A big thank you to Athena Grayson for hosting last week’s episode and talking about how to launch a book. I only wish I’d of known these tips before I launched my book and I wish her luck with her new series Huntress of the Star Empire. It looks like a lot of fun.
Athena publishes primarily in e-book format and helped me think through one of my next challenges: an e-book version. She suggested breaking my book up into several e-books which, the more I think about it, the more it makes sense.
This was great because it provided me an opportunity to learn from someone with more experience in an area that I’m still coming up to speed on.
This led me to think about something Joanna Penn at The Creative Penn recently wrote:
These days I’m objecting to the term ‘self-publishing,’ because we all need a team to put a great book out into the world.
Today, I want to talk about some really important people on a publishing team and some ways you can do this as a self-publisher.
Book Shepherd/Project Manager
I put project manager first on the list because if you don’t have a project manager, you are, by default, the project manager.
This may be OK if you are someone who is used to breaking things down into steps and putting deadlines around them. If you’re not, you may want to think about hiring someone to help you with the process and organization of the project. Especially if you're new to the self-publishing process.
I like the term Book Shepherd and think it fits well because the person you want as a project manager should:
- Know the process from conception through development through proofing through promotion
- Have an understanding of what it takes for each step
- Be someone you feel comfortable working with and taking advice from
A book shepherd could be the difference between doing this professionally and self-publishing as a hobby.
At my day job, I often play the role of project manager in training development so I felt comfortable in this role. I made up a process and did a good job at development. What I later learned was that a book shepherd could have focused me more on the selling and promotional aspects of the book. With my first book, I believe I've lost out on many opportunities because I’m still learning this process. This is the type of trade off you have to consider.
If you are looking for someone in this role, I would suggest sending a Kosmail to skywriter and asking what she charges. She does this for a living and judging from her comments and post here really knows what she's doing.
A few other people who do this:
I have zero experience with any of these people so please be sure to vet them thoroughly to see if they are someone you want to work with. Ask to see samples of who they have published and be sure to get estimates ahead of time. The nice thing about Jera Publishing is that their website has some price estimates for different packages depending on how much help you think you might need. This gives you at least an estimate of what it might cost.
Avoid vanity presses and subsidy publishers. Anybody who charges up front to print your book and then wants a percentage of the sales is, I believe, someone you don’t want to do business with.
Editors
Editors can help you create the book you dream of creating. - David Kudler, The Huffington Post
Good editors can make or break your book and are worth their weight in gold. Many people think that editors simply check for spelling and grammatical mistakes. There are actually four editorial roles:
- Content editors – Look at the shape and form of the book. If your book is non-fiction, these editors may be subject matter experts who can help you shape your arguments. If your book is fiction, content editors help you develop the plot and the characters.
- Line editors – Also look at the overall work but don’t work as closely with the author.
- Copy editors – Concentrate on the language or copy. They focus on making the style of the manuscript clean and consistent. A good copy editor will understand your voice and what you are trying to accomplish and edit in this style.
- Proofreaders – Are the last people to look at the book. They are looking for mistakes – spelling, grammar, formatting, or anything else that looks wrong and might distract from the book.
In some way shape or form, you should have all of these people.
As I was working through drafts of my book and talking with people, I realized that I was going to have much more success if I could show them something. I found out that IngramSpark allowed me to print drafts of my book for me even if I hadn't officially published it yet.
When I found this out, I outlined the following development process:
- Write 0.5 version (1.5 months)
- Distribute 10-20 copies to a group of content/line editors and ask for their feedback (3-4 weeks)
- Write 1.0 version draft (1 month) based on their feedback
- Work with top 2-3 content/line editors on final 1.0 version
- Send to my copy editor (1-2 weeks)
- Send final version to 5-10 proofreaders (1-2 weeks)
This rapid development process would a) force me to put something down on paper within 6 weeks, and b) provide a way to take it to the next level through review and revision.
I’m fortunate in that I know a number of writers who also happen to be quite savvy about politics. Out of the 20 or so copies I initially handed out, here are the people who helped me most with content/line editing:
- Chris Weigant blogs at Huffington Post and is the author of How Democrats Can Take Back Congress under the pseudonym Tom Paine.
- Julie Ladd runs Copy Shark and is a professional copywriter. She also knows a tremendous amount about politics. Julie helped me figure out a process and constantly reminded me how to focus what I was doing. She said things like: “This part here is brilliant, it’s about how the mind doesn't work the way we think it does. You just need to say that and then say it again.”
- Coulter Loeb is a student photojournalist who I met through Occupy Cincinnati. His input was invaluable from a Millennial perspective and because his feedback was absolutely fearless. I cut entire sections because of his advice about what worked and what didn’t.
- Bruce Levine is the author of Get Up, Stand Up: Uniting Populists, Energizing the Defeated, and Battling the Corporate Elite, one of my favorite political books. We share a similar passion for activism and come at it from different angles. Like Coulter, he helped me shape the book in ways I wouldn't have thought of.
- Glenna Rust is a friend of mine who is not an editor or a writer or a fan of politics. She is simply savvy and a good judge of whether something is interesting or not. If something sucked, I knew I'd hear about it. Again, I can’t emphasize how important it is to surround yourself with people who will give you honest feedback. You can choose to ignore it, but my rule of thumb is that if I’m hearing the same feedback from a couple different people, I probably shouldn’t ignore it.
