Often, when discussing reasons to write and publish a book, I say that writing itself can be fun, cathartic, and rewarding.
By writing, I mean any form of writing ~ not just books. Novels, poems, songs, screenplays, courses, articles, blog posts, marketing copywriting ~ anything!
So I have launched a program called Your Writing for Fun Adventure, including a website, blog posts, podcasts, broadcasts, a book, and weekly group discussion sessions to encourage people to write and explore a range of writing projects for fun or for profit.
I have used Atticus to format books for clients and for my own projects for a few years.
Atticus does a great job formatting all of the standard trim sizes for Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) and IngramSpark, as well as an eBook format for Kindle and other readers.
The Atticus platform is also great for writing. It is chapter-oriented, and reorganizing chapters is as simple as dragging up or down in the side panel.
Using Grammarly or other writing assistants provides a powerful writing and editing environment.
There is no extra step between the writing and formatting stages. All done with grace in Atticus.
Collaboration
Atticus creator Dave Chesson said he was working on the ability to collaborate on book projects. It has been on my wish list for a long time and would simplify the editing and review process.
A few weeks ago, Atticus sent a notice about a major update to the software. Dave Chasson didn’t say what the update was but said we could probably guess.
Sure enough, that was it was the collaboration feature that was new.
While it is too late for this year, here is how the collaboration feature would have saved A LOT of time and trouble with Tales From The Turkey Table by Bill Allman.
Bill called me in late November last year to say he was ready to go with Tales from the Turkey Table.
Given that we often were able to take a finished manuscript to formatted and submitted for printing in a few days ago, I said we could do a quick edit pass and format for printing.
Given that Bill is a good writer and editor himself, we assumed it was ready to go. And for what we were doing, it was.
The writing style and punctuation was quirky, but very readable. I certainly was not going to be heavy-handed with editing.
Although the formatting was tricky, I created PDF that I sent out for review.
Some of the most minor things like the table of contents not fitting on a single page became a sticking point.
Then various friends started complaining about minor things. Editing by committee is usually a bad idea because people have opinions that are often wrong and not helpful.
Assuming that the author had done a thorough read of the review copy and considering the time crunch, we submitted, printed, and sold copies.
After Christmas, the author decided to do a close review and edit to make it better.
Nearly a year later, he said he was done with the edit comments in a PDF with comment tracking enabled.
I spent a good week applying some 550 minor changes.
Now we have time to print for Christmas and get into retail shops.
Now that the collaboration feature is available, here is what we could have done last year and this year that would have saved much time and trouble:
I would have set up the author and editors as collaborators and reviewed the text and formatting within Atticus.
Atticus would track and report changes and comments.
The author could have made most of the changes himself, which is far easier than explaining the changes.
All collaborators and editors can review the formatting within Atticus and export PDFs for closer review.
Once approved, the formatted book will be ready for submission and printing.
Working With Book Clients Moving Forward
The writing and formatting features of Atticus are all I need for my books.
The collaboration feature makes working with new book clients easier regardless of stage. I can help with book development, writing, editing, and formatting.
So I will encourage, if not insist, to get the book project into Atticus as soon as possible and collaborate there. That means that the author and editors would need their own Atticus accounts.
Do you have a book taking up real estate in your head?
It’s time to get it out of your head and out to the world as a book.
It is not hard. If you have a good idea of what you want to share, the writing and publishing can be done comfortably in a month for most books.
Here are the basic steps:
Choose a topic and a working title.
Create a chapter outline
Write the chapters
Do a few rounds of editing
Format the document for submission
Create a cover
Submit for publishing
The next actions expand on the steps.
You can do it all yourself or have Greg Dixon help you work through the steps.
1. Choose a Topic and a Working Title
In this step, you determine the topic of your book and choose a working title that represents it.
Don’t worry too much about the title. After writing the chapters, you can refine the title, subtitle, and book description to represent your writing.
2. Create a Chapter Outline
The outline creates the overall structure and content organization for your book.
You can write your outline or chapter headlines in Microsoft Word, Google Docs, Atticus, or a writing tool of your choice.
Once you have the outline, the rest is filling in the space with content.
3. Write the Chapters
You can write the chapters with content to support the title of the chapter.
The content can be as simple or complex as you want to communicate the subject.
