Ep. 4: The Life of A Book: The Production Timeline

Welcome to the Pub Date Podcast, the show where two book broads discuss what should happen before, during, and after your book publication date. Brought to you by Broad Book Group with your host Vanessa Campos and Jen Dorsey.

Hi everyone, welcome to another episode of the Pub Date Podcast. I'm Vanessa Campos Campos Campos.

And I'm Jen. Hello. Hi.

So Jen, I just want to say happy Independent Bookstore Day Eve.

Oh my gosh, it's one of the best days of the year. Happy Indie Day Eve to you as well. For our listeners who may not know what that is, I guess we should explain it.

Yes. So every year, the independent bookstores get together and they basically just celebrate, you know, being indies. So it's a big movement. And, you know, IndieBound, which is produced by the American Booksellers Association and Bookshop.org, put on this event where we try to get as many people in through the doors of independent bookstores. So yes, we all have Barnes Noble in our backyard and Books-A-Million.

But you know what?

There's a lot of independent bookstores out there that are providing curated lists for people that are in the neighborhood. So I'm really excited about it. Jen, do you have a favorite bookstore?

I do. I do. Where I am locally, which is very near St. Louis, I have two that I love. I'm on the Illinois side of the river. So I go to Afterwords Books in Edwardsville, Illinois. They are great. We love them. They are still operating on curbside and porch pickup right now, but we're trying to throw some business their way. And then in the city, in St. Louis, I love Left Bank Books. They're absolutely fantastic. And then I'll also give a shout out to a cute little children's bookstore called I See Me, which is great as well. They do a lot of books for Black and brown kiddos and just have a really great presence there and do fun stuff and fun events. So we have more, but those are my top 3.

Well, that's awesome.

Yeah, what about you?

Near me, a lot of independent and used bookstores closed during the pandemic, which is really sad. So what I've been doing lately is I've been going to Bookshop.org and I've just been buying. I pick up, you know, an independent bookstore in the middle of the country. I, you know, will visit the Parnassus Bookstore website and I will just buy through them. And what I love about Bookshop.org is that they actually provide a fund to help support independent bookstores. So every purchase, a little bit of that money goes to a big pot, and that pot gets distributed to all the independent bookstores that sign up through the Bookshop.org website. So I absolutely recommend that. And, you know, sometimes the indies will go ahead and add a little something, you know. Not to rag on them, but Barnes Noble, when I order from them and I get them delivered, it's usually a bunch of advertisements and like, hey, you know, get, 50% off of this, you know, Food Network thing. And I'm like, okay, that's great. But you know, when you buy indie, sometimes they just send you a cute sticker and a thank you message. And it's just personal. So I, I love that.

I do too. And I think that's what sets indies apart and what makes them worth celebrating. It's not just that they're a bookstore. They're a community builder, and they're part of the community. And that's what they're— that's what their bread and butter is. And so the last year has been so hard. For so many people, but indies in particular, because they really thrive on that browse traffic and people stopping by and, you know, just having a coffee and having a chat. And they haven't been able to do that for the last year. So I'm really impressed with how they've kind of pivoted their business model. You know, they're doing curbside pickup, which is so similar to what restaurants are doing to survive and doing all kinds of virtual events. And they just really stepped up. So tomorrow is a wonderful way to celebrate them. Go out. Grab some books at your independent bookstore. If you can't do that, buy on Bookshop, and let's give them some love.

Yeah, absolutely. And don't take it just from us. You know, we are lifelong book lovers. It's just never going to be— it's the thing that we hoard. But I just read that Barack Obama, former president, is actually going to make a few virtual visits to 6 bookstores around the country on Saturday to help celebrate. So if they are in your backyard or if you're interested, I would say go out and look for, you know, a little bit more information. Um, here is a list of those bookstores. It's Square Books of Oxford, um, Eso One— and I may be butchering that— Eso One Books of Los Angeles, California, Politics and Prose Bookstore in Washington, D.C., Parnassus Books of Nashville, and the Lit Bar um, in the Bronx, and Literati of Ann Arbor. So, you know, if you're interested and want to see Barack talk, go ahead and check them out.

