Information about Publishing

When faced with the question of “How to Start a Book” we suggest first asking yourself the following four questions:

• What is my purpose for writing this book?
• What is my area of expertise for starting a book?
• What is the subject matter of your book?
• What content have you already written that might help you in starting a book?

Once you have answered these questions, you can start to take your first steps toward starting your book.  You may want to check out our online questionnaire tinyurl:authorquestionnaire as another aid in answering your question of “How to start a book.”

At DataMotion Publishing, we have learned that there are several approaches that author take to start a book.  Some people when starting a book, create an outline of their book and start writing their book from this book outline.  Others accumulate a list of all their content and then start their book from cutting and pasting from this collected content.  Other when faced with the question of “How to start a book” use dictation to create content for their book and then edit their content from dictated book content.

Whatever method you choose to use to answer the question “How to start a book” the most important thing is to develop a timeline and time commitment on when your book writing tasks will be done.  Don’t start to write a book and then let important steps go unaddressed.

“How Do I Get Published” is a question faced by almost every author.  The approaches on how to get published have changed over the past decade.  In the past, in order to get published, you would go to an established publisher and if they wanted to publish your book they would give you an advance, help you write your book and then promote your published book.

But things have changed.  These established publishers have focused their energy on fewer and few authors and now expect the author to share a significant portion of the marketing effort for the published book.  These established publishers are also heavily booked and lead time are often one year or more. Self publishing is now an option, but this take time and effort to learn the ropes on how to get published.

A third option on how to get published is to work with a boutique publisher like DataMotion Publishing.  These companies help you get published and help promote you published book without the expensive marketing budgets demanded by the major publishing companies. This middle ground solution for “How do I get Published” is especially suitable if the your published book is a focus of your boutique publishing company. DataMotion Publishing focuses on Business Books and Books on Human Resources.

If you are considering  the question of  “how to be an author”, then there a few questions that we would suggest you ask yourself first:
1. Why do I want to be an author?
2. What benefits do I expect to receive when I become an author?
3. Do I have the time to be an author?

If the answers to the above questions relating to “How to be an author” suggest that you should proceed to be an author, then we would suggest that you focus next on the following steps:

1. Determine your subject matter, title, and outline of your book
2. Determine whether you want to self-publish, go through a major book publisher or work with a boutique publisher.
3. Develop an action plan on “How to be an Author”

You may want to check out our online questionnaire as another aid in answering your question of “How to be an author.”

If you want to write a book in a day, it can be done. One of the authors on this website created “23 Ways to Jump Start Your HR Career” in a day, but certainly this took some preparation in advance of actually writing the book in a day. This key steps to write a book in a day would be:

1. Determine your subject matter, title and create an outline of your book in advance of the day in which you write the book.
2. Collect all related materials that you may have created that apply to your subject matter.
3. Plan to use a dictating service or dictation software such as Dragon Naturally Speaking as an aid to write a book in a day.
4. Open the outline of your book and start adding content rapidly with limited editing.
5. Once all your content is in the write chapter, then go back and edit each chapter’s information.

After you have written a book in day, we would suggest having a third party review and edit your book. Then your choice would be either to learn how to self-publish your book or work with a boutique publisher to quickly publish your book and get it to market quickly.

Perhaps the most important element of writing a book in a day is “Just Do It.”

Many authors struggle with how to write the title of a book. They ask themselves the following questions:

1. Should the title of a book be short?
2. Should the title of a book be “catchy”?
3. Should the book have a main title and then a sub-title?
4. Where should I research titles of other books?

There a several ways to search for other titles of books that may have already been written on your subject. Best places are search engines and Amazon.com.

Once you have done this research on titles of books, you can then focus on how to write the title of your book. Often having a sub-title is useful because it gives your potential reader a clear focus on the subject matter of your book. Sometimes the sub-title is needed to distinguish from another book that has already been written on your book’s subject.

The next step in “how to write the title of a book” is to draft a list of possible titles for your book. Then review each title of your book and list the pro’s and con’s of each proposed title. What would a potential buyer expect the content to include for each of the possible titles of the book. Then finally which title of the book will be remembered – that is which title of the book is “catchy”.

Narrow your list of possible book titles and then ask friend to provide their feedback. Also talk to a publisher and get their opinion about the title of your book.

