Once you have final copy, your next steps after the first draft involve having the book’s interior pages laid out. Ideally, you will have approved the page design well before this point, so this publishing piece shouldn’t take more than a couple of weeks at most, assuming the book designer can get you in right away.
Timeline Check
Okay, so where are you at this point in terms of timeline? Hard to say. We know that the professional line editing and copy editing will take a couple of months once you factor in you reviewing the work and making any necessary changes. The cover will be designed during this period so that process won’t impact the schedule. Then you’ll need one to two weeks after that for the interior page design. That puts you at about ten weeks if everything goes without a hitch.
The big unknown is how long it will take for you to re-read the manuscript (which could need to happen more than once), make any necessary big-picture adjustments, turn your narrative into action, add detail, and then ratchet up the language before you hand it over to the line editor. That timeframe is up to you and, to some degree, to your book since manuscripts seem to make their own demands during the writing process.
Proofs
After your book’s cover and interior pages have been designed, you will want to see proofs—the pre-publication version of your work—from CreateSpace (Amazon) and IngramSpark (should you decide that you want the book to be available in retail shops and libraries). These days, it’s hard to say whether Covid will delay delivery of the proofs or not, so this could take anywhere from a week to a month.
Once you receive the proof(s), you will want to check it carefully. When publishing my most recent book, I decided that I would proofread the physical proof to make sure no errors had been introduced. That final reading, which could be done by you or by a proofreader, also revealed additional corrections to be made, so I was pleased with my decision.
Obviously, how you decide to proceed at this stage will impact timing. For argument’s sake, let’s assume this phase can be handled in a month, although that could be optimistic.
That brings us to the final book-publishing step, so don’t miss next week’s blog post.
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