How It Works
From manuscript to bookshelf
Roughly nine to fourteen months, start to finish. Anyone promising you eight weeks is skipping something.
The reading
You send us the manuscript, or the outline, or the idea. An editor reads it properly and writes back with an honest assessment — including, sometimes, that we are not the right home for it.
There is no charge for this and no obligation on either side.
The plan
If we both want to continue, we scope the work: which services the book needs, in what order, on what timeline, at what cost. You get it in writing before anything begins.
No package tiers. Books are not interchangeable and neither are their requirements.
Editorial
Structural work first, then line editing, then copyediting and proofreading as separate passes. You see and approve every stage. Nothing changes in your book without your agreement.
This is the longest phase, and the one that most determines whether the book is any good.
Design & production
Cover concepts, interior typesetting, and production specification. You review cover directions early, while changing course is still cheap.
Runs partly in parallel with late-stage editorial.
Launch
Positioning, publicity, reviewer outreach and retail setup. Most of this happens before publication day, because a launch is the end of the marketing, not the start of it.
We begin this while the book is still in production, never after.
After
Sales reporting, reprint decisions, and the long tail — which for a good book is where most of the readers eventually come from.
You keep your rights and your files, permanently.
What we ask of you
- Responsiveness at review stages. The schedule slips when approvals do.
- Willingness to be edited. Not to agree with every note — to engage with them.
- Honesty about your deadline, if you have a real one. We can often work to it.