What happens when you get a book publishing contract?
(or when you get a book publishing agreement)
In my first blog How do you publish your book, I went through the steps that I took to secure a book publishing agreement. So, what happened next? I have been asked a lot about the mysterious process that happens after you have a book publishing contract and here is what happened next.
I checked my book publishing contract
My publisher The Book Guild gave me a few weeks to sign the contract, so I used the time to check my book publishing agreement thoroughly. I have signed contracted before, for a mortgage, for jobs – but I have never signed a book publishing contract before and although I could discern what looked okay and what I might question, I am no expert in this field. I signed up to the Society of Authors who offer, among many perks, a service to check your book publishing agreement and I can’t recommend it enough.
Tip: Sign up to the Society of Authors, they have a service that looks over your book publishing contract, and the yearly fee is worth it even if just for that.
As a new author you might feel a little insecure or excited, but this is an important business transaction, so don’t be afraid to check the book publishing agreement thoroughly, ask questions and negotiate anything that you feel is missing. It’s only in your best interests.
Last chance – send your final manuscript
Once the book publishing contract is signed, this is your LAST chance to make any major corrections to your manuscript. Any major edits from hereon could cost you more. Once this is done, you send the manuscript to your publisher.
N.B. In my experience my manuscript was finished before I even began looking for an Agent or Publisher. This step of course will come later if you have signed a book publishing agreement before you have finished your book – and this can happen if you have a contract whereby you can research a topic or if you have signed a deal to produce a number of books, perhaps in a series, for a publisher.
Start marketing
For the best chance of success, you should start marketing your book as early as possible, even laying the groundwork before securing a book publishing contract. Set up or polish your own website, social sites and blogs. Work out where your audience is and how to reach them. Make notes of places where you could potentially showcase your work and speak such as literary fairs, conferences, and venues. How to market your book is an entire topic in itself (and if you follow this blog, you will get some good tips for this), but my point is, you should have started this process yesterday. You might get some marketing from your publisher, but it’s unlikely to be enough so expect to take on the bulk of this work yourself.
Tell your publisher more
Pretty early on after receiving my book publishing contract I was sent some forms. I had to write more about my book, say which outlets I thought would be good to showcase it, summarise it, say more about myself and send off images and descriptions of the type of cover that I wanted.
Edit your work
Deep breath. You’ll be sent a document of your edited work to check. I personally prefer to print anything that I have to edit heavily and go through it by hand. My editor also sent me a table to fill in to detail any issues – but it was easier, once I had edited the manuscript by hand, to then go through it on the computer using Word’s Track Changes function. This also fills in a list at the side so all the amends can be seen in one go. The tracked changes version of the manuscript is what I sent back to the publisher.
Take 2
I thought after a weekend of heavy editing I’d have a clean weekend to do some promo. Wrong! I had a second edited manuscript to check. I repeated the same process again.
The Typeset edit
So I received my Type edit which meant, yes, MORE editing! But this time the pages I printed actually looked like they were in book form which was quite exciting. I repeated the same process as above, editing the Typeset twice a couple of days apart. My method was to first to through the manuscript with a pencil so that when I looked at it again I could check that this was the edit I actually wanted, because this is the final final bit. The second edit I went through it again and finalised all edits in red pen. It's important to use a colour that stands out so that the editor can clearly see what you want amended.
In my case I also received a table detailing professional editing marks, and I had to edit using these rather than any of my own marks or comments.
35 pages out of 160 were sent back. Not too bad.
The draft cover
At the same time as receiving the Typeset manuscript, I also received a draft cover. I gave myself a few days to scrutinise this with the help of immediate family and my writer’s group Caversham Writers. Thank you to everyone who helped with their input. It is helpful to have other people’s opinions for this, but maybe not too many. In my case I got some useful feedback, and I sent the feedback in a bulleted list to my publisher.
The book cover was included in my book publishing contract - this might be something that you may choose to do yourself if you have the skills, but I think as a general rule covers are included in book publishing agreements.
The story continues
I’m expecting an amended Typeset manuscript and cover back for more checks. And I think the next part of the procedure is an initial copy of the book and some proofing. Sign up to my Substack to hear more about the publishing process, as well as to receive the best Digital Marketing tips which you can use when the time comes for you to receive a book publishing agreement or contract and to market your own books.
How to Leave a Group Chat is currently available for presale at major book shops including Waterstones.
Image credit scott-graham-OQMZwNd3ThU-unsplash from unsplash.com