BEE Books : Why Do We Need Publishing Assistance?

Imagine how our lives would be if we were never introduced to the world of Harry Potter, if we never knew about the Faraway Tree or if we were never left with the fuzzy feeling every time we turned the pages of “Gone with the wind”. We grow up with our favorite characters from the world of fiction but hardly do we pay heed to the group of people who put their heart and soul into making the fiction a reality on paper. That is where Publishing steps in. Rowling would not have been the greatest storyteller of our time had Bloomsbury not given her the platform. Thus in BEE Books we believe that publishing is the art of reaching out to the public. To understand the need of publishing assistance it is important that we first understand the intricate process of publishing and how it has been successful in giving a voice to works which would have otherwise gone unrecognized. Publishing legitimizes the work of the author and it provides a legal validation to every work and finds a legitimate way to reach out to the rest of the world. Publishing assistance is much more than self-publishing. We will go into the difference in another BEE blog.

Publishing assistance thus is necessary because without the aid of the publisher an author’s book is a ship without a compass. BEE Books has been immensely successful in providing guidance and destination to authors. The relation between a publishing house and its author is that of a diplomat and a politician, neither is complete without the other. If writing is the craft then publishing is the business. The need for assistance in publishing has become even more necessary in the changing social order. The stages of publishing are:

• Acquisition– Every publishing house acquires the manuscripts from known and similar sources. These sources often come out of efficient networking with other publishing houses or authors. But there are times when the entire work load comes down to efficient research work which goes into searching an author eager to be published with a manuscript holding a story more than words can fathom. There are certain criteria which the research team takes into consideration before taking the challenge of turning the manuscript into a book, first whether or not the manuscript is informative or entertaining enough, secondly if it is capable of securing a wide enough distribution to booksellers and thirdly whether or not the author is promotable.

• Copy editing– This is designed to catch all the errors and inconsistencies in the text, from spelling and punctuation to facts, figures and tics of style. In some publishing houses this work is increasingly done on-screen, but a significant proportion of editors prefer to work direct on the typescript because they and their authors find it easier to spot changes on paper, and see where decisions have been made along the way. Once editing is finished, the author is asked to answer any queries that may have arisen. When the commissioning editor, copy-editor and author are happy that the marked-up typescript is in the best possible shape, it is sent to the production department for design and typesetting.
• Production– This is all about preparing the layout of the book. The production team has a very significant role to play in transforming a manuscript into a book. The production team prepares the design for the cover and the illustration, precisely everything that a book needs to look ready to be sold in the market. It is crucial for the production team to get this right as a large part of buying and marketing depends on the cover of the book. We know how we should not judge a book by its cover but in reality the cover of a book grabs the buyer’s attention. Often a book with a mediocre title depends on the graphical layout, and the illustration on the cover to capture the market.
• Sales and combatting other glitches– Sales is another important work of a publishing house. Selling requires a profound knowledge of the audience. Selling involves getting book shops, retailers and recently online shops for making these books available to the public. But selling also involves a certain amount of strategy through which it is determined whether or not the particular book is going to be accepted by the people of the region and also which locality will have a better sell.

• Marketing and distribution– The Marketing department is arguably the pivotal department. It works together with sales and selling is hugely dependent on marketing of the book. This department’s work is to try out new ways to make the book more acceptable and also increase the demand for the book. In one word it has to promote the book through posters and media bytes. The exodus in social media in recent times plays a huge role in marketing as most of the work is done through social media by writing blogs and reviews and also by making related posts. There are extremely new and innovative ways of promoting the book. Those listed above are few conventional ways but with the marketing becoming the most competitive angle of book publishing, the marketing team is bound to come up with new and innovative ways with each of their projects.

These are some of the concrete reasons as to why publishing assistance is needed by an author. It is wrong to believe that becoming an author is about knowing the art of storytelling because the storyteller is always in need of a platform and publishers thus complete the authors in these ways.

 Trisrota Dutta is a final year student of International Relations at Jadavpur University. Politics is her major area of interest and she has been a part of many such conclaves and symposiums. Apart from her involvement in academics, she is also an avid reader who enjoys reading literature (modern and classic). Her all time favourite book is Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina. Among the contemporary Indian authors, she never misses a book penned by Amitav Ghosh or Jhumpa Lahiri. She enjoys writing on various issues ranging from politics and social causes to newly released books and movies and also dreams of building her career in journalism. She is also a trained Bharatnatyam dancer from Kalamandalm under the tutelage of Dr. Thankumani Kutty.

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BEE Books is an Indian publlishing house headquartered in Kolkata. We have our regional office in Delhi. If you have any queries regarding publishing assistance, please feel free to mail us at: query@beebooks.in