Launching Your Book

Everything you’ve done up to this point has been preparation for this singular moment: the launch of your book.

An incredible amount of time, energy, money, and attention has been invested by many different people. The foundation has been laid for sales of your book to reach thousands, or tens of thousands, or hundreds of thousands, or maybe even millions of copies.

Writing the Book

After all this work and finally signing a deal…it’s time to do the thing you’ve been asking for, and write the book.

Leave plenty of time to do this — more than you think you need. And then, add additional time for unexpected rewrites, reviewer feedback, finding photos and illustrations, securing permissions, doing followup research, and interviewing people.

Negotiating Your Contract

Once you’ve accepted an offer for the publishing rights to your book, it’s time to draw up and sign a binding contract.

Many of these contract details have standard provisions, but you can always ask about and negotiate for them. The more you understand about the implications and subtleties of these clauses, the more empowered you’ll be in your negotiations.

The Ins and Outs of Offers

After you’ve written your proposal and sent it to publishers, the future of your book is in their hands.

If you’ve done your job effectively, you will receive an offer (or hopefully, offers) to purchase the rights to your book.

Almost all offers come in one of three ways:

Finding an Agent and Publisher

You should think of the people you’re working with at each stage of the publishing process as your publishing team.

Each one contributes something different and has different interests, but what you all have in common is the desire to see your book through to publication and on to the greatest possible success.

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