How to Draft and Publish a Book

 Lean Nation,

This month we are going to deviate from our normal lean based topics.  One of the questions I frequently get is how do you author and publish a book. At the time of this blog, my fifth publication is currently in copy edit in anticipation of a fall or winter release. Truth be told, I was a math geek in high school. I dodged every English and literature class I could. I nearly failed first-year English class in college. So how did it get to the point that I have now published five books in a 13-year span? Probably divine intervention, but more seriously I have learned a few things along the way, and I would like to share them with you in this blog. I think everyone can author a book, but most people fail to get started. If you have a story, it should be told. Not to get rich to but to capture your thinking at a point in time. Once in print, your work is available for generations. So, with that introduction, let us review the key steps for consideration in writing and publishing a book.

1. The first step in drafting a book is to determine your topic of passion. Your book can be technical and oriented to your work, or a personal story about your life and learning, or fiction allowing you to be creative and tell a story to create an emotional connection with the reader. The content does not matter. I authored my books to tell my story about how to apply lean process and quality improvement in the workplace. I wanted to capture a few decades of experiences and felt I had a story that needed to be told. Once I made the commitment to author a book, I was committed to getting started, and that was more difficult than simply deciding to draft a book.

2. The second step I recommend is to start slow. I was not sure I could write at all, let alone string together enough content to draft a book. So, I started a blog on lean topics. This very blog you are reading is where I started. I picked some random topic on lean thinking and started writing some monthly lesson I thought would be valuable to the reader. The mechanics of creating a blog are easy and more important there are many free options. I am partial to Blogger. Here is the link. Blogger.com - Create a unique and beautiful blog easily.  Simply sign up and start writing. As you start to blog, you will learn whether you have the heart and persistence to expand your work into a book.

 3. Once you post a blog for a while, (I posted for about 2 years) and you know it is time to move ahead. The next step is to put together a table of contents. The table of contents gives you a road map for drafting your book. You do not need all the details flushed out at this point, but a general outline will at a minimum frame up your chapters. You can think through the sub points you want to make before you write each chapter. My original table of contents changes about 40% by the time I get to final edits. Some topics are so large they spill into their own chapter. When writing the chapter, you will add content you had not considered in your initial thoughts and remove some content that will not fit within your writing flow. Again, specificity is not what counts here, high level themes to give your writing some direction is what is important.

 4.     The next decision is especially important because it will influence what you do next. You must decide if you will self-publish or go through a publisher. This is not any easy decision, and I will do my best to explain the advantages and disadvantages of each path.

    Self-Publish

    

Advantages	Disadvantages
You keep most of the profits from book sales	You are 100% on your own for advertising
Shorter timeline to sales	You will not likely get the benefit of professional copy editing and publishing
You can list your book as self-published on Amazon as a distribution outlet	It is expensive to print a bound book. You are likely looking at a spiral bound or stapled book
You can sell paper copies or e-books	You are responsible for your own shipment of sales
You can print in color	The quality of your printed product will be inferior to a published book
This price point will be lower than a bound paperback or hardcover book	You will need a third party to create a kindle version of your publication.
The publisher oversees a lot of things you do not need to worry about which is important if you have a full- time job	You carry any printed inventory
You own the intellectual property

 

    Publisher Printed 

Advantages	Disadvantages
Very professional product	Generally, only black and white print is available
Publisher pays you commission on sales	You are still the primary marketer of your book
You can purchase author copies at a discount for book signings, etc.	Commission pay is less than the book sale profits from self-publishing
Graphics manipulation, sizing and locations of images all managed by publisher	Commissions drop off after the first year of seals
Cover designs made by publisher	Lead-time to publish is generally longer than self-publish
Trade show sales, and advertising managed by publisher	There is more legal and contractual activity with a publisher printed book
Publisher carries inventory	The publisher owns the intellectual property
Publisher will carry your book internationally and if sales warrant will produce translated copies

 

If you self-publish, jump to step 6, otherwise go to step 5. Personally, I chose to go through a publisher. I did not know how to self-publish at the time, and the type of book I wanted to publish had a host of other books already published by my publisher, so I knew they had both marketing experience and knowledge of my topic and area of focus.

