Kathryn Struck will be your first contact with Awe-Struck. Kathryn helps you initiate the contract between us, handles promotion, keeps track of our distributors, brainstorms tons of ideas... and...... sends out royalty checks.(:-) Kathryn's email is kdstruck@mchsi.com. Dick Claassen is Kathryn's business partner in Awe-Struck. Dick handles book cover questions, editing, and he also designs and maintains the Awe-Struck website. Dick's email is editor-graphics@awestruckebooks.net.
Preparing your book for publication involves the completion of many steps. Some of these steps we do here at Awe-Struck and some you, the author, will do. Getting your book to the point of publication requires us to work together and stay on schedule. If you should find yourself confused at any point in this process, please do not hesitate to email us.
The process is not difficult, but it will require attentiveness on your part as well as ours. Below are all the steps organized time-wise. What Awe-Struck does is in black text. What you do is in text this color.
Don't let the list of tasks below scare you. Study them carefully, and keep well ahead of the game by making sure you finish tasks according to the completion time for each.
Okay, here we go!
(1) Once your book is accepted for publication:
Print out the Awe-Struck E-Books contract. You can find it at http://www.awe-struck.net/LEGAL/contract.html.
Fill out and Sign two copies of the contract. Then mail both copies to:
Kathryn Struck
Awe-Struck E-Books
2458 Cherry Street
Dubuque, IA 52001If you plan on making any changes to your book before editing, do it now and let Kathryn know when to expect the finished manuscript in Microsoft Word format. Do not plan to rewrite the book at this point. We bought it because we liked it the way it was. Unless Kathryn suggests something in the story needs fixing, don't do anything to it beyond polishing and cleaning up errors in word usage, punctuation, grammar and syntax. The final version of your book must reach Kathryn no later than eight months before your release date.
Join awe-thors@yahoogroups.com. As an Awe-Struck author, you are required to be a member of this listserve. However, if you don't want to receive list mail, you can set your membership to Special Announcements, and you'll only get those occasional very important messages that Kathryn, Dick or I send out.
(2) As soon as you're contracted: Cover art
You will need a cover for your book. Start thinking about it early, because we will need the final version of that cover no later than four months before your release date. You can either make your own arrangements, or we will provide a cover for you.
Dick will not accept a cover, regardless of how well done it might be, if it doesn't look professionally rendered and doesn't follow the specifications he has laid down. So you must follow Dick's cover guidelines. One feature that makes our website and description pages on our distributors' websites stand head and shoulders above so many others is the quality of our book covers.
Once Dick receives a finished cover, he makes 13 different versions of the cover and sends them to me. These different versions are used for various purposes. Some appear in the ebook files customers purchase and others are used on websites to advertise your book.
(3) 8-9 months before publication - The Editorial Process
The final version of your book must be in Kathryn's hands no later than 8 months before your release date. This gives us time to edit it and send it back to you for final proofing.
If you want a dedication or acknowledgements, be sure to add them before you send the manuscript to Kathryn.
(4) 5-7 months before publication: After the Edit
When Dick, who is in charge of editing, finishes editing your book, he will send you an html copy of it, which you'll be able to read with your web browser or you can convert it to a file to be read on a hand-held reader (e.g., Rocket/REB, or PDA). Do not edit the html. The html is equivalent to the "galley" copy that print authors are sent, and it's used as a guide to help you find where you might want changes.
By using the html as a guide, send any changes to Dick to incorporate in the final version of your manuscript. Click here for complete instructions on how to send Dick changes and corrections of his edit of your book. This is your final chance to make changes in your book!
If for some reason you can't get it proofed right away, please contact Dick. He needs to know immediately if there's going to be a delay.
Once your manuscript is final: Dick sends the final Word document to Kathryn and me for use later in the publication process.
(5) About 6 months before publication: Time to Start Promoting
You will need to start putting together your Author Information Questionnaire (fondly known here as the AIQ). This document will serve as a source for promotional material, which Kathryn will be sending out to reviewer, in press releases, and as announcements on listserves and elsewhere. The information in it will also be used when reviewers require more than basic information about your book, and also when we upload your book to our distributors.Download a copy of the AIQ HERE.The AIQ is due about five months before your release date. Send copies to Kathryn.
