At Ballast Books, our goal is to democratize and demystify the publishing experience by involving you from beginning to end. After all, we’re here to bring your vision to life while ensuring quality every step of the way. But what do those steps look like? How do you get from rough draft to the book of your dreams? Here’s a quick crash course!
Production involves everything from editing to cover design to interior layout to printing—whatever it takes to bring your manuscript from a hypothetical to a tangible. We have expert production editors ready to shepherd your book from a Word document to bookstore shelves.
1. Editing
To kick off production, we generally begin with the manuscript itself. If you’ve signed on for a manuscript evaluation, we will start by reviewing your entire manuscript to evaluate its strengths and weaknesses, addressing plot, character development, structure, pacing, and overall quality. Otherwise, we’ll dive right in with the highest level of editing included in your proposal.
Of course, we always use the Track Changes feature to ensure that you can see each edit and suggestion. After all, we’re not here to tell you what to do—we're here to work together with you to get your manuscript in the best shape possible! There will usually be a few rounds of back and forth with your editor taking a couple of different passes before your manuscript is officially final. WOOHOO!
(To learn more about the editing process, give this detailed blog post a read!)
2. Cover Design
Next up is cover design! This is often the most exciting part of the process because it’s the most visual. And it’s what makes your book start to feel like a BOOK!
To get a sense of your stylistic preferences, your production editor will ask you to send some examples of covers you really like. What do you like about them—the fonts, the colors, the graphics, the text placement? For that matter, what do you hate that we should avoid at all costs? Your production editor will also prepare a list of comparable (or comp) titles—recently published books on a similar topic—to highlight current industry trends and consumer expectations for your genre. Together, you’ll develop a cover concept that brings your vision to life.
Tip: You will also decide your book’s dimensions and confirm whether your book will be hardcover or paperback at this stage. Don’t forget to finalize your title too since that’ll dominate the front cover!
Your expert designer will generate a handful of mockups based on the cover design brief, usually going in a few different directions to see what works and what doesn’t. After gathering your feedback, we will narrow down and make revisions until we have the perfect front cover design locked in.
But we’re still not done! We have to design the rest of the cover—the spine and back. Our team loves to help authors write and refine their book’s synopsis as well as their author bio. Those items, along with the barcode, publisher logo, and author headshot, if applicable, will be artfully arranged to complete the cover file.
(Eager to learn more about the specifics of the cover design process? Check out this insightful blog post!)
3. Interior Layout and Design
Now it’s time to create the interior of your book according to industry standards. Typesetting is what we call the process of transforming your manuscript from a Word document to an actual laid-out book. This involves a lot of behind-the-scenes work using software like InDesign to place the text into book pages, separating it into chapters and adding all front and back matter (title page, copyright page, etc.). Your designer will pay special attention to photos, graphics, tables, and other media like letters and emails that have been included. They will also give special treatment to headings, subheadings, and lists as well as add page numbers and running heads (the book title and author’s name at the top of each page).
We always start by creating a sample of the first chapter or two to get feedback on fonts, stylistic elements—the overall look and feel. Then, after making revisions, we flow out the entire manuscript to create a complete interior file. With your feedback, we make sure everything is perfect and ready for publication!
Tip: If you want to include a photo insert, this is when that is designed. For the most part, any photos inserted into your book will be converted to grayscale to avoid exorbitant print costs. Be sure to supply high-quality pictures and write captions if needed.
(Take a gander at this illuminating blog post to dig deeper into the layout and design process!)
4. Additional Formats
Around this time, production will also begin on the audiobook and e-book formats of your book if you are contracted for these. There is not much for you to do as the author at this point since we will just be using the text from the edited manuscript! If you’re doing an audiobook, you may work with your production editor to find a fitting narrator for your book (or narrate it yourself, in some cases). Then, leave it to us to pull everything together, share it with you for approval, and set up for distribution through typical e-book and audiobook channels.
5. Quality Checks
Once the full cover and interior are completed, both will go through several rounds of quality checks by Ballast’s expert editors. We will review the files one last time, paying special attention to headings, lists, running heads, the table of contents, and other elements that are added during production. This is how we ensure everything is in the best shape possible before publication!
6. Printing and Other Final Steps
At this point, your book is ready to be shared with the world! Depending on whether you’re doing an offset print run or going the print on demand route, your production editor will submit the final files to the printer to get a sample made and then approve mass production or will upload the final files for online distribution. This is when we set your official pub date and make your book available for preorder. Now all that’s left to do is create a marketing strategy and then get ready to celebrate the official launch of your masterpiece!
A lot goes into taking your book from the seed of an idea to a high-quality finished product, but as you can see, your voice will be heard every step of the way! While our production editors are experts in their craft, your ideas and feedback are invaluable. Ultimately, our goal is to work together with you to bring your vision to life so that, in the end, you can feel great pride as you hold the book of your dreams in your hands!
Ready to get started? Visit our website to submit your book idea and chat with one of our acquisitions editors about what this process would look like for your unique project.