So, You've Finished Writing Your Book. What's Next?
- Bryson Ann
- Aug 6
- 8 min read
So, you've finished writing a book!
Congratulations! Completing your manuscript marks a significant milestone, but it's actually the beginning of your book's journey toward publication rather than the end. The transition from finished draft to published work involves several crucial steps that can determine whether your story reaches its intended audience effectively. Understanding this post-completion process helps you make informed decisions about transforming your manuscript into a professional book that readers will discover and enjoy.
Step 1: Budget Plan for Professional Services
Understanding typical investment ranges helps you plan your publishing budget effectively:
Professional editing costs vary significantly based on manuscript length and condition, genre complexity, and editing type needed
Intermediate editors rates range from $500 to $3,200
Average: ≈$1,900
Senior editors rates range from $3,200 to $6,500
Average: ≈$4,500
Cover design and illustration ranges from budget-friendly options to premium custom artwork and design
Intermediate cover designers rates range from $75 to $600
Average: ≈$350
Senior cover designers rates range from $600 to $1,200
Average: ≈$850
Publishing path impacts budget: Self-publishing requires upfront investment in professional services, while traditional publishing may offer advances but provides no guarantee of acceptance
When working with editors and cover designers, senior professionals with 10-15 years of experience and 200+ clients typically have higher rates than intermediate professionals entering the field. Note that "intermediate" doesn't mean inexperienced—these professionals possess training and skills but haven't yet built the extensive client portfolio of veteran editors and designers.
Don't let the numbers scare you, these are just midpoints I found based on research. It all depends on what you're looking for and what your manuscript entails. Investing in quality professional services early, particularly editing, creates the foundation for success regardless of your chosen publishing path.
Step 2: Hire an Editor
Professional editing represents the most critical investment in your manuscript's future success. Raw manuscripts, regardless of the author's skill level, require systematic refinement through multiple editing stages to achieve publication quality. Each editing phase addresses different aspects of your work, building upon previous improvements to create a polished final product.
Before you hire an editor, make sure your manuscript is truly complete from beginning to end. Many authors rush to editors with incomplete drafts, but professional editing works most effectively with finished manuscripts where you can evaluate the complete narrative arc, character development, and thematic elements. A complete draft allows editors to provide comprehensive feedback about how all elements work together, rather than guessing about unwritten sections.
The Complete Editing Journey
Editorial Assessment provides the diagnostic foundation by evaluating your manuscript's fundamental strengths and weaknesses. This comprehensive analysis identifies structural issues, character development gaps, pacing problems, and thematic inconsistencies before you invest time in detailed revisions. The assessment creates a strategic roadmap for all subsequent editing work.
Developmental Editing addresses the structural and narrative elements identified in your assessment. This hands-on process involves working collaboratively with an editor to strengthen character arcs, improve plot progression, enhance pacing, and ensure thematic coherence. Developmental editing transforms promising drafts into compelling narratives that maintain reader engagement throughout.
Line Editing refines your prose at the sentence and paragraph level, focusing on clarity, flow, voice consistency, and word choice precision. This stage enhances readability while preserving your unique writing style, ensuring that your language serves your story effectively and creates the intended emotional impact.
Copyediting provides systematic technical refinement, addressing grammar accuracy, punctuation consistency, character detail tracking, timeline verification, and style guide adherence. This meticulous process ensures internal consistency across your entire manuscript while maintaining professional presentation standards.
Proofreading serves as the final quality control measure, catching surface-level errors in the formatted manuscript that could distract readers or undermine your professional credibility. This stage occurs after all content and style editing is complete, working with your book's final layout to ensure error-free presentation.
Professional Manuscript Formatting
Beyond editing, professional formatting transforms your manuscript into a properly structured book. This process involves typography selection, chapter heading design, page layout optimization, and ensuring compatibility across print and digital formats. Professional editors understand the technical requirements for different publishing platforms while creating visually appealing, readable layouts that enhance reader experience.
Step 2: Hire a Cover Designer
Your book cover serves as the primary marketing tool that influences reader purchasing decisions within seconds of discovery. Professional cover artists understand genre conventions, target audience expectations, and current market trends that affect book visibility and appeal.
The Impact of Professional Design
Cover design extends far beyond aesthetic appeal to encompass strategic marketing considerations. Professional designers research your genre's visual language, analyze successful comparable titles, and create covers that communicate your book's content and tone effectively to potential readers browsing online or in bookstores.
Design Process and Collaboration
Working with a cover artist typically involves discussing your book's themes, target audience, and genre positioning to inform design decisions. Professional designers provide multiple concept options, incorporate your feedback through revision rounds, and deliver final files in all required formats for both print and digital publication.
Quality cover design requires understanding of typography, color psychology, image composition, and platform-specific requirements. Professional artists ensure your cover reproduces effectively at thumbnail size for online retailers while maintaining visual impact at full size for print editions.
Cover Designer vs. Illustrator
You can also opt to hire an illustrator to design artwork for your cover for your cover designer to use. Some writers have assumed that hiring an illustrator automatically provides a complete book cover, but illustrators and cover designers serve distinct roles in the cover creation process.
Illustrators create custom artwork—characters, scenes, or conceptual images that represent your story visually. Cover designers take that artwork (or stock images) and transform it into a complete book cover by adding typography, arranging layout elements, ensuring genre compliance, and optimizing for various publishing formats.
If you want custom illustrated artwork for your cover, you'll typically need both professionals: an illustrator to create the visual elements and a cover designer to integrate that artwork into a marketable book cover design. Some professionals offer both services, but many specialize in one area.
A cover designer company I have personally worked with is Getcovers, and I cannot recommend them enough for the beautiful cover they designed for me! (not sponsored or affiliated)
Step 3: Traditional Publishing vs. Self-Publishing
Choosing between traditional and self-publishing routes significantly impacts your book's journey to readers, each offering distinct advantages and challenges that align differently with author goals and circumstances.
Traditional Publishing
Traditional publishing involves sending queries in the effort of securing a literary agent to represent you, who then submits your manuscript to publishing houses on your behalf. This route provides professional editorial support, established distribution networks, bookstore placement opportunities, and industry credibility, but requires lengthy submission timelines and offers limited creative control over final presentation and marketing decisions.
Advantages: Professional support throughout the process, established distribution channels, potential advances, bookstore visibility, and industry validation.
Challenges: Highly competitive acceptance rates, extended timeline from submission to publication (often 3-5 years total from query to bookshelf), limited author control over cover design and marketing strategies, lower royalty percentages, and no guarantee of acceptance even with a polished manuscript.
Self-Publishing
Self-publishing allows authors to maintain complete creative and business control while bringing books to market more quickly through platforms like Amazon KDP, IngramSpark, or other distribution services. This path requires authors to manage all aspects of publication but offers higher royalty rates and direct reader relationships.
Advantages: Complete creative control, higher royalty percentages, faster publication timeline, direct reader communication, and retention of all rights.
Challenges: Upfront investment in professional services, responsibility for all marketing efforts, limited bookstore placement opportunities, and need to develop business and marketing skills alongside writing abilities.
Whichever route you decide to take, never pay money for an agent or publisher to read your book. These are known as vanity presses, and they are not legitimate publishing houses. Querying your book should never have a price—legitimate agents and publishers pay authors, not the other way around.
Step 4: Marketing
Your choice between traditional and self-publishing should align with your goals, timeline, budget, and desired level of involvement in the business aspects of authorship. Many successful authors utilize both paths for different projects, and the publishing landscape continues evolving to offer hybrid opportunities.
Building your author platform before publication creates the foundation for connecting with potential readers and supporting your book's launch. Early platform development proves more effective than attempting to build audience after publication.
Essential Platform Elements
An author website serves as your professional headquarters, providing information about your books, biography, contact details, and blog content that demonstrates your expertise and personality to potential readers and industry professionals.
Social media presence on platforms where your target readers gather allows for community building and reader engagement. Focus on one or two platforms initially rather than attempting to maintain presence everywhere.
Email list development creates direct communication channels with interested readers, providing the most effective method for announcing new releases, sharing exclusive content, and building lasting reader relationships.
Content Strategy Basics
Consistent, valuable content that serves your target audience builds trust and interest over time. This might include writing tips, genre discussions, behind-the-scenes glimpses of your writing process, or content related to your book's themes and subjects.
Post-Publication Considerations
Building your platform before publication creates the foundation for successful book launches. Launch strategy and marketing campaigns become crucial post-publication steps that determine whether your book finds its intended audience. Early platform development supports not just your first book, but establishes the reader relationships essential for long-term author success.
Step 5: Legal and Business Considerations
Protecting your work and understanding publishing business basics helps you make informed decisions throughout the publication process.
Copyright Protection
While your work receives automatic copyright protection upon creation, formal registration with the U.S. Copyright Office provides additional legal benefits and creates official documentation of your ownership. Registration proves particularly valuable if you ever need to enforce your rights legally.
ISBN Requirements
International Standard Book Numbers (ISBNs) identify your book uniquely in the global marketplace. Self-published authors can purchase ISBNs directly or use free ISBNs provided by publishing platforms, though ownership of your own ISBNs provides more control over your book's listing information. For example, if you publish with Amazon KDP and use their free ISBN, you cannot publish elsewhere with that ISBN, it is owned by Amazon KDP.
There is only one official company to purchase an ISBN from in the United States, and that is Bowker. Any website and/or individual that offers to "give you" an ISBN for a certain price is not recommended as that website and/or individual owns all rights to that ISBN, and you do not.
Contract Understanding
Whether pursuing traditional or self-publishing, understanding basic contract terms, royalty structures, and rights management protects your interests and helps you make informed decisions about publishing agreements and service provider contracts.
Creating Your Action Plan
The post-completion journey requires strategic planning and realistic timeline expectations. Most authors benefit from approaching these steps systematically rather than attempting everything simultaneously.
Prioritizing Your Steps
Professional editing should precede all other steps since it affects every subsequent decision about cover design, marketing messaging, and publication strategy. A well-edited manuscript provides the foundation for effective cover design and confident marketing efforts. Cover design and formatting can occur simultaneously during final editing stages, allowing for efficient timeline management. Marketing foundation development can begin early and continue throughout the editing process.
Timeline Expectations
Understanding realistic timelines helps you plan effectively and avoid rushing crucial decisions that impact your book's long-term success:
Professional Editing: 3-6 months depending on your manuscript's needs and editor availability
Cover Design: 2-4 weeks for concept development and revisions
Traditional Publishing: 3-5+ years total from initial query to bookshelf
Self-Publishing: 6-12 months total from editing start to publication
Platform Development: Ongoing effort that builds momentum over time
Quality preparation across all stages significantly impacts your book's long-term success, so resist the temptation to rush any phase of the process.
Conclusion
Completing your manuscript represents the beginning of an exciting transformation process that requires patience, investment, and strategic decision-making. Each step—from professional editing through publication and marketing—contributes to your book's potential for finding and satisfying its intended readers.
Key principles for success:
Invest in professional editing as the foundation
Understand cover designers versus illustrators when planning visuals
Choose publishing paths aligning with your goals
Never pay agents or publishers reading fees
Begin platform development early for launch support
Protect work through proper copyright and ISBN acquisition
Understand basic contract terms and rights management
Approach the process systematically with realistic timelines
Quality preparation significantly impacts long-term success
The journey from finishing a book to successful publication demands dedication and learning, but each step brings you closer to sharing your story with the readers who need it. Professional support throughout this process—from editing to design to marketing guidance—can make the difference between a book that merely exists and one that thrives in the marketplace.