Hey, those are all great choices. I actually— I saw him on, um, on Parnassus's, uh, Instagram this morning, so he's already out there doing the work.

Perfect. I love that.

Thank you.

Um, okay, so today's topic is going to be about the life of a book before it hits the shelves. So the life of a book before it hits the shelves, we obviously know it, you know, it starts with the idea. Is it a book? Is it not? Which we discussed last time. And then, you know, once you actually get to the point where you realize that it's a book, your book idea should go through what we call in the industry a production timeline. Now let's talk a little bit about that schedule, what it is, who uses it, and why authors, even indie authors, should use one.

Jen, what do you think? All right, let's dig into this. Um, the life of a book before people see it is robust. It's a very busy life, uh, and I think that anyone who's at an editorial can tell you that so much has to happen before people see that book on the bookshelf. It's not just turning it in and typing it up and printing it and ta-da, it's done. There's so much more involved than that. And so I'm going to speak to the editorial part of that a little bit, and then I'm going to kick it to you and we'll, we'll see how the marketing kind of intertwines with all of that. Right.

Right.

Um, I think it's got to start, it's got to start off with, um, with some very strong editing. Obviously you can't just turn in a book and call it done. So in the business, we do several levels of edit to make sure that it's tip-top shape. And development editing is kind of the first step of that. So what that means is you have an editor who sits down with you, takes your manuscript, and kind of puts themselves in the shoes of the reader and says, okay, I'm going to read this for, you know, for consistency. And does it make sense to me as a reader? Does it flow well? People love to use the word flow. Does it flow well? You know, are the transitions in there? Do the chapters make sense in the order that they're in? Kind of those big picture topics. That's what a development edit is. So that's always my first step with an author once I get that raw manuscript in.

So I've gotten a lot of questions from indie authors and even some of the traditionally published authors where they say, well, do I need a dev edit? I'm a prolific writer. Okay, so that laugh just tells me everything I need to know.

It does, it does. I'm sorry, everybody needs an editor, everybody. And because, you know, your, your book is your baby, right? You're in it, you love it, you love the things in it, and you love what you're saying in it. And that's great, and we want you to, to feel that way about your book. But you're not the person buying the book, and you need someone else to read the book to give you that feedback. Otherwise, you're gonna get the feedback that your mama gives you which is, "I love it, it's great, you're wonderful." And that's not the feedback that you need. You need to know if it works or if it doesn't. And so that's why you need a very good, very skilled development editor.

So let's talk a little bit more about the developmental editor and what people should think about when they start hiring for someone that's a dev editor. Like, what should people— and we're talking specifically nonfiction business books. For this, for this particular conversation. Um, what should authors, indie authors, be on the lookout when they're interviewing a dev editor?

So I think there are a couple things at play. Um, you, you need two things. First of all, you need someone who's got the resume to back it up. Um, and then you need someone who is going to be a good partner in the process with you. That's harder to discern from a resume. So I would really recommend when people are hiring out an editor, you know, not only do they look at that person's vita and see like, you know, what their background is and if they're the right kind of editor, but also I would just have a conversation or two with them and get a feel for their working style. Is it going to mesh well with your working style? Um, see if maybe you can talk to some of their former clients who can speak to, you know, how happy they were with the process. For me, the number one most important thing to remember though during this process is that Not all editors are built the same. So, you know, just because someone edits one type of book doesn't necessarily mean they'd be good at editing another. I do nonfiction. That's all I do. If you give me a romance novel, I'm not going to know what to do with your book. I'm not, I'm not your girl in that case. So really kind of discern it that way and say, okay, is this person a good fit? Not only in terms of resume, but in terms of just the spirit of how they work and the topic area that they work in.

Yeah, that's, that's definitely good to know. There's going to be a lot of people out there who are going to want your business, so just make sure you ask the right questions. So typically, how long does a dev edit take in the perfect world?

