An Overview of the Publishing Process

Forging the Links in the Invisible Book Chain

You write your proposal or manuscript.
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You or your agent submits your book.
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Your editor likes it enough to do a proposal to buy it.
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An editor in chief or editorial board decides whether to buy it and for how much.
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You sign a contract and receive the first part of your advance against royalties.
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If you sold your book with a proposal, you write your book.
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Your editor edits your book.
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You respond to your editor’s suggestions.
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Your editor accepts your manuscript.
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You receive the second part of your advance.
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Your editor sends your book to the production department.
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The production department outsources the copyediting.
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You respond to your copyeditor’s comments.
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The art department creates or outsources the interior design
and the cover for a paperback or the hardcover jacket.
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In a series of launch meetings, your editor and the sales, marketing, publicity and advertising departments:
* Position your book on
one of your publisher’s three seasonal lists
* Create a trade and consumer marketing strategy
* Choose the print, broadcast and electronic trade and consumer media to carry it out
* Prepare sales materials for sales conference
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Throughout the rest of the process, your agent and your publisher try to sell subsidiary rights.
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Your book and the plans for it are presented
to the sales reps at a sales conference.
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Sales Reps sell your book to on and off-line bookstores, distributors, wholesalers, specialty stores, warehouse clubs and 50,000 mass-market outlets.
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Your publisher sells your book to school, college, and public libraries.
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Your publisher’s education department sells books
with adoption potential.
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Your publisher’s special-sales department sells books with premium and bulk-sales potential.
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The production department arranges for your book to be printed.
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Your publisher’s warehouse receives books from the printer, ships orders and later receives returns.
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Your publisher’s advertising and publicity departments:
* Do pre-publication promotion
* Send out copies of your book with a news release or media kit
* Carry out their plans
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Book reviewers review your book.
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Your publisher promotes your book for as long as sales justify it.
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You promote your book for as long as you want it to sell.
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Readers learn about your book in a bookstore, library, the media,
or from a review or a friend. They read it and love it.
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They tell other readers to read it.
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Reprint meetings decide when to:
* Reprint and how many copies
* When to sell or remainder part or all of the stock
if sales are too low
* Make your book available in a print-on-demand edition
* Put it out of print
at which time you can ask for the rights back and republish it
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You write the proposal or manuscript for your next book.

 

 

Adapted from How to Write a Book  Proposal by Michael Larsen.

 

 

Michael Larsen-Elizabeth Pomada Literary Agents
415-673-0939 / Helping Writers Launch Careers Since 1972 / Members: AAR
larsenpoma@aol.com / www.larsen-pomada.com / 1029 Jones St., San Francisco, CA 94109