Short Notice

Posted May 28th, 2009

We have a problem. We’re too efficient.

Let’s take Andy Lester’s book, for instance. It took him two years to write it, but once he was done we had it ready pretty quickly. We had twenty or so people review the book and provide him with comments that he addressed. We had a copy editor make the usual sorts of corrections and then we gave it back to Andy to fine tune.

Within an hour of him typing his last word we were able to sell his book on our site. The big question for us was “should we or shouldn’t we?”

We decided that in this economy a book on finding a job that makes you happy was too important to sit on. In fact, in any economy we would want to get this book into your hands as quickly as possible.

Now here’s the problem. If we want to get this book into libraries then it needs to be reviewed before it is available to you. In fact, if we want to really build sales we should try to get this book reviewed by Kirkus, Publishers Weekly, and others. But they want galleys three to four months before publication.

I remember my parents sitting in our living room proofreading the galleys to my dad’s latest book. The publisher would send them these long sheets of paper with the book pages printed on them as they would appear when bound. My mom and dad would take turns reading the book aloud to each other to spot typos and awkward phrases. They would make corrections in the margins and send the pages back to the publisher. It would then take the publisher months to set those corrections and produce the final book.

In those days it made sense to send the same galleys my parents had to reviewers. The galleys were produced for the authors months ahead of BBD (book bound date) and so you weren’t holding up the schedule by providing the reviewers with a copy at the same time.

But what do we do. Here Andy’s book was ready so we put it up for sale. We essentially sold the galleys as a beta book and then sent it on to be typeset. The typesetter had two other books ahead of Andy’s so he didn’t get to it for another week. So two weeks later the book was typeset and off to the printer. Soon it will be back from the printer and available direct from us and from bookstores near you and online.

The other option is for us to hold it for four months so that it can be reviewed. That just feels wrong but we’ve got books in the pipeline that would really benefit from this sort of review. Our next book is a real departure for us. We would love to have reviews but the book will be ready to sell in August and if we wait four months we’ll completely miss the holiday season.

It’s a puzzle. I feel so lucky to be working for a publisher that has automated so much. I spent the morning responding to reader submitted errata for my book on programming the Mac. The readers had wonderful suggestions that made this book better. It’s so much better to catch these errors before we go to print than after. My hope was that this tool chain that had been game changing for technical books would give us a similar advantage in our Pragmatic Life series.

So here’s my question. How should we operate in a world where book buyers and reviewers want to see the book months before the public does?

This post originally appeared in the Pragmatic Life blog.