- Mark Andersen is a staff writer for Daily Kos who I met at Netroots Nation this summer and who, like me, is a huge fan of George Lakoff. He probably “got” what I was trying to do the quickest and was able to offer feedback on how to do it better. I would have liked George Lakoff as a reviewer. Not being able to get Lakoff, Mark filled this role.
This was my team of content/line editors.
Mollie Brumm is a professional editor I knew from a previous job. I asked Mollie if she would be my copy editor because I was comfortable working with her and I knew she would do a good job. Without asking, she also provided feedback on the content. We know each other and I know she would give me hell if something weren't right.
Don’t be afraid of red ink. Red ink is someone trying to help you make it better. The only time you should fear red ink is if the changes don’t make it better. This is something that you’ll have to learn to judge. It's also why I triangulate in terms of reviewers; if more than one reviewer says the same thing, listen.
Here’s a few tips on how to find editors:
- Ask the people you know. This is always the best place to start. I was very fortunate in that I knew a number of people working in these areas.
- If you’re stuck and looking for a good editor, here’s a few places online you can try: The Editorial Freelancers Association and NY Book Editors.
The good thing is that editorial work can be done from anywhere so if you don’t know anyone, it shouldn't be too hard to find someone. My suggestion about working with someone who is new to you is to work on a small piece of your work as a trial. See if you get good feedback and if you’re not comfortable, don’t hesitate to say it’s not working and find someone else. Professional editors should be open to this and if they’re not, it’s a sign they’re not professionals.
Don’t underestimate the importance of good editors. They don’t just make a small difference, they will raise your work by an order of magnitude.
Book interior design
A professional layout and typesetting separates a professional book from a hobby book. If you are doing a hobby book and simply want to get something out there, you can do your layout in Microsoft Word. If you want a professional book, I would recommend a professional layout program such as Adobe InDesign.
I wrote about how to do this without know InDesign using a program called LaTex here.
If you are creating an e-book, many people have recommending using Scrivener.
If you’re not comfortable with doing the interior design, you may want to consider hiring someone to do this work. Many companies offer to do this type of work. One of the companies that I noticed that looked promising was 1106 Design.
Again though, ask people you know. Ask people who have done this. And when you’re considering working with someone, ask for samples of their work.
Cover design
Your cover is the face of your book. It is the first thing someone sees and it can make or break your book.
You want your cover to generate excitement and interest and lure readers.
Kyle VanDehmert at Wired interviewed one of Knopf’s great artists, Peter Mendelsund. VanDehmert writes:
A truly great jacket is one that captures the book inside it in some fundamental and perhaps unforeseen way. As Mendelsund describes it, his job is “finding that unique textual detail that…can support the metaphoric weight of the entire book.” That, of course, requires actually reading a manuscript closely enough to A) determine the metaphoric weight of the book and B) find a handful of relevant details within it.
Paul Bacon designed the cover for Catch-22. His "Big Book Look" featured the title and author in large strong print and a small conceptual illustration.
I know my limitations and have worked with really talented artists. I can’t do what they do. It’s simply beyond me.
I have, however, through my day job gotten pretty good at working with artists. Here’s the three things that I think are critical:
- Find someone whose work you like and who you trust.
- Have some ideas. What do you want to say? What are some examples of images that could represent your book?
- Let the artist be the artist and do what they do best. Give examples rather than say “I want a flamingo on a Miami beach.” This way the artist is free to think about possibilities and other images that might work better. Artists tend to think visually; the ones I know are much better at coming up with visual ideas than me. I've found if I throw out some examples without dictating, they usually come back with something much better than any of my ideas.
I like revolutionary art. Shepherd Fairey is someone who immediately comes to mind. Or Blek le Rat. One night, I sat down and spent 6 or 7 hours Googling political artists including artists from the Arab Spring. At the time I was looking for someone who could design a graphic for my website.
Here’s one of the pieces that caught my eye:
First, I liked the style. I liked the orange and blue theme. I liked the outline figures. I liked the street art aspect of it.
And second, I liked that the protesters were throwing a boombox. The artist was expressing ideas that I shared about peaceful, non-violent change in a really clever way. I found a gallery of his work and it really intrigued me.
His name is Maiez Mehdi and he lives in Tunis, Tunisia. Fortunately, I was able to find his Facebook page and contact him. I simply told him how much I liked his work and asked him if he would design a website graphic.
We talked a little bit about what I liked and I told him I wanted something in a similar orange/blue theme in a graphic illustration style. I also told him I wrote about democracy and freedom here in America.
This was the result:
It was perfect (and looks even better on akadjian.com).
I can’t imagine the website without this image and when it came time to do the book cover, he was my first choice.
Maiez does that thing that Mendelsund talks about where he seems able to find the perfect metaphoric image.
How he was able to do this despite the fact that English is his 3rd language (after French and Tunisian Arabic (Darija)) and French is my poor second intrigued me so much that I interviewed him.
Next week, I’ll post the interview, show some more of his art, and talk about how a cover came together.
Close
What are your strengths and weaknesses? If you've done this before, do you have any recommendations in any of these areas? Or, if you're considering self-publishing, who might help you most?
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David Akadjian is the author of The Little Book of Revolution: A Distributive Strategy for Democracy.