(d) Send a photo of yourself at the same time you send the AIQ. The photo must be a high-quality jpeg file, any size, sent by email attachment. Please do not send a paper photo by landmail. Scan the photo on your end, then send it as a file.
(e) Write your bio from the third person point of view, as if someone has interviewed you. Don't say, "I did this and I did that." That sounds like bragging and will quite possibly turn potential customers off.(The photo you send will be displayed with the bio.).
Don't choose your excerpt(s) from the first three chapters of your book. We make these available as a preview online. The purpose of an excerpt is to capture the readers' interest, so it's a good idea to end it with a hook. We ask for a short excerpt and a longer one, because some of our distributors want one, some the other. You may provide just one excerpt, but if so, it must be the short one. We also ask you to provide a very short blurb--25 words or less. This should be character(s) + conflict + hook.
(6) About 5 months before publication: Preparing Review Copies (ARCs)
I format your book into html and pdf files. These files will be sent to reviewers. The html file will be used in the preparation of a number of other formats closer to publication time.
(7) About 4 months before publication: Sending out ARCs
We send queries to reviewers for your book. We want to receive at least a few reviews before publication date, since we have space on each book's description page for review quotes. If you have your own reviewer contacts, this is a good time to query them, also. I will be happy to send review copies to reviewers. Simply forward the message containing the reviewer's email address to me at kdstruck@mchis.com.
(8) About 1 month before publication: The Publishing Process
I prepare the rest of the ebook files for release and send them to Dick.
If you have newspapers or other publications where you'd like your press release sent, email the contact information (email addresses preferred) to Kathryn.
(9) About 1 week before publication: Tell the World
Kathryn sends out press releases about your book.
This is the time to start sending out your own last minute promotion, too. (10) Publication day:
Dick and I update the website for your book, and set up our immediate-fulfillment order system to handle your book.
We then send your book to our many distributors.
What you can do to promote your book:
Advertise. Place an ad in Romantic Times, Affaire de Coeur, or another print or online review magazine or one of the many online promotion sites like The Romance Studio, Sime~Gen, and MyShelf.com where you can advertise. We don't recommend any one over the others, but suggest you ask your fellow authors where to go for the best results.
Consider joining EPIC (http://www.epicauthors.com/). This is a professional organization for electronically-published authors, and you'll learn a lot by being a member.
Set up your personal website, if you don't already have one. A simple site is within most people's abilities to create, and few fancy features will be worth bothering with. There are plenty of books on the subject, and many of the software packages available today are easy to use. It is highly desirable to have your own domain (www.judithbglad.com, for example), so readers can more easily find you.
Check the Awe-thors@yahoogroups.com files for other hints for promotion. Share promotion ideas with your fellow authors. Talk up your book to friends and family. Try to get your local library to add it to their collection. Hold contests at your website. Carry bookmarks or business cards in your pocket or purse, and hand them, out everywhere you go. Attend conferences that bring readers and writers together. Put a Bookcrossing sticker on your book and leave it at a coffee bar or food court (see www.bookcrossing.com). Participate in chats. Join readers' listserves. Have a blog page. Seek out opportunities to appear in bookstores or other venues where you can sign (and sell) your book. When you have a signing, try to get an interview in the local paper or on TV.
Another good way to promote is to join listserves like WRWlist@yahoogroups.com, a list for ebook writers, where you can share information with some wonderful writers. Or ebooklove@yahoogroups.com, a listserve for ebook readers. Listserves are free and you can promote your book and share information with some wonderful readers and writers. Don’t be afraid to post promotional information if the listserve allows it.
Remember, as long as your book is out there, you need to keep promoting. How else are folks going to know that your book, among the many thousands available, is special?
And keep writing. With each subsequent book release, you generate interest in earlier titles.
Updated 08/09/05