Ok, its hot, humid and way too early to start thinking about having your book ready for the holiday shopping season. Right? Wrong! While I will admit that the holidays aren’t just around the corner, it is time to start planning for the release of that new book that you want to have available for the holiday shopping season. While Telemachus Press takes about 4 weeks to do our part of an eBook and 6 to 8 weeks to do our part of a print book, the rest of the process can take a significant amount of time especially as the publishing sites begin to become backed up due to increased volume of books—not to mention the delivery system. Book production and publishing take time. Editing, cover design…and redesign…and re-redesign, file formatting and conversion and the publishing approval and proofing process all take time. It is a lot of work and you want it done right. So lets look at the calendar and start counting backwards so we can do a little planning.
November 25, 2016 Black Friday - As of today, there are about 20 weeks until Black Friday (although with all the money spent on that day it should be named Green Friday), the official start of the holiday shopping season.
November 11, 2016 Book Availability Day - You want your print book and eBook to be available with the online retailers a couple of weeks before Black Friday so that it gets fully situated with their ordering and inventory control systems and you are able to get initial reviews and other information on your sales page completed.
October 21, 2016 POD Upload Day – Since you will want a proof of your print book and enough time to make adjustments if necessary to achieve perfection, you will need to be uploading your print book to the publishing sites about 3 weeks prior to the desired availability date. For color books you can move this date two weeks earlier for safety.
September 23, 2016 POD Interior and Cover Initial Review Draft – In order for the author to have input into the look of their print book, we need to have time to exchange drafts and try different features. This is an iterative process and can take up to a month. It can go much faster but just as very few marketing plans survive the first interaction with the consumer, very few initial drafts of a print book remain intact after the first review by the author. The manuscript just looks different when it is all properly formatted.
September 9, 2016 eBook Interior and Cover Review Draft – Similar to the POD version, the eBook draft must be reviewed and adjusted—especially the all important, front cover. Again this iterative process can take two weeks to complete.
August 26, 2016 Edited, Proofed, Final Form Manuscript Delivery – Mark this date on your calendar. This is the date you must submit your manuscript in order to complete the entire process in time for the holiday shopping season.
So if you are still writing or need to submit your book to the editor, better get started…Christmas is just around the corner.