Planning is key

As you can imagine, co-writing a book can get pretty disorganized if you don’t spend some time planning first. You’re likely used to just being able to write on your own schedule when inspiration strikes, but now you’re sharing the writing with someone else. It’s crucial, before you even begin this endeavor, to thoroughly lay out what you both envision for the book’s characters, direction, and plot. That way you can hash out the details right away and then, once they’re agreed upon, you can divvy up the writing in whatever way best suits you both.

Let go of ego

Similarly to your editor, you have to go into co-writing with the expectation that your partner isn’t going to think everything you write is 100% perfect (and vice versa). It’s not easy to take criticism about something so personal to us, but take a step back and try to remember that your partner is just trying to help the book realize its full potential. And part of the beauty of writing with a co-writer is it gives you the ability to learn new styles and improve your own craft as well.

Pick your battles

Going along with our previous point, when those points of criticism or contention come up (and we guarantee they will), it’s extremely important that you choose your battles wisely. The process will be less creatively enjoyable for both you and your partner if you’re arguing with them on every little thing they’d like to change (or again vice versa). If they ask you to edit or rewrite a part that you know truly isn’t crucial to the overall message or character arc of the story, give in or make a compromise. You can absolutely stick up for parts you feel are  essential, but don’t bog down the writing process by putting up a fight over every little thing.

Communication & Collaboration

The process of co-writing works best when you have clear communication throughout the process. The easiest way to ensure that you’re both on the same page (literally) is by conducting your writing through a program like Google docs. This allows you to both share one document for the writing so that you can each work on the book as needed without having to wait for the other to email you the latest draft. In addition, as we stated earlier, it’s important to establish how you’d like to collaborate on the writing. Some co-writers will each write separate versions of each chapter and come together to pick out the pieces they like from each one. Others will write on and off section by section, picking up where the other left off and simply trying to use the same voice. Find out what works best for you and your co-writer and go for it!

Hold each other accountable

One of the greatest benefits of co-writing with someone is that you’re able to hold one another accountable. When you’re writing a book on your own, it’s easy to let yourself get overwhelmed and slip away from the project for weeks or even months at a time. It’s harder to do this when you’re co-writing a book because you don’t want to let your partner down. This pushes you to stay consistent with your writing and, if you’re ever feeling overwhelmed with the project, you can have a brainstorming session to get the creative juices flowing again. When you’re in the planning stage of the project, make sure you set realistic scheduling goals that work well for each of your schedules. This will alleviate late deadline frustrations that you could be facing as the project continues. The last thing you want is for your co-writer to feel more like a publisher than a partner, right?

The post How to Co-Write a Book appeared first on Dorrance Publishing Company.

Unfortunately, when it comes to self-publishing, it can be kind of a mixed bag. Perhaps you’re doing all of the work yourself. This means you’re the one editing (or making a friend do it in exchange for pizza), and handling page design, cover design and artwork. The other option is sending  your work to a self-publishing company that you think would work well with your material.

There is a wide array of companies with various publishing strategies. Some self-publishers will only employ salespeople and then contract out per-project-based freelancers to do the editing, page, and cover design. This process may be appealing in terms of price, but it comes with a few downsides. First, the people they’ll contract to work on your book aren’t typically people with whom they have a long standing relationship. This means that the quality of work may vary. Second, they don’t employ Project Coordinators, which can mean lower quality communication as well as disorganization within the company.

Dorrance’s publishing process involves a division of roles in order to keep the project as organized and high quality as possible. As a result, there are more hands on deck working on your book at any given time than you’d typically find with another self-publisher. At the center of our publishing process, we have Project Coordinators.

A Project Coordinator acts as a liaison between the author (you) and the several different roles and steps needed throughout publishing. We employ several artists, designers, and editors on staff and it’s the Project Coordinator’s job to communicate your desires and concerns to those people.

You might be wondering why an author should even have a Project Coordinator.  Why not just have authors talk directly to their designer/artist/editor? The reason we have this division is, firstly, for customer service based reasons. We know how nerve-racking it can be to hand your book over to strangers. The Project Coordinator is someone who could speak to you weekly (and even daily), reassuring you about the process, explaining certain steps, and communicating effectively with the people who are working on your book.

This process also helps alleviate any internal miscommunication. This is because our author’s are solely communicating with one person. We don’t expect our authors to know who within a publishing company they’d have to give specific information to…that’s our job. If we expected this, situations may arise where an author might tell their editor one thing, but forget or not know to tell their designer- which can lead to a series of messes. The Project Coordinator will funnel your specifications to exactly where they need to go within the company. It also keeps our authors from having to call five to ten different people every time they need to make an adjustment.

It also means that our editors, designers, and artists are able to use their time to work on your book instead of having to divide their time between their work and being a customer service representative. We have hundreds of authors from all over the world at any given time. So, let’s face it, if our author’s were communicating directly with their designers/editors/artists- they’d never get anything done!

So, let us walk you through a daily scenario here at Dorrance: An author will talk to their Project Coordinator, perhaps about a change to their cover. The Coordinator will spend as much time as needed on the phone with their author, making sure they have all the details necessary. Once they’re off the phone, the Project Coordinator will walk over to where our designer sits and talk to them about the author’s desires for the cover. The designer will make a cover for the author based on that information and then make revisions if need be until it is exactly what the author has envisioned. It’s a collaborative process with streamlined communication.

When you’re publishing with Dorrance, your Project Coordinator wears many hats for you: communications expert, project management, creative problem solver, and even therapist every now and again. They’re here to hold your hand and walk you through the publishing process every step of the way.

The post Day In The Life Of A Project Coordinator appeared first on Dorrance Publishing Company.