5.  Submit a book proposal and get it approved. Before I spent hours (days, weeks, months) drafting a book, I wanted to make sure I could get it published so I submitted a book proposal which if approved would result in an author’s agreement and a due date for the manuscript.

The book proposal included the following information. 

I.  BOOK DESCRIPTION

              Author(s) or Editor(s):

              Working Title and Subtitle:

A.   Please write a brief description of your book, including what is unique about this book and the need for it in the industry. (2-3 paragraphs)

           B.    List 4-5 distinctive features of your book. This can be in bullet point format.

C.     Please include a detailed table of contents in outline form, incorporating headings and subheadings. If possible, include a brief annotation of description of the contents of each chapter.

D.   Catchwords to be used for SEO and web searches.

E.    Approximately how many figures, tables and charts will be included in the book. What will be included as appendix material, such as examples, glossaries, forms, etc.

F.    How many pages (approximately) will your book be? For example, technical books are typically between 200-350 pages (60,000-100,000 words); manuscripts for this length of work are generally between 300-400 double-spaced, word-processed pages. Less technical books are typically shorter, 150-200 pages (45,000-60,000 words), with correspondingly shorter manuscripts.

II.  STATUS OF THE WORK

A.  What is your timetable for completion of the book? Typically, authors take 6-9 months to complete a manuscript.

B.   Have you begun to seek permission for any copyrighted material from which you are using substantial quotes?                           

III.  AUDIENCE

A.    Primary markets:  Who was this book written for? Please identify major categories of readers

B.    Secondary markets:  What other markets would be interested in your book? Would your book be useful to readers in academic, trade, or library markets?

C.   Social Platforms: Your social networks can be a powerful tool when marketing your title. Please list all social networks (Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc.) you use below and the follower count for each. Additionally, please provide a link to any blogs or newsletters that you maintain.

IV.  COMPETITION

A.    List the title, author, publisher, date, price, and length of each book that might potentially compete with your proposed work. Please think broadly of books that are related to your topic, despite the uniqueness of your particular approach.

V.           MARKETING OUTLETS (optional)

A.  Societies/Associations - list, in order of importance, societies whose membership would be interested in your book

VI.         AUTHOR INFORMATION

A.      Legal address and telephone number:

B.      Professional address, telephone, fax, and/or E-mail address:

C.     Backup contact: Please provide the name, address, and telephone numbers of your secretary, assistant, or other persons who can relay messages in your absence:

All publishers have a website with a link for a book proposal. Once you complete the required information, you submit the proposal online and then wait to be contacted. An editor will review your proposal and if accepted, you will be a contract / offer.  The book proposal guides you through all aspects of drafting and publishing, so this is a good activity even if you are going to self-publish. 

In the contract will be the requirements of the manuscripts which include a style guide, permission requirements for photos, and cited material, the commission agreement, and the required due date for the manuscript. In my case, I also need to commit to a word length and the number of graphics as well.

Since I knew nothing about publishing, I hired a lawyer to red line the agreement. The publisher rejected all the red-lines and said take it or leave it. My coaching point here is if you want to use a publisher you will be following their rules. So, save yourself some money on negotiation unless you are Tom Clancy or John Grisham. I was actually paid a small allowance to write my first book which comes out of your future commissions. This is not really a windfall but a nice gesture from the publisher.

6.   Agreement in hand, it is time to move on to the writing of the manuscript. This was a sense of relief because I knew I had a publishing outlet, but the looming due date for completion was a big cloud over my head and caused a lot of anxiety. For my last two publications, I had 90% of the content completed prior to submitting the book proposal. This allowed me to write at my own convenience. Like you, I had a full-time job which means I was writing at night and at weekends. When writing your content, go chapter by chapter. I found it beneficial to write the entire chapter and then go back and format. Getting the story out in flow is easier than thinking about if I needed a new paragraph or "if this topic should be discussed after that topic". I tried to dictate my book, but I could not write it that way. I spent most all the time staring at a blank screen. It should be easier for many of you and there are many talk- to-text options. 

