Creating a Book Timeline From Start to Publish
Authors need to create a timeline from start to finish for their book to succeed
Author increase their book’s chance of success if they plan from the beginning to the publication date.
Several factors that ensure its success are:
Planning ahead for bumps in the road
Avoiding missing any key elements to the process
Helping to ensure that your planning for marketing portions up until the book’s release
It is truly a rush as you finally click that publish button for your book.
But you need to plan before you publish so that your book has all the chances of achieving success.
This is where a timeline comes into play. Creating a timeline helps keep your projects on track and gives you goals to achieve. As you move through the timeline, you not only see your progress but what you have yet to overcome.
What pieces do you include in this timeline?
Manuscript deadlines: What is the deadline for the first draft, second draft, editor’s draft, and final manuscript? These can be edited as the process happens. (Not everything happens according to plan.)
Alpha and Beta readers: Creating deadlines for when you need feedback from these readers is helpful. This way you can give them a deadline upfront for feedback.
Reveals: Setting simple dates such as two months before release and such can be immensely useful. What is also useful to remember is that you don’t only have to do cover reveals. You can do character, setting, and description reveals too!
Release date: Try setting this ahead of time as it can help you align all of your other dates with it.
At the beginning of each project, it is crucial that you do this.
How does creating a process and timeline help you?
It’s amazing what deadlines can do to move a project along.
When you take the time to create these and put them into practice, it gets easier. The process of both in tandem becomes more fluid. And you are taking a step in the direction of producing consistent content.
Whether you are self-publishing or traditionally publishing, taking the final step of getting your story in front of readers is the goal. However, to ensure that readers actually see your work, have you done the work to spread the word?
What else should you do to prepare for your book launch? Here’s a checklist:
ARC Readers
I myself didn’t know what these were at first. An ARC Copy is when you give a free advanced reader copy to a list of readers who read it before the book releases and leave an honest review for your book.
As you search for these readers, you want to make sure you list the expectations upfront and come across them professionally.
Tell them when the release date is, what the title and genre are, the word count, and a description. Then be sure to ask what format they want it sent in, either ePub or pdf.
Book Blog Reviews
Start submitting to book blogs months before your release date and months before you submit, you should be engaging with their content.
Simply explain when the release date is, what the title and genre are, word count, and a description. Then be sure to ask what format they want it sent in, either ePub or pdf. Many of these book reviewers will tell you exactly how they want review submissions.
They will also have a section to explain their review policy, genre preferences, and more.
These bloggers are often facing a long list of hopeful authors so please be patient.
Promotion and Advertisements
Long before your manuscript is finished you should be promoting your book and building your audience.
Creating simple book trailers, advertisements, and more can help build the hype for your book. Do not overdo it though! Too much promotion becomes background noise.
A service such as Canva.com can help you create promotional content to help you.
Sneak Peeks
This can be placed in several places.
Often writers will provide a one-chapter sneak peek for readers to get a taste of what your book is going to be like. Depending on where you are in the stages of your book development and how early you release this sneak peek, be sure it is edited.
The last thing you want to do is give your audience the wrong impression.
This sneak peek can be placed on your site under the tab for the book, on your Amazon’s author central page in the form of a photo, or on a social media account such as Facebook.
Having a timeline from start to publish will help you give your book the best chance at success.
Plan ahead and see where it can get you.
If you are ready to make a timeline for your book, try this outline here:
