Twenty-Five Steps to Publishing Your Book.

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Are you considering writing a book? Do you have a book idea, but aren’t sure where to start? Have you been putting off writing that book because you’re anxious about publishing?


Whether you are considering self-publishing or going through a publisher, there are lots of overlapping steps. I’m hoping this list will bring you closer to holding your book in your hand. 

Things to note:

• There is no timeline for completing these steps. You can work at your own pace.
• I’ve included steps that are optional, but worked for me.
• These steps are based on slow-release writing (publishing no more than one book a year). It took me 2 years to complete them all. 
• These steps might be different for rapid-release writing (publishing multiple books a year), but I assume these prolific writers are already well-versed in the publishing process. 
• This list focuses specifically on fiction writing, but might be helpful for non-fiction writers as well.

1. Idea
No book can start without an idea. At this point you should have some notes on the setting of your book, the personalities of your characters and what they look like, the general plot timeline, and how the story ends. Organize your thoughts by writing the scenes and their order in point form. Draft some conversations and scenes so you don’t forget your thoughts.

If you are still not clear about your idea: research, read other books (fiction and nonfiction), watch movies, join a local book club, talk with other authors, bounce ideas off of your friends and family, sit in a park and watch people pass by, and anything else that could bring inspiration.  

Here is an older blog that I have written about my own creative process

2. First Draft  
This is where the idea first takes shape. It is a step that can be very satisfying for a writer. 
Based on your outline from earlier, do a brain dump. For this step, don’t worry about spelling, grammar or sentence structure. The goal is to immerse yourself in the story and type. A skilled typist can do more than 1000 words a day. Write as much as you can or want. Describe the settings, characters, Point of View (POV), interactions between characters, dialogs etc. 
Once complete you will have your first draft of the manuscript (MS).

3. Character Style Sheet
This exercise might seem useless at first since a lot of this is already in the book or in your head, but this will help you avoid inconsistencies in the book. I have read many books where a character had brown eyes, but at the end of the book they turned blue for no reason. This document will be for you and your editor’s eyes only. It is meant to be informative, but does not need to be pretty or grammatically correct.

Write down everything you know about the characters, their background stories, childhood, upbringing, how they look, their behaviour, their mannerisms, etc. Even if these details don’t end up in the book. This will help you to keep the characters believable.
Write down everything you know about the locations in the story and what takes place in them. Give these locations background stories. Who built them? Who owned them previously? How do people use this space? Find pictures of similar places and paste them into the document.
Write down any stylistic choices you are using, such as dialects. How are they different?
Does your story contain any items that are crucial to the plot? How do they look, how are they used and what are they used for?
Return to your style sheet and update it throughout the editing process anytime you think of something worth noting or whenever anything changes. 

A character style sheet is required for any books that are series, because it is easy to forget details from one book to the next. I suggest doing this for all books, because you never know when you might get the idea to write another book in the same universe.

You can read more about the character style sheets on my previous blog: Characters



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