A well-produced book is a seamless whole. Chapters have a consistent structure and style and don’t overlap or argue with one another. That’s hard enough to accomplish with one author; multiple authors add the dimension of project management.

Gabe Goldberg of Computers and Publishing, Inc. (gabe@gabegold.com) has managed several multi-author book projects. This is part one of a two-part article. 

This article originally appeared in the Editorial Advantage newsletter.

What I Learned from Sudden Immersion

I remember the first time I was invited to contribute a chapter to a book on technology. I marveled at the project’s success, since the process seemed chaotic.

Later, I had occasion to co-edit three multi-author books. Now I understand, vividly and viscerally, what is required to take such a book from concept to fruition. To recap some frequently asked questions:

Q: Is it more or less work to recruit a team of authors than to write a book yourself?

A: It’s different work. The solitary effort of grinding out a volume is replaced by people-centric tasks of team and project management.

Q: How should I recruit authors?

A: Find experts and enthusiasts who have wonderful information to convey and stories to tell. They need not have published previously, but if they cannot communicate, they will greatly increase your workload. Emphasize the need for professional writing and be sure everyone is willing to have his or her material edited.

Decide on a budget for your book and set author compensation accordingly: fee, book copies, whatever. Some projects provide a token fee and a few book copies while others pay $1,000 or more per chapter. I suggest promising payment only for completion and acceptance of chapters with no incremental payments and no kill fees.

Q: How do I get the authors off to a good start?

A: Describe the book as if it were already written. What would you like reviewers to say about it? Like writing your own obituary, this can be a valuable exercise in goal definition. Identify target readers and understand who will not be readers. One of our books turned into two when we realized that technology implementation appealed to one set of readers, while the details of technology usage appealed to another.

Understand what the project offers to you and your contributors. Money, fame, and bylines are all valid payoffs. Be clear if it’s one, two, or all three.

Ensure that all contributors share a common vision of the final work. If you are managing the process, outline the book, develop a style guide and chapter templates, and specify how text and graphics should be delivered – as MS Word, PDF files, etc.

Find a publisher. You can do this on your own or through an agent. If you recruit a publisher, you don’t need an agent to negotiate a contract. A lawyer can do that for an hourly rate, costing you less than an agent’s commission. The contract should commit the publisher to a budget for book promotion, Web site, etc.

Q: What should I be doing while the authors are writing their chapters?

A: Keeping records, for one thing. Without scrupulous tracking of all interactions with team members you’ll lose track of who’s done what, who owes what, what you’ve told people, next steps, and so forth.

Once you’ve created the project infrastructure, you can attend to book basics: marketing and marketing partnerships, catalog copy, direct mail pieces, publicity, promotion in association or organization publications, and reviews in the trade and general press.

Q: Wait! Aren’t these the publisher’s responsibility?

A: Yes, but don’t depend on the publisher doing them with the energy required for success. The publisher will send you a marketing and sales questionnaire, but the staff will be peddling dozens or hundreds of books. Don’t expect your title to get much individual attention. If you want it to sell, you’ll have to do a lot of the work yourself.

Q: What legal arrangements are needed for contributed works?

A: You’ll sign a standard contract with your publisher. Most publishers don’t care whether you write the book yourself or recruit authors, but they want assurance that the content is accurate, doesn’t infringe copyright, etc. Provisions that apply to you, as the editor, need to be shared by your contributors. Sign an agreement with each of them. The language need not be elaborate, but it should certify that they are, indeed, offering the material for publication (you’re not stealing it) and that they bear complete liability for substantiated plagiarism (they didn’t steal it—or, if they did, they’re prepared to pay the price).

Q: What if authors want to retain ownership of their contributions?

A: Accommodate them. As long as you can convey necessary rights to the publisher, authors can use the material in subsequent work. You want them to do this, in fact—your book benefits from the publicity. Just require that they cite your book as the original source.

Q: How should a multi-author project be organized?

A: There’s no universal roadmap. But project phases usually include:

• Review chapter outlines, requesting revisions where necessary.

Require authors to write their outline in complete sentences, not in phrases. You need to understand exactly what points they intend to make.

• Introduce contributors to one another, make sure they understand the book’s unifying structure, and reinforce the need for timeliness.

If you have a representative chapter, share it with contributors with annotations indicating important decision points, e.g., reaching agreement on illustration format. While the representative chapter need not be replicated exactly, other chapters should look compatible. This is a good time to make the following point: Just as the cars of a train aren’t free to set their own arrival and departure times, authors must commit to following your editorial schedule.

• Review and comment on draft chapters.

As work proceeds, maintain a cumulative list of questions and answers for contributors, so that the project builds on shared assumptions and practices. Stay in touch with authors and demand that they respond to your comments and queries. They must know you’re committed and accessible; you want them to address questions and uncertainties rather than guessing or proceeding blindly. Modern technologies eliminate any excuse for authors becoming uncommunicative. Failure to respond is a danger sign: an author is losing commitment or procrastinating.

• Implement contingency plans for problem chapters

A chapter can derail at any point. Unique project characteristics and your relationships with contributors will determine when to abandon a chapter and how to do it. To me, an author or chapter isn’t working out if I’m not getting timely responses to queries and requests, if revisions are repeatedly unsatisfactory, or if an author asserts too much control over a project. Authors may request progress payments or “kill fees”— amounts due if a partly completed chapter is rejected. I never offer kill fees, nor do I pay them. Chapters are not test questions for which partial credit may be awarded. Contracts with authors should clearly reserve editorial authority for the editor. This includes the right to reject a chapter.

• Receive final chapters and author biographies

As the manuscript nears completion, a few chores remain to finish the book’s “packaging” and ensure a successful marketing launch. Depending on how and by whom the book is being published, some of these may be done partly or completely by the publisher.

• Solicit testimonials (”blurbs”) from recognized industry figures
• Edit chapters, return to authors for review but not rewriting
• Process author comments on editing
• Write/recruit overhead text: dedication, preface, foreword, editors’ notes, etc.
• Circulate the complete manuscript to reviewers—as many as possible—for comments
• Explore marketing foreign and follow-on rights
• Plan/begin marketing campaign
• Create or outsource creation of the book’s index. Don’t skimp on this—many people check index quality before buying books. Index creation is a skilled task not necessarily suitable for an amateur.
• Forward complete manuscript to publisher or printer
• Finalize book cover design and text
• Print/distribute books
• Send books to press reviewers, industry leaders, contributors
• Fulfill other obligations to authors
• Ramp up marketing (create online community/buzz for the book, perhaps with a Web site; perhaps publish chapters online; arrange a book tour, book signings, interviews; etc.)

Q: What’s the key to ensuring success?

A: Remember that a contributed book is a massively collaborative project. Just as a train has one engineer, your project has one leader. Be flexible and accept feedback and suggestions, but stay in charge. It’s your name on the publisher’s contract and it will be your name on the book cover. Your vision for the book must prevail.

Posted in Management of a publications enterprise, Writing and Editing