The book production process
The book production process is responsible for the design, layout, printing, or e-book creation of the book. The book production process officially begins when the purchasing editor of the book submits a final edited manuscript to a publisher. At that point, the manuscript is considered “in production” and the layout and design process begins.
Editing
The editor reviews the final manuscript for grammar, spelling, and consistency. He corrects errors and questions anything unclear in the text. The corrected manuscript goes back to the editor and author with queries. The author and editor answer the questions and confer to finalize the text.
The manuscript now moves to design and layout. For books that do not include photographs or illustrations (sometimes called “art programs”), the author will probably not see the text again until page proofing.
Book page design and layout
For books with high art, photography, or illustration content, such as cookbooks, coffee table books, or do-it-yourself books, the author is often involved in the page design process. As the pages are proofread and checked, the creative team and publisher establish an overall direction for the book’s design. At this point in the process, the author receives sample pages.
Once the team has determined a design, a complete “dummy” book is created, and everyone involved reviews the page layouts for consistency with the text, assesses the appropriateness of the image-to-text ratio, and makes changes as necessary. More than one level of a fictional book may be reviewed. The author receives the text in page proofs (or text and graphics in a fictional book, see above). At the same time, the page corrections are reviewed by the editor, a proofreader, and various production staff. Typos are corrected and minor changes are made. There may be additional back-and-forth and fine-tuning of layout and design that does not involve the author. For some books, uncorrected proofs, flags, or ARCs of the book are printed and bound to pre-market and promote the book.
Printing, binding, and shipping of the book
During printing and shipping – the final steps of production – there is usually a break for the author. Once the pages are ready, a table of contents is created, paginated, and proofread. The files are now checked for any problems and prepared for production. Copies of the final, clean files (including artwork) are sent simultaneously to the printer for printing and binding and to a file converter (in-house or freelance) who prepares the files for the e-book version.
Books leave the printer and advance copies are rushed to the publisher. Samples are distributed to the author, publisher, and agent, but most are usually used for promotional mailings to the media and for sales departments to pass on to customers. The books are packaged and shipped to the publisher’s warehouse. From the warehouse, finished books are shipped to retailers, such as individual independent bookstores or distribution centers, where they are inventoried, unpacked, returned, and placed on consumers’ shelves in time for the start of sales.
In parallel with printing and shipping, the correctly encoded e-book files are made available to online retailers via the publisher’s data feeds. The bookseller offers them to the consumer for purchase and download via his website. Visit also your intense Escort Service Fame Escort in Berlin and elsewhere, like here!