You’ve spent countless days, weeks or months creating your manuscript and now you’re ready to transform it into a finished product – your book!  But you’re a writer, not a designer, right? Professional book designers can pull all the necessary components – content, format and design -together for you.

By choosing to work with a book designer you can still enjoy the creative process of participating in your book’s design and seeing it evolve, all the while taking the worry and stress out of trying to do it yourself.

Elements of a book often handled by a book designer:

• Front Cover
• Back Cover
• Spine
• Interior pages (typeface, line spacing, margins)

Once you’ve written a book, your goal is to get it out into the world. How your book will be published is a decision you’ll have to make.  The two major types are traditional publishing and self-publishing. Read on for quick overview of each, and then a few differences between the two.

Self-publishing
An author who decides to self-publish basically becomes the publisher. The author must choose and pay for an editor and proofreader and provide the funds required to publish the book. The author is responsible for marketing and distributing the book, filling orders, and running advertising campaigns. In the past, the author had to decide on the number of copies to print before fully assessing their market, however fortunately, the Print on Demand (POD) technology now used by some self-publishing companies means that authors can have fewer copies printed—only as many as they need.

Traditional publishing
In traditional publishing, an author completes a manuscript and submits a proposal to a publishing house (although most of the time you’ll need an agent first, because many publishers usually won’t accept manuscripts from anyone but agents.) Once a publishing house accepts a manuscript, an editor reads it, considers whether it is right for the house, and then decides either to reject it or to publish it. If the publishing house rejects it, the author is free to offer it to another publisher. If the publishing house decides to publish the book, the house buys the rights from the author and pays an advance on future royalties. The house puts up the money to design and package the book, prints as many copies of the book as it thinks will sell, markets the book, and finally distributes the finished book to the public.

Differences to take into consideration:

• Time: With self-publishing, depending on the company, an author can literally have a finished book—hardcover or paperback or both—in his or her hands within weeks or months. With traditional publishing, there’s high probability for a lot of waiting. An author’s manuscript will likely have to be pitched to many publishing houses before it is picked up, if it’s even picked up at all. Then, if a house does decide to take your book, the actual process of producing the book can often take months to a year.
• Money: When you self-publish, you pay for everything—design, editing, printing, advertising, distribution—to get your book into stores and ultimately into people’s hands. The major payoff for all of your payout, though, is control. In contrast, if a traditional publisher chooses to work with you, that publishing house pays to produce and promote your book.
• Control: With self-publishing, the author has much greater control over the contents, design, and appearance, as well as where the book is marketed and distributed. At a traditional publishing house, on the other hand, editors may change an author’s work quite significantly before publishing it.

Although many people use the terms interchangeably, editing and proofreading are two different stages of the writing and revision process. Both demand close and careful reading, but they focus on different aspects of the writing and employ different techniques.

Editing begins as soon as you finish your first draft. Editors will help authors in finding their voices and tone by working with them hand-in-hand, making suggestions and changes as the work evolves.  Structural and organizational problems often corrected during the editing process include: unnecessary or awkward sentences, paragraphs or pages; incorrect or poor word choice; ambiguity; faulty organization of thoughts or information. Editing usually takes a great deal more time and effort.

Proofreading is the final set of eyes at the end of the editing process. Proofreaders find and correct mistakes while focusing on surface errors such as misspellings, mistakes in grammar and punctuation, and the typical format and spacing issues. Unless a major issue arises, the proofreader does not communicate with the author.

You have all the ideas and expertise for the basis of a book, but either you don’t have the time or the talent and skills to do it on your own.  A ghostwriter can be one solution in making your book a reality.

If you’re considering hiring a ghostwriter to write your book, you’ll want to keep some things in mind:

• In addition to being a good writer, a ghostwriter should have good interviewing skills, since they will spend a great deal of time interviewing their clients. They should have the ability to ask good questions that will draw out the best aspects of a story or topic.
• A ghostwriter should be an objective professional who has the ability to maintain their client’s voice so that the book reads like the client, not the ghostwriter.
• Be realistic about the cost! Ghostwriters usually charge a flat fee for their work, but these services aren’t cheap – depending on the project. Writing a book is a big job and often the biggest hurdle to working with a ghostwriter is the cost involved.
  Writing a book on your own can be a process of discovery and discipline that yields great rewards. However, if you’ve tried writing your book on your own and either got stuck or are unhappy with it, all is not lost – a ghostwriter can surely help.