4. Do a Few Rounds of Editing
Read through and edit your manuscript a few times on your own until you are happy with it.
You then have others or a professional editor look through to make suggestions and adjustments for improvement.
I recommend a few rounds of reading and editing.
5. Formatting the Document for Publishing
Amazon and other publishers have specific formatting requirements for submitting your book.
The formatting will change according the trim size, such as 6 x 9 or 5 x 8. 6 x 9 inches is a good size for most books. You can find the details on the Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing pages.
This is where I typically jump in the process for our book clients. I use Atticus to format the book for print and eBook.
6. Create a Cover
Creating a cover that meets the print publishing specifications is the trickiest part.
Amazon will generate a cover template based on trim size, page count, and paper type for use designing a cover.
Amazon also has a decent book design feature when you are uploading the book.
This is another area where I can help with the cover design or tweaking an existing cover to meet the specifications.
7. Submitting the Book
We generally submit to Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing and to IngramSpark for people who want to get their books into bookstores and libraries.
The process is mostly completing forms and uploading files.
Amazon will then provided an online preview and conduct a quality review when you submit.
We usually do this for our clients using their Amazon and IngramSpark accounts.
Your Fun Publishing Journey Retainer
For a modest monthly retainer, I can help you with all parts of your publishing journey, from writing to publishing to marketing.
The main service I provide for our book publishing is formatting the manuscript for print book and eBook publishing with Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing and IngramSpark.
The tool I use for that is Attiticus at atticus.io.
Atticus supports all popular book trim sizes like 6 x 9 inches.
It includes many book themes that can be customized in many ways.
The platform provides good previews of the formatting of the eBook on various devices and the print format.
Writing
Usually, the manuscripts from our clients come in Microsoft Word format that is imported into Atticus for formatting.
Atticus provides a great writing platform for writing and editing books.
Each book section and chapter is treated as a separate block, which makes restructuring your book a matter of dragging the section up or down on the list on the left panel.
The formatting within each section or chapter is highly style-driven in the sense that all headings and all paragraph styles will be the same across the entire book.
This is a good practice that will frustrate style hackers who want to vary fonts, styles, and colors paragraph by paragraph.
I use Grammarly for writing style and correctness. Other writing tools could work for you within Atticus.
Proofing
Atticus outputs a PDF file optimized for uploading for printing. This file represents the book formatting with high accuracy.
We have been sending the PDF to authors and editors for feedback. Adobe does support review comments, though it is awkward.
My current practice is to use the PDF to create a flipbook with Heyzine at https://heyzine.com/.
The flipbook provides a great presentation of the formatting and can be the preferred way to share books where your intention is to share rather than make sales of the book. Like a lead magnet:-)
There are dozens of flipbook creators. Heyzine is easy to use, offers a lot with the free plan, and the paid plans are inexpensive. Heyzine can also publish multimedia magazines.
Betty Withrow and Greg Dixon offer two programs for book authors and course creators: Your Book Journey and Publishing Sales Machine.
The primary focus of Your Book Journey is to take you through all of the steps of writing and publishing a book from idea through launch.
The Publishing Sales Machine combines the book journey with course development and marketing done from the start of the project to attract interest, clients, and sales.
What is best for you?
Betty Withrow has a question she always asks new and potential book clients:
What Do You Want To Get Out Of This?
Today Betty and Greg discuss a fun activity to help you explore the question for yourself.
A great path for you could be their Publishing Sales Machine where they combine creating a book, a continuity program, and sales during the development process.
The main idea is that the content that would go into a book can also go into an online course or program as well as be used for marketing to boost your authority and attract clients and sales.
Betty and Greg offer a low-cost workshop program as well as a personal retainer.
Betty Withrow and Greg Dixon offer a small group workshop series that takes you from idea through writing, editing, publishing, and marketing your book over four months.
Where are you in your book writing and publishing journey?
Still pondering ideas and titles?
Have notes and perhaps an outline?
Do you have a fairly complete outline completed?
You have a draft ready for editing and moving to the next step?
Do you have more than one book in mind and are pondering which book to complete first?
We Have You Covered!
Our Complete Book Journey Publishing Retainer can take your books from ideas to books in the hands of readers.
We meet with you weekly to discuss where you are at and the next steps.
We encourage you, offer writing support, provide editing and formatting, and help design a cover and get the book published.
