In this section:
Here's a handy action checklist to help new authors through the production process. Each step doesn't happen all at once. You will be sent automated emails to prompt you as and when you need to take action.
Complete your Book Details page. Be sure to fill out: Title, Subtitle, Strapline, Edited Description, Endorsements and Categories. Also fill out your Profile. Info there will be used to create your marketing materials and back cover copy.
Prepare your manuscript (MS) as a Word Doc for production. You will have to "strip out" a lot of formatting so it does not mess up our book design software.
You will save a lot of time if you read the instructions before you finish writing.
Send your finished manuscript out for endorsements (this can take some time so get it done as early as possible; using a draft is fine.
Upload the finished, formatted manuscript to your Production page, together with all images.
Add stylesheet notes at the top of your Production page. Specify if you want US or UK Spelling. Do this at the same time you upload the MS.
Find an image(s) on stock.adobe.com (no premium images) that you feel will work as the basis of your cover. Make a note of the FILE#: number in Notes for the workflow stage in the Cover Workflow Section.
Approve your edited changes. Please download the edited manuscript and follow instructions for accepting or rejecting each edit. Please read your MS very carefully as you cannot make any more changes to your text after this step! Upload your edited, approved text.
Check your back-cover copy. You can find this at the top of your Production page. Everything there should be designed to make the potential reader want to open up the book.
Your publication date will be set when your Proofs and Cover Workflow sections are approved and confirmed by the Editorial Manager. This means your manuscript and cover are fully edited and proofed and your book is ready to send to the printer. This is normally around 4 months after the beginning of the production process when you first upload your manuscript.
The following month, we set the publication date for ten clear months later (e.g. for a title finishing production in January, the information will go out in February for a December release). We have a nominal publishing date of the last Tuesday in each month (except December, when it is the second Tuesday) and we aim for the same publication date for ebook and paperback.
Please note that this time may be slightly extended depending on where we are in the annual buying cycle. .
It takes ten months (sometimes more) for information about your book to circulate through the trade worldwide, and this is essential to maximize your prospects of long-term success. We are represented by companies that are generally reckoned to be amongst the best independent sales teams around the world – NBN in the USA, Quantum in the UK, and Durnell in Ireland and Europe – and they cannot start selling the book until they have the finished information.
Budgets for buying in new titles in the chain retailers are set many months in advance – they will not look at titles coming out before then. Some key catalogues, like the NBN sales catalogue in North America, the bumper Bookseller Spring and Autumn editions in the UK, cover six months of titles; they need the information on ISBN, page extent, price, sales copy and cover three months before that, so ten months only just gives us enough time.