Most writers believe that the end goal of writing a book is securing a book deal. But getting a book deal is just another milestone in the long journey of publishing a book. Considering how foggy the book publishing industry is, it is quite normal to not know what happens after a book deal. Especially if you’re a debut author.

Although every writer might experience a different adventure through this process, there’s a general pathway that you and your book might follow if you take the traditional publishing route.

Read this: Traditional or Self-Publishing in India – Which is better for a first-time author?

In this article, we attempt to clear some of that fog by providing a bit of clarity on what happens after you snag a book deal at a traditional publishing house. Knowing the various stages of publishing might just reduce some of the stress that comes as a by-product of this long journey. However, it is good to keep in mind that every traditional publishing house might have its specifications and that might lead the author to have a unique experience.

Read this: Writing Literary Fiction – Anisha Lalvani’s Writing, Agenting, and Publishing Journey

Have you ever wondered why traditional publishers mostly give a tentative publication date that is at least a year after the date of the book deal?

Firstly, the publication house is lined up with book releases, but the time it takes for a book to reach the release date from the stage of a book deal is pretty valid. We’ve chalked out a roadmap for the journey your book will most probably take via various stages.

Let’s get into it.

Stage One: Editing

Editing is a long process in itself. And that’s the department you get to work with during the initial stages after a book deal. Usually, the editing stage can take anywhere from six months to eighteen months. It does depend on the genre and the availability of editors who can work with you. It also depends on the your (author’s) schedule and efficiency who should be working on the edits with the help of the editorial team. One thing you should keep in mind as an author is that the editors will try to apply their knowledge of the market trends as well as their expertise and experience in editing a book to help your book become the best version of itself. As authors, we often get too attached to our drafts and become reluctant to changes even when the changes might only help and not harm. This can be better handled if it’s considered a collaboration between you and the editors. Open communication can only lead you to tell the story that you’ve always wanted to tell in the best way possible.

Step One: Commissioning Editor

The commissioning editor is the link between an author (and their literary agent) and the publishing house. They are responsible for finding new authors and book ideas to publish. They’re the ones that advocate for you at the publishing house to secure a book deal for you. Once you’ve got your book deal, you move to the next step to work on developmental or structural edits.

Read this: Manuscript Editing 101: A Checklist to See if you’re Ready

Step Two: Developmental or Structural Edits

The developmental editor is responsible for looking at your book as a whole and helping with the big-picture edits. The work is mostly on the foundational aspect of the story and not on the details. You might be working on the major conflicts, the overall plot, any subplots or character developments. This is the stage where you figure out what works and what doesn’t. You might even have to let go of minor things that weren’t working in tandem with the whole story. Both the editor and the author work together to ensure that the structure of the book is strong enough to deliver the story.

Step Three: Line Editing

Now that the structure of the book is in place, the book moves forward to the Line Editor. They will zoom in and try to look for smaller details or inconsistencies that need to be improved. For example, they’ll look at your metaphors and if they fit with the context of your story or not. Or if there’s anything that doesn’t make sense and doesn’t align with the narrative’s flow. The line editors focus on smaller sections but at the same time keep in mind what the big picture of the story is. More importantly, the line editor pays attention to the individual style and voice of the author. Keeping that in mind, it checks for consistency of that style and ensures that it aligns in the entire book as an attentive reader.

Step Four: Copy Editing

Copy-editor focuses more on the grammatical sense of the text. They also look at the facts and make sure they’re consistent with the timelines in the story. They look for spelling that might be different on different pages. Their attention to detail is on a higher level, and they make sure that the text follows the rules of the language while also keeping the flow intact. Commas, hyphens, and syntax are their familiars, and you’ll be working with them to make sure that the reader doesn’t ditch your book because of a factual error.

Step Five: Proofreading

The final step in the editing process is proofreading. At this point, your book has probably gone through several rounds of edits, including all the above types mentioned. Before your book goes through the next stages, it is ensured that the final copy does not have any errors. Hence, the proofreaders are responsible for screening the entire final draft. They should be spotting typos, spelling errors, grammatical errors, line breaks, and the other nitty-gritties of the text. Once the draft is done at this step, it is pushed forward to book production.

Read this: The Seven Steps of Self-Editing Fiction

Stage Two: Book Production

Once the edits are completed, it is now time for the book to move forward to the visuals team. This is where they get a makeover from being a black and white manuscript to a beautifully designed book to hold in your hands and display on shelves.

Step One: Typesetting & Formatting

If you take out a book from your shelf or even a digital version on your reading device, you’ll notice how properly aligned the pages are. This includes the arrangement of specific fonts (style and size) and all other elements on every page in a specific layout that works for the book. This varies according to the age group, genre, format (digital, paperback, hardcover, etc.) and editions. If there are certain illustrations on specific pages or chapter openings, that gets arranged into a layout as well. All of this is done to ensure that the reader has a seamless reading experience.

Step Two: Cover Design

When the edits and formatting are done, it is time for the book to get some cover designs. The publishing houses may have in-house designers, artists, or illustrators. Or they may consult and hire freelancers to work on a book cover design. The author provides a brief mentioning what elements they would like to have on the cover or if they have a rough idea of how the book cover should look like. The designers take the author’s input and share a few variations of initial sketches. They work together to develop the best possible book cover designs and other illustrations, if needed. Two or more versions of the final design are presented to the author, and once they agree on a design, the job here is done.

Read this: 20 Book Cover Designers in India

Step Three: Printing

The book is ready with all its edits and designs with the typographic needed on the front and back covers. But before your book gets to the printing press, you will probably get a few comments from other authors and/or a short and attractive blurb for the back cover. Once every little thing is in place, the book is ready for printing.

Stage Three: Publicity and Marketing

As you might’ve already guessed, this stage is highly important in your book’s publication journey. The good part about having a book deal with a traditional publishing house is that you will already have a team of publicists and marketing professionals who will work on spreading the buzz about your book. However, if you have been keeping an eye on how publishing works, you might know that celebrity authors or influencer authors typically get more help in marketing than other authors, such as someone with a debut book.

Hence, even when you have a team of professionals handling the publicity and marketing, it would only add to that if you start looking for opportunities on your end as an author and work on self-promotion.

Coming back to the publishing house, the following teams are involved in this stage:

Publicity

This includes the publicist for your book acquiring promotional events and activities for you. You can expect author interviews for newspapers, magazines, book blogger websites, and podcasts. You can expect book bloggers on social media platforms getting a copy of your book (Advance Reader Copies or Proofs or Galleys) and reviewing them. There may be bookstore or café events such as book signings. You can also expect to get into Literary Fests. However, none of these are set in stone. It highly depends on how well-connected your publicist (and you) are to get hold of these events. Moreover, you can work together with the publicist to customize your events as we all know that not all books need to same kind of publicity.

Marketing

The marketing team deals with paid promotion. It works by running ads on social media platforms and publishing book reviews or features in well-known newspapers. They run marketing campaigns for books that can also include physical events such as book signings in a book store or panel discussions, etc.

One thing you must know is that the marketing and publicity happen a lot more in the first few weeks, and then it kind of dies down. The main reason for this is how the bestseller lists work.

Read this article to learn more about what it means for a book to be a bestseller.

Stage Four: Sales and Distribution

The final stage of publishing is where the sales team works on getting your books to various bookstores (both offline and online) to buy stocks of your books. Closer to the date of the book release, the stocks are distributed to the bookstores that bought them. On the day of the launch, your book should be available in the stores, and people will finally have access to buy them.

Do you think this is the end?

Dear writers, keep shouting about the book you’ve published and don’t forget to work on a new one.