Here are the steps to working with Red Door Sentinel:
- I will skim through your manuscript to get an overall idea of what it is about, make sure it agrees with Red Door Sentinel beliefs, and how we should move forward.
- We will meet together in person to review, and then sign the Publishing Agreement. I will provide you with a copy.
- I will help you create a Book Proposal.
- Please include me in all of your correspondence with the professionals whom you hire. This is so that I’m aware of the project status and so that I can provide advice and guidance where needed.
- Now is a good time to incorporate MS Word Styles into your manuscript even if you are just beginning to write or are nearly done. This will aide in navigating the document for editing.
- Depending on the type of manuscript, at this point it will be sent off to a professional editor who will do grammar and/or content editing. While it is with the editor, it is a great idea for you not to work on the manuscript until you hear back from the editor. More information can be found on the Editing page. Do not do any formatting until step 12! Save all the editor’s formatting suggestions until then.
- Since you will have a break from working on the manuscript, now is a good time to hire a professional cover designer. They will need to know that the final page count will not be available for a few months. For more information about what the cover designer will need from you, read the Cover Designer page. Here is more information.
- One the profession editor is finished, I will do my initial read-through of your manuscript to check for content and consistency with the belief principles in the publishing agreement.
- I will meet with you in person to go over your style sheet (suggestions from your editor and myself) and to show you how to accept/reject edits in MS Word.
- Go through your manuscript and review suggested edits. I encourage you to be generous with accepting the editor’s suggestions.
- Print out a hard copy of the manuscript and read it cover to cover with a red pen in hand. You’ll be surprised how different it reads on paper. Then incorporate your edits into the manuscript.
- At this point your editing is finished (actually, that will never happen! But you have to draw a line in the sand and say I’m done!).
- Formatting will now begin for the paperback version. Either I can do it for you, or I can show you how to do it. Formatting is easy but very tedious. Here are some of the basics.
- Once the formatting is finished, I will add the front matter, get all the book elements in order, and then convert it to a .pdf to be sure all the formatting is good.
- The total page count can now be given to the cover designer.
- Once the final manuscript and cover are in .pdf files, we will meet together and I will guide you through getting everything setup in Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP).
- We will do a final check of everything through the Kindle Previewer.
- Once everything looks perfect, you will order 2 proof copies. When they are received, you will read through one with a red pen and I will read through the other. We will look for both editing and formatting errors and check the front/spine/back cover for problems.
- You will let the cover designer know of any needed changes and update your manuscript with your edits.
- We will upload the files into KDP once again, check in the previewer, and if all looks good we will finalize the manuscript in KDP.
- It will take up to 3 days for KDP to approve your book. Once approved, it will be up for sale on Amazon and you can place your first order of paperbacks!
- KDP will now offer to create your eBook. This is up to you, but I highly encourage it. Download a copy to your own eReader to make sure everything looks good.
- Finally, we will setup your Amazon Author Central page that contains your author information (picture, biography, book(s), blog, etc).