Valuable Insight Into the Life Cycle of a Book

You probably know the basics about how a book gets traditionally published, but to hear about it from those who do it on a daily basis gives some pretty valuable insight. Even if you are self-published, understanding a book's life cycle is important, especially since as the author you will do many of the steps yourself. I found a great link through Twitter called publishingtrendsetter.com. It's a site that provides information for book professionals, especially those who are at the beginning of their journey.

Publishing Trend Setter's current series of posts takes a look at all the stages of a book's life cycle. Beginning with the writer and moving to the agent, editor, production, design, marketing, publicity, sales, and distribution, they have provided video interviews with a professional in each of these categories.

Each video lasts about 5 minutes, and I took a little time to watch all of them. It was so interesting to hear from a variety of people in the industry, and I learned something new from each one. It also helped me think about how would I need to adapt each stage in order to make it work from a self-published point of view.

The interviews I liked the most were from writer Adam Gidwitz, author of "A Tale Dark and Grimm;" who talked about his writing journey; Nina Lassam on marketing from Wattpad, which is a site where writers can post their stories and receive feedback; and Jenn McMurry on distribution from Greenleaf Book Group who went really in-depth on various distribution channels, from the big chains to airport and museum book stores.

Sometimes it's good to take a break from the creativity of writing and dip our toes into the reality of the book publishing industry. And I think this is a site that makes it enjoyable for us to do that!

--KSR Writer