Your Book Journey with Betty Withrow and Greg Dixon
Here is what the journey looks like working with us.
Meet with you to explore where you are at with your writing, where you want to go, and what you want to get out of writing one or more books.
Create a set of shared folders on Google Drive for collaborating on brainstorming, idea collection, writing, editing, and formatting.
Meet weekly to discuss where we can help and the next steps.
Collaborate on more than one outline that will grow into the book. We will provide a template with all of the usual sections that go into a book.
We provide writing support and editing as we build out the manuscript.
At some point, we will move from writing to an editing and review phase.
We format and provide review copies in PDF and ePub formats to get feedback from other people.
When ready, we help you submit to Amazon Direct Publishing or a platform of your choice such as Ingram Sparks and Book Baby.
Greg Dixon will provide a Digital Experience Edition ~ A multimedia portal containing one or more books in various formats, plus related images, articles, audio, and video.
We can help you approach book agents and publishers if you want a traditional publisher instead of self-publishing.
All along, we encourage and support you to premarket your book through various marketing strategies including building a list of people to send excerpts and invite to the book launch.
How Long Does The Process Take?
The time frame depends on where you are at in book development, how complex the book is, and how much time you have for the project.
Betty Withrow’s ghostwriting and coaching projects often take from eight to ten months.
A book project starting with a solid outline could be done in three months or less.
We are very flexible and can work at your pace. If you need to take a break from the project, we can pause the retainer and resume later. tack Or we can move fast to get it done.
Your Complete Book Journey ~ Light Retainer
This is our most affordable offer and perfect if you are comfortable writing and plan to do most of the writing yourself.
Here is what you get:
A writing and publishing roadmap customized for your publishing goals.
Folders and templates on Google Drive for writing, review, collaboration, editing, and basic formatting.
Weekly meetings to review progress and discuss next steps.
Light writing coaching and support. We will write some bridge content where appropriate, though you will do the majority of the writing. Betty Withrow offers full ghostwriting services if needed.
Editing rounds when the writing is complete.
Manuscript formatting with review copies.
Manuscript submission.
Prelaunch, launch, and ongoing marketing support.
Digital Experience Edition ~ A multimedia portal containing one or more books in various formats, plus related images, articles, audio, and video.
$540 per month for as long as you want our support for one or more books.
We provide a complete range of book development, publishing, and launch marketing packages to get your book launched in the world.
You can jump in at the beginning or at any point in your book journey.
Your Complete Book Journey Publishing Retainer
We offer a number of packages to handle each of the main phases of your book production journey. Continue to read down this page to learn about those packages.
Our best offer is a monthly retainer designed to take you from wherever you are in your book journey through to the publishing, launch, and marketing of your books for as long as you want to write and publish books.
The retainer includes all of the services listed in the packages delivered over a time frame that works for you.
We meet with you do plan your book development and create a space for you to work and collaborate with us in Google Drive.
The package includes:
Planning
Roadmap
Book Outline (that will develop into the finished book. You can copy to make versions)
Place for notes
$400
Writing Development Package
Betty Withrow will work with you as a writing coach and we will help get the writing of your book done.
The package includes support for two months to gain momentum, keep you on track, and develop your book.
Clarity | Focus | Momentum
Your book could take more time to complete.
$800 – $1800
Manuscript Preparation Package
We work with you to make sure all of the components that go into a published book are prepared and edited.
This includes three rounds of editing and review to ensure the book is ready for the next step.
$800 – $1800
Formatting and Launch Package
Now that the writing is done, we get the book formatted and launched.
Includes:
Book formatting for print and eBook.
Cover design
Uploading and publishing
This package assumes publishing with Amazon Direct Publishing using your Amazon account, with you reviewing the settings and pushing the submit button.
Alternatives include submitting to platforms like Ingram Sparks and Book Baby.
Note: Submitting to a traditional publishing house is something we can discuss if that is the best publishing path for your book.
$800 – $1800
Book Launch Marketing Roadmap
We often say the time to start marketing your book is the day you start writing it.
We can outline a strategy and roadmap for that.
$400
Book Launch Marketing Package
We can help you implement a comprehensive marketing campaign, including:
Content for blog posts, social media, and video to create buzz for your book.
Landing pages with optin to get launch notices.
Book sales page
Help with the launch party.
Post-launch strategies to keep the momentum going.
