Imagine you’re tasked with building a house. You work meticulously to draft the blueprints, build the walls, and oversee the electrical and plumbing work. Then, when the project is close to fruition, you become so eager to see the finished product that you rush to finish the roof, and when the first rainy day arrives, you find out the hard way that the roof is full of leaks.
The same happens when you rush the last stages of finalizing your book for publication. Some authors take years to finish writing a manuscript. After so much time and effort, after all that careful plotting and outlining, that same author might get to the editing and production stage and suddenly find they’re in a hurry to finish. But rushing to finish can leave you and your team with unnecessary stress as well as flaws in your book, just like the holes in the roof.
There are only two scenarios where you might want to hurry through the editing and production stages. The first scenario is that your publisher has set a publishing date. If you’re self-publishing, you’re the publisher, which means you get to decide the publishing date. So why set a publishing date that will pressure you and your team to speed through to the finish line?
The other scenario is that you have an upcoming event—a speaking engagement, for example—at which you intend to sell books. This might necessitate setting a publishing date that requires a quicker turnaround time for production. To avoid this, you can consult with your editor and designer to create a production timetable, giving yourself a little room for error, before you start booking major engagements like this. If you’ve already booked engagements before you begin the book-packaging process, make sure you give your team considerable forewarning so that you can work together to set an honest timetable that will allow you to produce a quality book.
If you don’t have a publishing date and you have no upcoming engagements, you have the perfect excuse to take your time with the editing, review, and book design/layout stages. This gives you valuable time away from your words so that you can see them with fresh eyes at each stage of the process.
Be sure to take time to celebrate your achievement. You’ve written a manuscript! This is an enormous accomplishment. Bask in the glow of success for a bit before moving on to the next accomplishment. Breathing room between each stage of the process gives you and your team the opportunity to do their best work. Talk with your editor and book designer about what turnaround time to expect, and ask them for their advice on setting a publishing date and booking promotional engagements.
Pace yourself and celebrate your achievement so when you do hit publish, you’ll do so knowing your new book is as ready for the world as it can be!
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