Timeline & Budget

Decide to Publish

Your publication timeline begins the day you decide to publish your book. That might be before you've even written it or before your manuscript is done.

Set Your Publication Date

Having made the decision, you now need to set some important dates, the first of which is your Publication Date. Think of this date as your ”grand opening”. It is an arbitrary date somewhere from six weeks to six months in the future. During that time, you will finish your manuscript, design your cover and layout, arrange for warehousing and delivery, and make your first print run. More importantly, you will do all your pre-publication promotion. The date you pick depends on how much pre-publication promotion you intend to do.

Look at the WingSpan Promotional Timeline to get a sense of what a full promotional effort entails. Many self-publishers prefer to print first and promote later. This allows you to have your book in hand sooner, and start selling, but it leaves less time for pre-publication promotion.

If you are planning a medium to large-scale marketing campaign, you will need a minimum of 4 to 6 months. That may seem like a long time, but most New York publishing houses schedule their releases up to 2 years ahead. However long you choose, during this time you may print galleys to send to reviewers, send out advance press releases & review copies, and arrange some interviews.

You can have your book set up and printed in 4 to 5 weeks. But remember, reviewers and media outlets want to show their audience the newest, hottest thing about to hit the stands. Some major book review sources require your book 5-6 months prior to its publication, and won't even consider reviewing books whose publication date has passed. You'll have a much harder time getting them to notice a book that has already been published.

Decide how many books you need to start

This will depend on your promotion and marketing plan. Just need copies for family, friends and local sales? Planning to sell online? Through seminars? Looking for a lot of reviews and interviews? The WingSpan Basic and Extended Publication Packages provide you with 10 author copies to start. You may order as many as you think you'll need when you sign up.

Many authors rely on Quik-Pub to fill orders once things are underway, but start with an initial offset print run if they intend to marketing aggressively. 500 copies provides an economical per-unit breakpoint for self-publishing, but won't completely break the bank. If you do much publicity at all, you will send out more books than you think – reviewers have to have a book to review, and you won't get those copies back. Keep in mind that the larger review sources (Kirkus, NYT Review of Books, etc) will only take a book seriously if its initial print run is 3000 or more. That's a lot for a self-published book, so you will have to focus on smaller or more local reviewers.

Production Date

Working with your WingSpan editor, you'll need to figure out your Production Date, the date you can expect to see your book delivered from the printer. The Production Date can be changed if conditions change, but your Publication Date should remain constant once it's set.
Remember, the Production Date and Publication Date are not the same thing.

Keep your business separate

Even if you only plan to sell your books locally, you should set up a small business to keep your income and expenses separate from your personal affairs. It can be as simple as a separate personal bank account and a book to record expenses. Dan Poynter's web site and books are a great resource on setting up a book-selling business.

Worldwide listings

When you purchase the WingSpan Basic or Extended Publication Packages, we will assign your book the all-important ISBN and bar coding that allows major distributors to order your book. Wingspan will list it with Books in Print, Ingram, Baker & Taylor, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Borders, etc, showing your Publication Date.

Budget

How many books you start out with will depend on your budget and your ultimate goal for your book. And your budget can only be determined by you. Hopefully, by now you have an estimate of the cost of printing and delivery of your book from WingSpan.

How much are you willing to invest in this book? How much can you afford? It's possible to publish on a shoestring, and market very selectively, especially if you have a precisely-targeted niche market to approach. A more concerted marketing approach will result in better sales. A book's best chance at long-term life occurs when it sells well within the first three months of publication, and that requires good pre-publication promotion.

A well-written book with good reviews can generate sales without costing an arm and a leg. Using your resources, you can keep costs down and never spend a dime on 'real' advertising.

Other sources of funding might be available to you if you create a business plan and look for investors. More than one successful self-publisher has depended on 'venture capital.' This approach is for those who are ready to put a full-time effort into promoting and selling their book.

Budget Items to consider

If you want sales and a 'buzz' around the publication of your book, don't penny-pinch on your book-cover design. You should be able to find a designer who can make your book eye-catching and still allow the title to read well in small catalog listings. Use good paper. Use a full-color cover. We'll go into these items more on the Design page.

You will likely want postcards and business cards and all the trappings of a small business. Bookmarks with your book's cover and description are a relatively inexpensive way of getting pre-publication attention.

Your state may require a resale license and want you to collect sales tax if you are selling the books yourself.

Don't forget postage and copying. You will need a decent-looking sell-sheet to go out with your review copies. You might eventually want to send out a direct mailer, which would mean the printing cost of the mailer, postage, and the possible cost of a targeted mailing list. If you choose to do an author's tour, you may have associated travel costs.

Here are a few good links on budgeting and marketing.

Visit our Resources Page for other useful links.



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