So you have made the decision to write and publish your book, great! Today, our #TuesdayTip blog focuses on how hiring publishing professionals helps you avoid fatal flaws when publishing your book. Writing and publishing a book has never been easier. With the advent of numerous self-publishing tools it has never been easier for you to publish your book. However, even though it has never been easier to publish, it has also never been easier to make a mistake when publishing your book. Publishing professionals, what do they know? Do they know things? Let’s find out!
Publishing Professionals
When it comes to publishing, there are two major publishing avenues, the traditional publishing house and self-publishing. Each of these avenues comes with its own unique pros and cons. No matter what publishing avenue you choose, you encounter a number of publishing professionals along your journey. One advantage traditional publishing companies have is they employ or have access to these publishing professionals. That being said, self-publishing provides authors with more control over the process and allows authors to work with these professionals to make sure their book is completed in a manner in which they envision.
No matter which way you choose to publish remember to take into consideration anything and everything your publishing professionals say. Their job is to look out for you and your book to make sure it is the absolute best it can possibly be. So who are these professionals and what can they do for you?
Graphic Designer(s)
Graphic design professionals help you in a number of different ways. They each have their own expertise and you may need to work with more than one, depending on your needs. These professionals work on three major projects: cover design, marketing materials, interior layout (typesetting).
Possibly one of the most important projects during the publishing process is creating the cover of your book. There are a number of stats which deal with book covers but one of the most striking facts is people decide whether or not to buy your book within five seconds of first looking at it. This shows the importance of book covers as nearly all of those five seconds are spent looking at the front and back cover of a book. A book cover designer is worth your investment.
Graphic designers also work with you to create marketing materials. After all, if no one knows you wrote a book, who is going to buy a copy? Marketing materials range but can include a website, business cards, banners, social media pictures, bookmarks, and more. Working with the marketing professional, which we’ll mention later, the graphic designer designs the appropriate marketing materials.
Also, some graphic designers work with interior layout and typesetting. This is how the inside of your book is laid out between text, chapter starts, pictures, graphics, and more. The interior of a book is tricky to layout unless you know what to look for and works with certain software making sure the layout is professional and in compliance with the specifications of the printer. A graphic designer knows setup information such as you always start a chapter on the right-hand page.
Marketing Professionals
These professionals help you sell your book. There are a number of ways they work with you and some of these include social media, Amazon, interviews, book tours, etc. Each book and each author is unique; determining the type of marketing to use is also unique. Some books, think memoirs or biographies, do great on speaking tours. Some books like romance novels do great when maximizing Amazon sales. All authors should look to create an author website. Talking with a marketing professional allows you to reach the people who will read, and buy your book.
Editor
Editing is the most important part of your book. Hands down, no matter how great your marketing, how amazing your cover, if what’s inside stinks, no one will buy your book. An editor works with you on a number of different editing tasks but their main goal is to make sure your book reads well and your audience can read and follow your story. A proper editor will work to iron out plot points, they will work to fix word choice, they will correct spellings and punctuation. We wrote an overview of editing in a previous blog and we suggest taking a closer look there to understand more about what an editor provides.
Other publishing professionals
There are numerous other professionals you may use while publishing your book. Remember, each one of these professionals has a different skill set and may be used for different books. For example, you want to work with an indexer if you choose to have an index. There are also other professionals such as project managers, sales people, distribution professionals, printing professionals, beta readers, to name a few.
Last, but not least, the certified author assistant. This is an area where we have intimate knowledge. We work with authors to write and publish their book. We have a network of individuals who are publishing professionals, we manage the project and everyone involved, we understand what processes your book needs to make sure it is a professional book, and much more. You can always find out more about how we can help you on our website.
What publishing professional are you excited to work with?
Until next week,
Leave a Reply