    I would like to offer a few things for you to think about if you decide to pursue a manuscript. In no particular order:

a.  Technical books require a lot of graphics. You will either need to create them, find something on the internet, or use a photograph. They all come with trade-offs. If you design your own graphics, you need to recall color might not be an option, so everything will need to be designed in grayscale. You must ensure you can make your points from the illustration in black and white. Same goes for items you select from the internet. In addition, internet items must have permissions. Most internet drawings and images have information on who to contact for permission. Keep in mind that these permissions can take a while, and often are not free. Most are relatively pain free in getting permission, however, and only cost a few dollars. 

    If you want to use a photograph, you must get a release from the organization to use a photo. This release is simple, but oftentimes must go through then organizations legal team for sign-off and that can take a while. All my clients were amenable in having photos from their organization. The citation for the photo references the organization and it is free recognition and/or advertising for that entity. It takes a minimum of thirty days to get all the permissions so start early and leave time at the end to ensure you can meet the timeline for permission requirements.

b.  If you want to use someone else’s work, you have a couple of options. For anything under four hundred words, a footnote is sufficient. Make sure you familiarize yourself with what is included in a footnote to save time in copy editing. If you use more than four hundred words, you must get permission from the author and or/ publisher. This can take a while, so my advice is stay under four hundred words.

c.  Most technical books include a foreword. The foreword will be written by someone else not named you.  Selecting a good person to write the foreword can help with the promotion of the book. However, you are tasking someone else to write a page for you. I was fortunate to have some great acquaintances to write my forewords, but this work will not be high on their to-do list so be sure an allocate enough time to get this completed. Oftentimes, the people writing the foreword will want to read part of your manuscript. So, you will need to be far along with the manuscript, while still leaving enough time to get their work back.

d.   Another consideration is if you want help in authoring your book. For the first book, I hired a fantastic writer, who re-wrote my manuscript and made it sparkle. It was not cheap, but the end product was solid. I was fortunate to have my two daughters clean up the balance of my books (for a smaller fee). The editor does some clean up, but they will not audit content as much as grammar and syntax.

I also had some peers review my books for technical content and readability as well. Fortunately, they did this for free and it can really add to the quality of the material. Again, be sure and allocate time if you want to have your book peer reviewed.

7.  My next piece of advice is short and relatively straightforward. If you have an agreement with a publisher, it is imperative you meet deadlines. There can be penalties if you miss these deadlines. The publisher has a large series of books queuing for publication. Being late impacts their entire print schedule and copy-editing capacity. So, you have to trade-off drafting the book and then submitting the proposal or submitting the book proposal and then drafting the book. If you self-publish you are on your own timetable, so this deadline goes away.

8. The next issue you need to address in the completion of the book and going to market is selecting a book cover. You can submit a few options to a design editor, and they will send back some graphics for you to select and approve. This is an easy task.

9. Once you have submitted your manuscript, your editor will review the content and return it to you with questions and clarifications. You generally have two weeks to turn this around. This is value added work so review the suggestions carefully as they can make a substantial difference in the final printing. Some of the requirements are about permissions so you will need to address those requirements as well.

10.  The last activity if you want to make some money on your effort is to advertise your book. There are a few options here for consideration. Obviously, you have several social media platforms you can use to get your book advertised. These are free and if you have a large network, you can reach a lot of people in a hurry. 

Your publisher will have some ideas about tradeshows that might be good forums. You will need to pay for the tradeshow/conference but there are often book sales and you can set up a book signing time to meet potential buyers / readers. Depending on how famous you are you can also go on a book tour or do book signings. Candidly that option was far out of my league.

 If you collaborate with a publisher, you will get some author copies provided as part of your agreement. These first few books can be used to send to potential sources for purchase and in my case, I sent them to the people who helped me with the work.

While not 100% comprehensive the above content will give you a sample of advice if you decide to pursue a book. Best of luck if you decide to follow this path. It is rewarding to receive a hardcopy of your book with you name on the cover and your thoughts on paper to share with the world.

             Best,

     RON

    Ron Bercaw

    President and Sensei

    Breakthrough Horizons, LTD

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