“If your book is with your editor now, does that mean we’ll see it on shelves soon?“
I’ve been asked a variation of this question a few times lately. Alas, that day is still many months away. In my experience, it can take 12-24 months (or longer) from when a manuscript is finished to seeing it in a bookstore, if you go the traditional distribution route.
This doesn’t include the time spent getting a publisher in the first place. It often takes many months—if not years—to pitch agents and/or publishers, wait for a response and negotiate a contract.
Once a book is accepted for publication, it gets slated for a particular release “season.” Most publishing houses distribute a “list” of books in Winter (December/January to March/April), Summer (May to August), or Fall (September to December). All the books in each season are launched to the in-house sales team at the same time. My book will release in the Winter season.
Here’s my “production” timeline for the 12 months leading up to publication, which began with me submitting the third draft of my self-edited manuscript to my editor:
- February-May 2024:
- “Substantive” or “developmental” editing to focus on structure and length. My editor and I will go through two rounds of edits, taking 3-4 weeks for each pass.
- Title and cover design are finalized in early April.
- Bibliographic and marketing submission form completed. The sales team uses this form to pitch my book to booksellers. This “meta-data” starts getting pushed to retailers in April.
- June-July:
- Copyediting (focus on readability, syntax errors, and style; also correcting grammar, spelling and punctuation). Again, there will be two rounds with me and my copy editor (1-2 weeks for each pass). When this is finished, my job is done: I can’t make any more changes.
- August-October:
- Typesetting is done by a designer (this includes all the interior design elements like layout, chapter openers, font, margins, spacing, etc.).
- Proofreading is done by a third editor who specializes in this work (they check a PDF version of the book after typesetting, looking for errors like missing page numbers, incorrect running heads, and mistakes the copyeditor may have missed).
- Indexing would happen in this stage, if the book has that feature.
- Digital “Advance Reader Copies” (ARCs) will go to reviewers and potential endorsers in August; they will have about 3-4 weeks to read and review it.
- The sales team starts “selling the book in,” which means meeting with buyers at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Ingram and other major distributors to convince them to order it.
- My formal media and publicity campaign begins in October. This is in addition to the efforts I’ve already started now, such as building out my website, sending around this newsletter, building a social media audience, etc.
- November:
- Files are prepared and sent to printer. Printing can take 4-8 weeks.
- eBook production begins after the book is sent to the printer.
- Pre-order campaign launch. All pre-order sales count on the day of publication, so pre-orders really help with sales rankings.
- Mid-December:
- Books arrive from the printer. The publisher needs 2 months for “laydown”—sending the books to the distributor’s warehouses and then to retailers across Canada and beyond.
- February 18, 2025: Publication date! Finally, books on shelves! Did you know that books are always released on Tuesdays?
There are certainly contingencies built into this schedule, but overall the timeline is fairly standard.
What surprises you most about this process?
Cheers,
Jennifer
P.S. Ivy’s Bookshop is one of several local bookstores in Victoria. I hope to see my book in their window display next year!