agreed an advance at the time the first draft is delivered, because if you haven’t, your advance may be a year away from reaching your bank account. The upfront money you get in advance of sales is based on a guesstimate of how many copies the book might sell initially.

If you haven’t completed a deal with a publisher, then your book proposal will have been floating around publishers from the day you started writing (for nonfiction) which may have been a few months ago. Unfortunately, you almost can’t start this process for a work of fiction until the manuscript is complete. If you’ve not succeeded yet in gaining that elusive contract, you may have some time to contemplate the meaning of life.

This is what may have happened:

Your manuscripts will have been submitted by yourself or your agents to the editorial department for reflection for publication. Some are rejected right away while others are discussed at editorial meetings. In-house or external readers will read and report on the qualities of the manuscript.

When a reader’s report is encouraging, the sales department will be consulted to discuss the book’s selling potential. An offer to publish may then be made, often with a vision to printing the book a year or two from that date. At the publishers, the acquisitions editor will check the book meets the specifications suggested and agreed on. What did you say you were going to write about in that book proposal? The acquisitions editor may ask the author to insert material, remove substance, or make changes to the final manuscript based on an initial reading of the manuscript and/or on comments provided by other internal/external experts. No, we shouldn’t call them interfering people! One month may have passed by now.

Once it passes muster, it then moves on to the development editor who, along with a copyeditor, works with the author to develop and copyedit the manuscript. Every word is checked. Every sentence has to be readable, spell checked and correct. Every full stop needs to be in its own place and not owned by a comma, for example. Another month or two may have slipped by. This might be when you learn about phrases such as ‘suggested rewrites, re-structuring and correcting errors.’

The publishers often plan for at least a year ahead so they’ll have given the writer a target date to come up with the finished and polished product. If it’s a book that should sell well at Christmas then you could miss another year through delays.

In the meantime a designer will work on a cover image and a publicist will ask for a photo and biographical information from the author to create a press release.

Editors will write a ‘blurb’ for the book’s jacket and will record an ISBN so a bar code can be generated for the back cover.

The sales department will create an Advance Information sheet showing the cover design, the ISBN, the title and author details, the blurb, and the book’s price, dimensions, binding, release date and selling points. This will be used by the sales reps to take into bookshops in order to achieve advance orders. Another three months will have passed.

How is your website doing? The publisher’s website will be updated to include details of the impending release and an entry will be included in its next printed catalogue. Your own personal website needs to be updated so that ‘followers’ will know when your book is available and how they can get hold of a copy. That also means getting your Facebook and other ‘social media’ websites up to date.

All of the book information will be passed to the publisher’s warehousing company and to the industry databases so Amazon and high street shops gain their computer book data.

Some months ahead of the publication date A small number of uncorrected ‘proof’ copies of the book may be quickly typeset and printed and sent to key reviewers and book trade buyers.

Next, the book will be typeset and a last proofread is completed. Finally, The book is sent to the printing presses.

A new printing process is ‘printing on demand.’ The book is written, edited, and designed as usual, but it is not printed until the publisher receives an order for the book from a customer. This procedure ensures low costs for storage, and reduces the likelihood of printing more books than will be sold.

As an alternative, you can ‘self publish’ your book using print on demand and depending upon how much effort or skills you have in layout and computer submissions, your book can be ready in a month or two.

Now dare I take a break for an hour or so?

Back on track

You would have thought, that tearing a thigh muscle severely, while playing football, would have given me more time to write. In reality, the opposite is true. It meant three months of severe pain only numbed occasionally by sleeping, when I could sleep. Finding a position to sleep proved difficult. While it was only a grade two tear, it felt like a grade five and the chart only goes up to grade three.

I maintained the RICE regime to try to ensure control of inflammation and pain relief.

R – Rest
I – Ice
C – Compression
E – Elevation

It worked reasonably well, but a quality (not the cheap ones) thigh strap that holds the muscles in place works better in the long run (like the pun?) Trying to jog too early sets you back a couple of weeks. I know from practical experience and from the ensuing pain.

Having long term visitors drop by also misplaced a couple of weeks, but I’m now through the other side and run out of excuses and any further procrastination. The thigh strap means I can walk and talk and therefore, sit and type. Well, not actually much typing, mostly using the dictation software and only typing for some minor editing.

This led me to change the delivery times for my novel, Chasing The Will. The delay has allowed me to review the chapter planning for the book and given me the opportunity to add a new part to the book where I’ll introduce a new character that will prove essential to the story. This new link makes it all hang together so much better, such are the advantages of taking time and looking with fresh eyes two months later.

I’ll start to post the book chapter planning later this week just after I’ve filled in a couple of blanks. Still thirty chapters and good to go.

Hey, I’m even back playing football. No sympathy required: I know I shouldn’t be playing football at my age and you don’t have to tell me every time we meet.