Book publishing: time for a factory tour

Once a manuscript disappears inside the ivory tower that is a book publishing house, what exactly happens to it? What alchemy transforms it from a bundle of A4 pages to a gorgeous, elegantly written book that readers will clamour to buy?

‘Authors do not write books, they write manuscripts. Books are produced by publishers.’

(Publisher Ray Coffey)

Over the next few weeks (probably months – let’s be realistic here) I’ll be putting together a guide to what happens inside the Red Hill Publishing machine. It’s intended for the authors that we publish, but I’ll be posting sections to this blog too – just because I think it’s knowledge that most authors would benefit from, whether they are publishing virgins (blush) or seasoned pros.

The processes we follow at Red Hill Publishing have evolved from my background as an editor and publisher with companies such as HarperCollins in Australia and Amber Books in the UK. They have also been refined as we find methods that we find work well for us as a small scale, independent publisher with a collaborative approach and a commitment to the author’s return on investment.

No two publishers work in quite the same way. If you have been published before, some of this will be familiar territory; other parts will almost certainly be quite different from what you have experienced previously.

No two books are the same either, but this guide will give you a broad brush idea of the many processes that turn a manuscript into a book: editing, layout, cover design, legals, sales and marketing, and publicity (not to mention eating chocolate and drinking lots of good coffee).

Think of this as a ‘tour of the factory’, to give you an insider’s glimpse of the machinery. After your tour, I hope you will have a better idea not only of what Red Hill Publishing will do with your manuscript, but what we will expect of you, the author.

Is there anything you always wanted to know about the publishing process but were too afraid to ask? Let me know and I can add it to the list of topics to cover.