Guest Post & Giveaway: Inside the Book Publishing Process Part 1 with Amy Green of Bethany House Publishers
Happy July! As I take a break this week, I'm happy to welcome Amy Green, the friendly and fun to be around fiction publicist of Bethany House Publishers. This post was long in the making, and I'm thrilled to include this on Just Commonly. As an avid reader, I've always am intrigued by what goes on in the book publishing process! Good thing, we have Amy to give us a little inside scoop!
Have you ever wondered what goes on in the life of a book from the time it’s an idea in the author’s mind to when you first meet it on the shelf of a bookstore or library?
Well, I’m here to give you a glimpse at all the work that happens silently in the background. Welcome to the world of publishing!
I’m not going to go over the writing process, because writers talk about this a lot on their blogs (what inspired a book, how many words a day they aim for, and how much chocolate they consume as the deadline approaches, etc.). I’m going to focus more on what happens on the publishing side at Bethany House—the editorial and marketing aspects in particular.
The process of how a book gets a contract with Bethany House varies from book to book, but I’ll give you a quick recap of some of the typical stories. Our editors don’t accept unsolicited manuscripts. This is because they would get thousands of them every year, and would have no time to actually edit the ones we’re publishing, which would be bad for everyone.
Many new writers will meet with an editor at a writing conference, and the editor will ask the writer to send a book proposal to review later—full of sample chapters, audience for the book, marketing plan, past sales (if any), and so on.
Others will be presented to our editors by a literary agent. Agencies are often the gatekeepers who look for authors who are ready to be published, then take manuscripts around to their contacts in various publishing companies where they think a manuscript would be a good fit.
Every now and then, our editors will find a manuscript some other way, like judging a contest of unpublished novels…but never by someone pestering them on social media or shoving a proposal under their hotel door at a conference.
I asked my friends in editorial to give me a rundown of what their schedule looks like for getting a book to the clean, logical, well-paced novel you hold in your hands at the end. Here it is, in lightning-fast, bullet-point form.
Editorial Process: Contract to Publication
- Contract is signed
- Title is approved by the Title Committee
- Author and Acquisitions Editor work together to compile cover information (character images and descriptions, setting images and descriptions, costume and hair images and descriptions, possible cover looks, etc.) for Art department to begin working on cover design
- When the manuscript is turned in, editors and internal reviewers read and review the manuscript with feedback compiled into a revision letter for the author
- Author completes revisions and turns in revised manuscript
- Manuscript goes through line edit (big-picture story and character elements, flow, etc.) and copy edit (accuracy, timeline, style, grammar, etc.)
- Edited Word galleys are simultaneously reviewed by proofreaders and by author
- Back cover copy is created
- All changes are incorporated into manuscript and file is sent to Design department for transition from Word files to a designed interior layout
- Designed pages are sent again for proofreading and final author review
- Final changes are made in the text file
- Electronic files of text and cover are sent to printer
- Electronic files sent for ebook conversion
- Printer sends final proofs to publisher for approval
- Ebook file is sent to publisher for approval
- Book is printed, bound, and shipped to publisher’s warehouse
- Book is released!
The amount of time each step takes varies from book to book, but the full process above takes over a year. Right now, for example, the Title Committee will soon be meeting to discuss books releasing in summer 2018, and designers are starting work on covers for spring 2018.
- to be continued . . .
About Amy
Amy Green is the fiction publicist at Bethany House. Her typical day might involve planning book tours, handling media requests, interacting with reviewers, answering author questions about marketing, and other tasks designed to introduce readers to great books. Outside of work, you can find her playing board games, baking bread, and bravely weathering Minnesota winters. She blogs every Thursday at bethanyfiction.com—feel free to stop by and comment anytime!Stay tune for Part 2 of "Inside the Book Publishing Process"
coming tomorrow & "A Publicist's Dream" Parts 1 & 2 on July 6th & 7th.
Welcome to the "Summer Giveaways" on Just Commonly. There will be multiple prizes and will run through the month of July. For full list of prizes, head to announcement post. (Click on the image above.) For this post, leave a comment for Amy, and be sure to enter the entry on the rafflecopter.
One commentator from all of Amy's guest posts will also be randomly chosen to receive a choice of a book from my stash.
a Rafflecopter giveaway
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