Monday 27 February 2012

The Publication Process - An Overview

Well, a few weeks ago, I had my book Time Keepers accepted for publication by Silver Publishing. The e-book will be released in July and this time I will get a print release too. I don't have an exact date for that yet, but I am very excited as this will be my first print book release.

While thinking on this, I decided it might be nice to share with you a little about the process from acceptance to publication, based on my experiences with Silver Publishing.



1) You get the long-awaited email, offering you a contract. You add your digital signature and everything is set in motion.

2) At this stage, Silver encourages you to do your own edits. They send through a sheet with what general things to look out for/eliminate and they also send notes and recommendations from the editor who read your submission.

3) You send the manuscript back and then Silver fowards you another form. In this one, you create a long and short blurb for the book, note what heat rating it is and what genres are involved, and you also supply notes for the cover artist. You can describe your characters' appearances and also make suggestions for how you think the cover could look. The designer will try to bear these in mind as they work on your cover.

4) Now there is a wait while your book is queued for edits. The editor will then liaise with you as you work through the edits until you are both happy with them.

5) The manuscript is now out of your hands. It goes through one more stage of editing with the Editor in Chief and is then sent for proofreading. By this stage you have usually also received your cover art and are able to start properly promoting your upcoming release.

6) Once all checks are completed it is forwarded to admin to be formatted and uploaded to the various sites for sale. Pre-orders are available from the Silver website and then the book gradually appears on all the other sites for sale after release day. Silver authors receive five copies of their book to use in giveaways etc.

Obviously this is my experience with Silver, but other publishers may run things slightly differently. I have completed stages 1-3 with Time Keepers and I am now waiting for my first lot of edits to come through. I hope this was of interest to all the budding authors out there. I am now heading off to work in a couple of hours on my new manuscript! ;)

2 comments:

  1. Congratulations on your first print copy! That is quite an achievement! May this be the first of many!!

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  2. Congratulations, Nicki! This is amazing, FANTASTIC news! ♥♥♥

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