How the heck do books get made?

Last month, I attended a networking event. When I tell people I help authors publish books, they say they have no idea where to start with that. One woman said she could see my passion when I was explaining the two paths of publishing. I realized that even though I’ve already blogged about the timeline to publishing a book, there’s still a gap in knowledge in terms of how a book actually gets made.

I attended the Word Vancouver Festival in Vancouver for the first time and picked up a self-publishing checklist someone provided. It’s from 2018, so not necessarily up to date, but there was a section on distribution I hadn’t thought about too much, even for my book.

Using the checklist as a guide, I’ll share the steps of how books get made. Next month, I’ll share more on distribution and marketing.

 

1. Writing the book

If you self-publish:

You need to write a 30,000-word (or more) manuscript. If you don’t type on a computer, that’s not a problem. Many high-profile people are poor writers or typists. There are ways around this.

You can record yourself speaking in chunks and use AI to convert these audio files to text (my app of choice is Otter.ai). Be aware that the conversion will not be perfect. You or someone else will have to clean it up (this is my favourite part of ghostwriting).

If even that is cumbersome and you’ve got a budget to hire a professional, you can hire a co-author (essentially the person who will write the book with you) or a ghostwriter like myself (who will not get credited for the work).

If you’re working with a hybrid publisher, they may have a ghostwriter on staff to help you write the book.

 

If you publish traditionally:

You don’t need to write the entire book, but you must have at least one sample chapter written for your book proposal. When you sign a contract with a publisher, their editor(s) will have deadlines for delivering written chapters.

Note: publishers do not provide writing support for you. It’s common for celebrities to hire co-authors or ghostwriters for this reason.

Here’s my video on the various paths to publishing, if you haven’t chosen one yet:

2. Book editing

If you self-publish:

At the very least, hire a copyeditor. Developmental/structural editors aren’t needed, but they can be helpful for fiction or memoir authors where the story isn’t necessarily chronological. Research editors you may want to work with, share about your book and word count, and get quotes.

You can hire a proofreader too, but copyeditors should know how to correct mistakes. I do this when I copyedit manuscripts.

The editing period will range depending on who you work with and how long they take, but in my perfect world, we get 3 rounds of revision done in 4 to 6 weeks.

If you haven’t already, get your ISBN.

If you’re working with a hybrid publisher, they will provide editing services.

 

If you publish traditionally:

You’ll work with at least one editor, more likely two. If they’re good, they’ll give you good feedback and nudge you to change things to improve your writing.

You can probably fight your editors on stuff you don’t want changed, but remember, they have a better perspective on what makes for a good book that will sell copies.

 

3. Book design

If you self-publish:

Similar to the process of hiring editors, hire an interior formatter(s) for your paperback/hardcover and ebook. Also, hire a professional designer for your book cover. This is all stuff you could do on your own, but you shouldn’t. Trust me—everything is obvious when you don’t have a pro do it.

If your book needs illustrations, hire an illustrator.

A good cover designer will give you a couple of concepts to choose from and then you go through several revision rounds after choosing one concept.

When I work with authors on formatting, I like to pitch certain fonts to them if they don’t have preferences. You should be happy with how the interior of the book feels, even if you care little for what it looks like.

You’ll need your book size to design the cover, and once your paperback/hardcover is formatted, your final page count will determine the size of the book spine.

If you want your book to have an index, hire an indexer. For me, a print formatting file must be available before I do an index, but it might be different for others.

For ebooks, authors care least about what this looks like since the reader has control over fonts and sizes, but you definitely want to view it in Amazon’s Kindle Previewer for anything that looks odd.

I like to indent paragraphs properly when I design ebooks the same way they appear in the print version, but I’ve also seen traditionally published ebooks not follow this. Everything is left-justified. There’s no right and wrong here, only preference.

If you’re working with a hybrid publisher, they will provide formatting and cover design services.

 

If you publish traditionally:

You can give your opinion on what you’d like your cover or interior to look like, but you don’t have final say. You gave up those rights when you signed your contract. Sorry! Hopefully, you’re happy with how your book looks like.

If your book is nonfiction and your publisher wants an index to be there, someone will do that.

 

4. Book printing

If you self-publish:

Your self-publishing platform will print the book and take a percentage for printing and selling.

One thing that did not come to mind until I received the checklist document is that you can also take charge of your own printing and shipping. You can go to several local printers in your town and ask for rates, or work with a print broker (I know one: Sussan Toub at Perfect Impression). There will probably be a minimum print run, so you’ll have to be confident you can sell at least that many hard copies.

(As I write this, it’s two years after I’ve published my second book and I’ve ordered around 80 books for retail, events, folks ordering from me at the author price, and free copies. Everyone else has ordered my book online.)

If you go the self-printing route, you’ll be investing for printing up front, but get to keep the majority of profits compared to if you used a self-publishing platform. You must be confident you can sell copies in person (bookstores, events) and online on your own website.

Consider working with an online shipping service to make it easy to print shipping labels. Get those bubble mailers and return address labels ready!

Signed copies are usually more valuable, so if you’re handling your own stock and shipping, you could charge a premium for signed copies.

You’ll still need to sign up for an online platform to sell your ebook (I suggest IngramSpark, Lulu, or another digital service—stay tuned for next month’s blog on the options). It’s strange to see the ebook everywhere online but only have the paperback/hardcover available through you (unless you sign up as an Amazon retailer). That’s likely the main reason I don’t know any authors who do their own printing.

If you’re working with a hybrid publisher, you’ll determine the best option for book printing and distribution with them.

 

If you publish traditionally:

Your publisher will have relationships with printers, so you don’t have to worry about this, unless your book is so popular it’s on back order and people have to wait for more copies to be printed before they can get it in their hands. Good problem to have!

Publishers also ensure your book and ebook are available on all the major online retailers like Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Indigo, Kobo, etc.

 

4a. How audiobooks are made

We’ve mostly talked about how physical books get printed. Audiobooks are a different beast.

To have a book on Audible (the most popular book listening platform), a book must already be available on Amazon. That’s why this format usually launches after the print & ebook launches, regardless of whether you self-publish or are traditionally published.

Narrate your book or hire a narrator. No one’s going to narrate their book perfectly, so you’ll also need an audio editor to cut out the mistakes.

The sound files (one for each book chapter, plus a sample) all need to be within certain sound ranges, so you’ll also need a sound designer to help with this. This may or may not be the same person doing the audio editing.

There are also local sound studios you can look into that will handle the recording (especially if you want to narrate but don’t have a quiet room nor professional microphones) and may also help with the editing and sound design.

Shop around for your audiobook narrators and audio editors/designers the same way you did for your other formats.

If you’re publishing traditionally, the publisher may provide the narrator (if you choose not to narrate), studio, and related audio services. You should know what’s included in your agreement. Since you’re not responsible for all of that, I think it may as well be you narrating your book, if you can carve out the time.

Stay tuned for next month’s blog post on book distribution and marketing.

 

Need a book coach, ghostwriter, editor, or formatter to help you write and publish your book so you can get it in the hands of readers? Read more about my services here and contact me if you’re ready to begin!