Yeah, well, I think that really depends on what your goals are. So, you know, if you're, if you are really hoping to, you know, crank your book out and get it out in the market, your goals are going to be different. If you've got a little bit more lead time then that's good. I personally like to do about a 6-week turnaround, so I have the book for a couple weeks, make my comments, I send it back to the author, they have it for a couple weeks to marinate on the suggestions that I've made, and then we use those last 2 weeks to go back and forth a little bit more just to make sure that all the i's are dotted, the t's are crossed, and that, you know, we get the book into a good place where they want it to be. That's my ideal, but You know, it depends. It depends on what your goals are. So let's, let's stick to that.

I like 6 weeks. It's a really good timeline. Okay. So once you're done with the dev edit, what comes next?

Yeah. Once you get through that dev edit, then you get more granular and then you're going to go into more of a copy edit phase where now you're, you're looking less at what the big picture stuff is. Now you're narrowing down. So kind of think of it as a funnel. You're doing the big stuff at first, then you're going to narrow, narrow, narrow. So on the copy edit, you're going to be working with the author on doing line edits, so sentence-level stuff, paragraph-level stuff, making sure that transitions are clear, uh, you know, making sure that all the citations are correct if you've got anything you cited. So really kind of that more nitty-gritty stuff, and then just making sure that the language is the way it needs to be. And I guess at that point, you need to— if you're an independent author, you've got to kind of let the copy editor drive the bus. So, you know, if you— if they're going to be using a specific style of editing, that's important to know. If they're going to use Chicago style or MLA or APA, or— there's so many ways to go. So some of that depends on what your book is about, but most people will use Chicago.

That's good to know. So you talked about, you know, the line edit. Wouldn't that be something that a proofreader would be able to do?

Ooh, that's a good question. So they're kissing cousins. They're really similar. I think when you, you know, when you're doing a line edit, you're reading it for the language. When it then gets to a proofreader, they're really charged with doing like the incredibly granular stuff of making sure that there are no major typos, you know, that the sentence construction that you laid out at the beginning is what it looks like in the finished book. The proofreader really doesn't step into the process until you have either a very final manuscript or you have that designed book.

That's good to know. I like that. I've never heard it be called the kissing cousins.

That's right.

It's all related. It really is. And, you know, at this point, you know, we're looking at dev edit and then it goes into copy edit. So they all go hand in hand and then they go into the proofreading. So at this point, I, I love to interject and work with the editor, the managing editor of your book, and say, hey, is this book ready? Is it at a point so that we can maybe grab some sample chapters and kind of prep something so that we can ask for people to review it? So early reviews, praise quotes, testimonials. So Like Jen said, you know, there's 6 weeks of dev edit. How many weeks is there of copy edit, Jen?

Um, typically it runs between 3 and 4 weeks depending on how messy it is. Um, and keep in mind too that even though your dev editor, uh, your friendly neighborhood dev editor likes to catch stuff when they can, their job isn't to do that nitty-gritty line edit stuff. So there will be plenty for the copy editor to do. So I usually say about 4 weeks for that piece. And then once you've got that design book or the final manuscript, 2 to 3 weeks for proofreading. But yes, you are correct. That's really where I think, and where you and I have done this in the past together, where the marketing folks really step in and kind of say, all right, let's, let's get this marketing cooking because you can't wait.

Yes.

