A rough guide to schedule slip

The series I’m currently doing for a book packager has had its schedule put back a couple of months. The ins and outs of that particular project are confidential, but it got me to thinking how confusing and worrying delays can be for writers who don’t know much about the inside workings of publishing. Disturbing questions crop up in the mind, such as: “Is it because the publisher doesn’t like my manuscript after all, the project’s going to be dropped and the world will shortly end?”

Well, it’s possible that’s the case (except perhaps for the bit about the end of the world), but if so the editor should be telling you about it. If she isn’t, the difficulties are probably internal to the publisher.

To understand why schedules slip it helps to understand why pub(lication) dates are selected in the first place.

These days most books are published on either the first day or the first Monday of the month, so gives the publisher 12 options for the pub date, which will either be set soon after decision is taken to acquire, or sometimes as part of the process.

Basic practical factors go into this, such as the time needed for editorial work, but there are also numerous issues to do with marketing. Some are obvious – for example, it’s no good publishing a Halloween recipe book in November. Others are related to the target audience, such as the publication of textbooks at key points in the study year. Some choices are dictated by the economic year, for example in January nobody spends much so it’s not a good time for high-priced titles (the whole book business is skewed by the effect of Christmas).

There are also other factors that may not be apparent to the author. A major retailer may have confidentially told a publisher that they are looking to promote a particular kind of book in May of next year, and does the publisher have something that will fit? Likewise a deliberate decision can be made to buck the trend, such as publishing a book in January when there is traditionally not much happening, so that book may get more attention.

The third issue is what else the publisher has in the pipeline. They may only have a certain amount of marketing spend allocated to April and it all has to go to their star author who’s publishing then. Or they may wish to avoid publishing your book at the same time as another one that has turned out to be rather similar in theme.

Each of these factors has differing levels of applicability to different kinds of books, but I don’t think there is any kind of book for which the publisher would think ‘Right, let’s just lay out a normal schedule that starts today, and the pub date is the month that schedule ends in’.

And so the pub date is carefully decided. Great! Off we go into the schedule.

Editors will give a hollow laugh at this point. Assuming that the text itself doesn’t cause problems – and a dizty proof-reader could cause those as well as a poor MS – there are a huge number of elements which could cause the project to get delayed. Problems with getting the illustrations in, and approved by the relevant senior staff, are a big one for children’s and other illustrated books; this is less important for mass market adult paperbacks of course but even they can suffer from in-house cover design angst.

Then there is the question of book production, a part of publishing which is often hidden. Printing sounds like it should be a fairly quick process, and for a simple paperback the physical part of the process can be fast, but many publishers will be looking for the cheapest printing deal possible, and that often means producing the books in the Far East. They then have to be shipped over here, and that can’t be hurried, unless someone wants to pay for them to be airfreighted (a request editors do not like hearing from the sales department). Arcane questions like current paper prices and industrial disputes at ports suddenly have a major effect on the pub date of your book, particularly as publishers try to print books as late as possible, to save warehousing costs.

Additionally, retailers sometimes change their advance promotion plans or announce late additions, so for example your chick lit novel could be bumped from April to July because the Sales department reckons there’s a good chance that Waterstones will put it in chick lit three-for-two they are planning that month. Various factors make publishers reluctant to shift a pub date – for example, the book may already have appeared in the publisher’s catalogue – but the prospect of a significant boost to sales will win out every time.

The Sales department needs time to big up your book to retailers before the physical item is out there. This means that cover, sample material and other promotional bumpf (if any) needs to be ready six months before the pub date. If that doesn’t happen, retailers will just see your book as a title on a list among hundreds and very probably not buy it. For some titles, a substantial amount of sales material is needed, particularly for titles about concepts that are hard to grasp. Major book fairs, at which the publisher will want to be showing off the sales material, also have a big influence on timing. So a publisher will move the pub date on rather than allow these elements of the selling process to be missed.

All this is why, in some cases, a delay of just two months at manuscript stage can sometimes lead to the pub date being bumped by a year, to make sure that everything comes together.

Hopefully this will not happen to your book. But if it does, then there is a silver lining to the annoyance of delayed royalties etc. Unless you have reason to believe that they are incompetent, delays are a good sign that the publisher does not just intend to chuck your work on the shelves and see what happens to it. They assign your book importance, and are aiming to publish it at a time and in a way that will maximise the sales, and thus the success, of all involved.