What is the Pub Date?

Note to self: if a bookseller can get a book in hand, they will sell it. Publication date is an artificial date that is completely controlled by the publisher. If you let books get into the sales distribution channels, then they will quickly find their way to booksellers.

As soon as we ship our books to our distributor, the backorders from booksellers were immediately filled and shipped. The booksellers had them in a few days and, guess what--they were available for sale! J.K. Rowling had her hands full!

Debut Books and First Printing Questions

Some folks, particularly book collectors, have inquired about the 'printing' numbers on the copyright pages of our debut books. These numbers in our books are: "10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2." What happened to the '1'? The way the copyright page is printed indicates that these books are the second printing. In fact, they are not. These are all first printing books. We are still looking into why and how we lost our '1' but there are no other printings prior to this one. You got the first printing!

Hope this helps clarify the snafu. Thanks.

Behind The Scenes

Some of our writer frieds have peeked under the covers of Iota, wondering if this mysterious world was really the realm of dark magic. One unveiled illusion caused lots of discussion and they suggested we post some details here about publishing timeline -- what goes on that takes a year (or more) to get a book published? So, here we go. This will probably be in multiple parts as we get time to discuss. Real timeline for one of our books that has a pub date of October, 2008.

Picking up at the beginning of 2008 (this book was contracted in June, 2007)
1-18 Submit database load information and cover (jpeg) to distribution
1-20 Initiate copyedit
3-1 Receive copyedit ms from copyeditor
3-1 – 3-10 Author & editor review copyedit
3-1 Send copyedit info to Author
4-15 Receive final edits from Author
4-16 Send ms to typesetter
5-1 Receive ms from typesetter (get page count)
5-1 Send order to printer
5-15 Pre-order appears (perhaps) on Amazon, B&N, etc.
5-15 Receive blurbs from author’s readers; Iota blurbers
5-15 Receive jacket graphic spec from printer to cover artist
6-15 Receive final jacket art, send to printer
6-15 Initiate local print of galleys
6-15 Update typeset manuscript with title graphics (to printer)
6-30 Receive galleys
6-30 Update website with book cover
6-30 Printer returns proof
7-1 Send 1st set of Galleys
7-1 Begin schedule of book tour, interview, and other PR plans
7-1 Contract placement of ads
7-15 Return corrections/proof to printer
7-15 Print run begins
8-1 Send second set of galleys to reviewers
8-30 Books off press
9-1 Launch final publicity campaign
9-1 Setup Amazon Look Inside
9-1 Setup eBook files
9-1 Ship books to distribution
9-1 Kickoff local publicity
10-1 Initiate book tour and other final publicity
10-1 Publication Date