The Publishing Process

Last week I was snowed in as jaw-droppingly low temps, snow, and ice gripped much of the nation. This week is much better and I'm loving it. Having spent my first decade in Africa, I'm still not used to cold weather, though I do think it's beautiful. The picture is of my back yard, early in the morning as the sun came up over the snow.

In my writing world, though, things are heating up. I've had developments on two different fronts and it makes for the perfect time to share a little about the process involved in book publishing.

There are actually different ways to get a book published. An author can self-publish, also known as independent publishing, or she can be published through a traditional publisher, either via small press or larger press. If traditionally published, the author does not pay anything involved in the publishing of her books and splits the royalties with the publisher. (If indie published, they absorb all costs but do not split commissions.) If traditionally published, usually small press books do not end up on shelves in book stores while larger press books do. Both can be ordered online.

I am contracted with a small press, PixNPens, a company based in Texas. PNP is the nonfiction arm of Write Integrity Press. They have published two of my books, Prayer: It's Not About You and Glimpses of Prayer and they have plans to publish more. Several of these books are and will be co-written by my childhood friend, Shirley Crowder. In that part of my writing world, things are going well and we just sent our latest manuscript to them. They will put it on their publishing schedule, will edit it, format it, and eventually publish it sometime next fall.

I also have a manuscript I co-wrote with my husband that is currently being considered by a larger traditional company. It's hard to get in the door of larger publishing companies. Usually it takes an agent. In our case, a friend connected us with a man who had been an agent but is no longer one. Nonetheless, after reading the manuscript, he agreed to help us and made the contact with the company that is currently considering it. That company, who will remain unnamed at this point, has had our manuscript since Nov. 1. We heard from them yesterday saying they are still considering it and are currently doing some market research. They also said asked if we would willing to reduce its length if their publication committee gives a favorable response. Of course, we said yes! At this point we're still in a waiting game on that manuscript.

So, there's a snapshot of some of the many things that go into getting a book published. It involves so much--getting a contract from the traditional publishing company, whether large or small press, writing and turning in the completed manuscript, then months of work on the part of the publisher before the book is finally released and ready for sale.