So that actually makes me think about, you know, the process and most most book proposals will come into dev edit with a title and a subtitle. And I would say that more times than not, when the book is going through that dev edit, things change. So then we start looking at the title. So while you have the manuscript, and when it's actually coming back, I like to take a look at it in— during the copy edit phase, and see, okay, has it changed from when it was originally submitted, and does it merit a revised title and subtitle? So more times than not, it does. That's a really good opportunity for you and your— you as an author and your marketing person to really start thinking about that and solidifying that. During this time, it's actually a really good idea to start taking a look at competitive titles and seeing what their covers look like, what's already on the market. So that's, you know, I come in through the back door and I say, okay, well, Jenna's— Jenna's working on your, on your manuscript. Let's you and I, you know, you author and I talk about your title, your subtitle, because more often than not, it's going to suck the first time you bring it to the table. Sorry. And your cover, you know, and these steps are really important because one of the things that I'm thinking about is do independent authors really need to follow this schedule? And, you know, for me, from a marketing perspective, I've worked with both, you know, traditionally published authors and independent— independently published authors. And I would say, if you're an independently published author, why wouldn't you hold your standards as high as the Big Five? I'd say just do it, you know. And having this publication schedule will also allow you to see what it looks like on your calendar and be able to say, hey, I have, you know, I'm writing a book and this is the title and I'm, you know, we're getting close to it and here's the COVID reveal and we're getting even closer to it. Here's a few praise quotes. So it allows you to do a lot of those little marketing pieces while people like Jen, who are really the book doctors of, you know, you guys do all the heavy lifting. I'm just kind of, you know, borrowing from what you are doing. So those are really good opportunities during, you know, your downtime as an author during the editorial process. So I love working alongside a great editor like Jen to be able to do that. You know, it really is, it's like a hand-in-hand process.

Okay.

Yeah, for sure, for sure. And, you know, I, I think too, the point you made about stepping in and kind of rethinking that title and rethinking that cover and that subtitle, those to me are like, even though we're talking about the words that are being used in the book, it's really the insight of the marketing person that you hire or the marketing team that you have to make sure that, you know, those elements are tip-top shape because you guys know the, you know, you're the ones out there doing the footwork. You're, you're the soldiers in the field looking at the books on the shelf. And to me, that's, that's such an important part of the process that you cannot overlook.

I agree. So, okay, so a few more questions about the editorial process for you, because these are questions that I get asked all the time.

Okay, hit it.

Do we need a fact-checker?

Oh, you know what, I hate to be wishy-washy, but it does depend on your topic. Um, if you're doing nonfiction though, which is what we're talking about here, I say yes. And Let me preface that by saying don't go spend like thousands of dollars on a fact-checker, but you do need to have someone other than you go through your manuscript, make sure that everything that you're citing is correct, make sure the people that you've mentioned, their names are spelled right, that their titles are listed correctly. Um, if you have anything that requires getting permission, which is a whole other show that we'll have to do sometime, like, oh yeah, I get permission for what, don't I? Um, I think you, you need someone to help you identify those, those elements and, you know, what they are. So yeah, to me, a fact checker is money well spent. Um, you know, you could even get a college intern to do this for you, just someone who's adept at using the internet and knows how to do some research and knows what they're looking for. It's really, really important to have for nonfiction.

I agree. And just, you know, putting this out there, I know that, you know, this has become a trend, but this is me you know, talking from a journalistic— from my journalism background, Wiki is not a resource you should use ever, ever, ever, ever. Okay, well, with that being said, talking about resources, do I need a bibliography? Do I need a resource section?

Oh, fantastic question.

Footnotes too. I get that all the time. I personally dislike books with footnotes. I don't want to read more on top of what you're already saying, but that's just me, right?

No, I agree. If you are doing a very academic book or if you're doing something that's kind of very jargony or very in the weeds of an industry specifically, um, then I would say footnotes are great and you should use them. But if you're doing a book that, you know, is a little bit more consumery In other words, it's something that I'm going to go and find on the shelf at my local indie on Saturday, Independent Bookstore Day, then I don't think that you want to have a heavily footnoted book because you're right, it slows down the reading process. So great for research, not so much for something I want to read on the weekend. So I would avoid the footnotes.

Okay, that's good. I, you know, I just, I don't know. I agree with you. I don't like footnotes. I mean, I'm a big believer in if you're going to define something, you know, we can make something really nice on the page, you know, stylize it as a call-out where it's like you're using this jargon and we can add the little description over here in the top corner of your page. I, I prefer it. It's easier, it's quicker to read through. And really, for most of the business books that are out there, you know, from you as a, as a thought leader and as someone who wants to further what you're saying to your immediate audience, I think it's just quick-hitting and it keeps people moving through your book. And that's really what you want.

Okay, so yeah, absolutely.

We're talking proofreading, fact-checking, bibliographies, all the things. So after this, we want to go ahead and, you know, talk about a little bit about the layout and interior page design. Is this a point in which you work on this? Do you hand it off? What's that process look like for you?

