Switching Hats

Your book is finished, what do you do next?

I’ve written previously about how to write a book using Medium to test the chapters. This directly, or indirectly helped to inspire those astute editors at Illumination to launch Book Chapters. Now you have countless excellent examples to follow in your journey regardless of the genre you are writing..

Once you’ve finished the second draft, making sure there is cohesion throughout your book is vital. To achieve this, you should turn it over to friends for their opinions. After you have incorporated their feedback, it’s time to bring in the professionals.

At this point your role changes from author to project manager. In your new role, you are responsible for getting your book project not just over the finish line of being available on Amazon, Smashwords or some other digital and print on demand service, but also ensuring your book launch is a world-wide success.

Currently, there are seven roles on my book project Win the Day — How to Win Your Daily Battles With Stress, Anxiety and Depression. I am covering five of those (author, project manager, marketer, financier and publicist). Depending on your skills, budget and timeline, you may delegate more or fewer of these responsibilities.

The jobs and their tasks are:

Author: You need to take direction from the editor and spend time recollecting why you included the content you did and the reasons you presented it in that way. Then, you will be able to support your logic to the editor. You are also in charge of making final edits. After such a long process, we often want to forget the whole thing and turn it over. You have worked too hard to relinquish your control just yet. This process of clearly explaining the logic for your book will serve you well when you talk to other people about your book, too!

Editor: The editor will ensure your book is as error-free as possible and that you use a consistent voice. They have not been influenced by your relationship or anything that happened before your manuscript was delivered to their inbox. So their ideas and opinions will be based on the context of the type of book, its audience and other factors you discuss about the goals you have for your book.

One of my friends went through six rewrites on his self-help book. The editor asked questions like, Why is this section before that one? And who are you specifically referring to in this section? Remember, at the end of the day, your book is not yours, it belongs to the audience. So ensure that it really speaks to them. An independent, paid, editor will help to make that happen.

Book Designer: There are several routes to go here. You could hire someone to handle the cover design, another to format your book for Kindle & Amazon, and a third to prepare your masterpiece for print (on demand or otherwise). While the cover of a book is somewhat obvious, there should be a design for the front and something on the back. It is a good idea to take a look in your own library or go down to the bookstore to see what others in your genre are doing.

It is hard enough to decide what should be on the front cover. Some questions you might want to think about for the back: do you include a brief description of the book, a short bio, a review — How do you even go about getting reviews? These are all decisions you will need to make before the book designer can go to work.

I remember getting a copy of another friend’s book from Amazon. The pages were white and the numbering for half the pages was on the inside of the pages. I really got the feeling this book didn’t get the professional treatment it deserved after my friend had spent so much time writing his novel. From the moment I picked it up, the book’s credibility was lost. Don’t let that happen to you.

Marketer: If your book is going to enjoy any level of success, you need to market it. The marketing process is typically 60 days or more before the launch of your bestseller. Mine will be closer to 90 days. One extreme example is John Lee Dumas’ book The Common Path to Uncommon Success. If you are not familiar with JLD, he is the the creator of Entrepreneurs on Fire. A wildly successful business podcast. He has interviewed thousands of successful entrepreneurs on his podcast, including Tony Robbins, Seth Godin, Gary Vaynerchuk, Barbara Corcoran and Tim Ferriss. His book was NOT self published, but still he did 345 interviews, and sent out 3,010 personal emails over a 10 week period promoting his book. To have success, you need to be serious about marketing.

You’ll have to create a buzz around your book. Doing so could include a new website, or sample chapters about your book on your own site, and getting listed on other sites such as Goodreads. Social media will also be part of your marketing plan. While starting with a Facebook group or a separate Instagram for your book are good, you also need to build a list of fans that can help you to promote your book during the launch and beyond.

Publicist: Eventually, you’ll need to make some appearances, live or virtual, to promote your book. So, you’ll need someone (or yourself) to get the word out and seek speaking invitations. Consider guest opportunities on podcasts, local television, book talks at local libraries and a book release party near the launch of your book. Also, schedule some promotional activities after the book has been out for a little while to keep drumming up sales and build on the momentum of your launch.

Financier \ Accountant: Books do not make their way into publication without an investment. As Warren Buffett said, “The best investment you can make is in yourself.”

So be willing to take a chance. Set a budget for how much of an initial investment you will make in your project. Study book pricing to understand how many copies of your work you will have to sell to recoup your investment. You should also create plans for additional investment when you exceed your initial targets. Your book is a business. Treat it that way. If you’re like me, your initial goal was to write the book. That’s done, so what are your next goals for the project?

Project Manager: For your book to be a success, you will need to shift from being a writer to becoming an astute project manager. As the project manager, one of your first tasks will be to make a list of every task that needs to be completed and understand what expectations need to be achieved for the quality of those deliverables. This will help you to understand the work your team is doing and the standard required to create and maintain a consistent and professional public appearance for your work.

It has been said that you don’t write a book, you build it. Once you have poured all your creative juices into constructing a great manuscript, it is time to put on your business cap and get to making that book a success.

Planning for what comes after your book is written is almost as important as writing the book itself. Do not take these responsibilities lightly. Choose a good team, educate yourself and march on to success, however you define that. You have worked too hard and achieved too much to give up now.

Interested in being a beta reader for Win the Day or following my journey to publication? Click here for more details.