So you know what, designing the book is a whole other ball of wax. And you need a good professional designer to do that. So I would say, you know, if you, if you're hiring someone independently, then you've got to really watch yourself. You got to make sure that you, you're hiring someone who, who is in the book business and not just a general graphic designer. And, you know, probably not someone you're going to find on Fiverr or whatever. You got to have someone who's, who's in the business. So, um, really the editor and the designer work hand in hand at that point and the marketing as well. I mean, to kind of speak to what the inside should look like and make sure it's got the same feel as the COVID make sure all of those elements kind of are cohesive together.

I agree. Finding the right person who has done books for a traditionally published, um, author is really good. You know, you want to make sure that your book stands out there and it doesn't look like you hired, you know, a college student. I'm not saying college students can't do it, but it takes a lot of training. Okay, so we've talked about the developmental editor, the copy editor, the proofreader, the fact-checker, maybe someone even who comes in and gives your book another proofread. So that's at least 5 people. So, I mean, that's a lot of interviewing process that you're going to have to do as an independent author. Now, not tootin' our own horns here, but you want to work with an editor like Jen, who's been doing this for a really long time, and has her own resource. She has a pool of people that she can just tap, you know, tap and say, hey, I've got this book project and it's about marketing. And she knows that that person has, you know, edited a marketing book. She has people who have done indexing. She has people who have done fact-checking. And you know what the nice thing about, you know, working with someone like Jen is that it's all in-house. So you only have to talk to Jen. You can absolutely go out and find people. You know, Fiverr is out there. We're not knocking down those. There are some really great talents out there who are trying to get started. But, you know, looking for and doing your research and looking for somebody like Broad Book Group that has all of these things under the one umbrella is, is really a time saver. So I suggest checking out our website, broadbookgroup.com, and, you know, seeing what we can offer. Um, you know, one of the things that we'll— we're going to start doing is we're going to start working on, um, some courses to help people like yourself start writing and editing and get the ball rolling. You know, if you're not ready to, to work and, and get that book out there, you know, maybe it's just not an idea, not an actual book, it's just an idea. We're going to be rolling those out later on. So just make sure that if you don't want to work with a broad book group, that you're asking the right questions like Jen mentioned earlier. It's very important. You want to make sure that you're producing something that's really wonderful and that is going to compete with a HarperCollins. And there are some really good people out there that you can find. Any final thoughts on that, Jen?

Yeah, well, hey, thank you for all the kind words. That's so nice. And I, you know, obviously I feel the same about you. I mean, you're the marketing guru here. Who, you know, who better to speak to the marketing issues than Vanessa Campos Campos Campos, because she's marketed a ton of books. So, you know, I think that as long as you are very clear on what your goals are as a writer, that'll really help you drive the bus here on who you bring in to create your team and who you hire to help work on your books. So we should come up with a little checklist. We should do that. We'll come up with a checklist and we'll put it out on social or put it on our website. Kind of covering some of the stuff that we talked about in the pod today. And so that's all the cool stuff that has to happen before you launch the book. And then launching the book is a whole other thing. That's a whole other show. That's a whole other topic.

And we'll get into that next week or not next week in the next podcast. You know, we're going to, we're going to flip, we're going to turn the tables here and Jen's going to give me all the hard questions. So we're going to talk through the same production schedule, but we're going to look at it from a marketing perspective to help you identify those really great nuggets that you may not be considering because you're doing editorial work.

Absolutely. I cannot wait to put you in the hot seat next time. And yeah, we'll get through all of it for sure.

I'm ready. I'm ready. Bring it.

Awesome.

We may need an hour.

Let's do it. We may. You never know.

Yeah.

Awesome.

Well, thank you to everyone for listening to us today and tuning in. We really appreciate it. You can find out more about us, like I said, broadbookgroup.com. And on social media @BroadBookGroup. A big thank you going out to our producer Paul Roberts of OC Talk Radio and our executive producer Emily Carpenter Polskamp of Little Red Communications. Until next time, keep publishing.

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