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scheduling the holiday sales market

If It's Halloween, It Must Be Christmas

It seems that the Christmas sales season is inching closer and closer every year as Christmas trees and decorations go up in the malls sooner and sooner. The general rule of thumb in the retail industry used to be that once Halloween is done, that's it, it's Christmas! The carols start playing 24/7 in the stores and people start shopping, shopping, shopping. Some stores, however, get into the spirit as early as October.

This is one of the most lucrative markets for books, when many buyers hit the stores and pick up a variety of books for both main gifts and stocking stuffers. Sales range from hardcover to paperback and larger format to small pocket-sized booklets. During this time, buyers are not as reluctant to pay for more expensive items that they consider quality keepsakes.

When do you need to start planning? How can you ensure that your book will be ready to hit the shelves or your website in time for the shopping season? It takes proper planning to make sure you don't come in too late with your product and miss your sales and you need to keep several factors in mind when producing your book development plan.

1. Editing

As discusses in our article Top 5 Reasons to Use an Editor, it is important to budget time in your development process to have a professional editor look at what you've written to see if there are ways of improving your words to come up with the best possible product for your readers. You may have missed spelling or grammatical errors, need some facts checked for accuracy, or just need a fresh set of eyes looking over your manuscript.

This step takes time and may take a couple of times back and forth between you and your editor before the manuscript is ready for design and layout. Schedules will vary, depending on your editor and the extent of the services your require, but you should generally budget in 3 weeks to 1 month for this phase.

TIME: 3-4 weeks

2. Design and Layout

Once your manuscript is polished, it is ready for the second phase of development - design and layout. By this phase, if you are self-publishing you should have outsourced and hired a professional book designer, and if you working with a publishing house they should have assigned a designer to your book.

Our article entitled Timing Your Book Design, outlines all the steps required to design and layout a book, and their approximate timelines - from initial cover design to final approved files going to press. This process is lengthy and requires the participation of the author, designer, editor, and any other contractor hired for items such as illustrations, diagrams, or photography. The average time for a standard b&w simple trade book to go through this process is about 8 weeks.

TIME: 8 weeks

3. Printing

Once the design and layout phase is finished, you will be dealing with your printer. At this stage, you will need to review printer proofs and make any corrections to your book before the printer will proceed with the final full printing and ship your books to you. The proofing and corrections phase can vary in time, depending on the number of errors in the book and how quickly you can get them corrected, either by the printer (for a charge) or by your designer. For an standard b& simple trade book the average printing time is roughly 2 weeks. Shipping will vary depending on where the printer is located in comparison to your final shipping destination.

TIME: 3-4 weeks

4. Distribution

In order to get the highest possible sales during the holidays, your best bet is to get your book into traditional bookstores such as Chapters, Indigo, Coles, or other local bookstores. This can be quite hard to do for self-published authors as large chain stores such as Chapters will not accept books from them, but work directly with distributors. As well, these bookstores get their holiday stock lists ready well in advance of the season, allocating the best and most prominent visibility spots in the stores quite early. If you decide that you are going to sell through bookstores, you need to contact a distributor early in the season to find out their deadlines for submission to bookstores for the holidays.

5. Marketing

Many self-published authors choose to sell their books on their own via websites, seminars, trade shows, book readings/signings, and clients. In order to make sure that you are ready for the holiday season and have enough events booked, you need to have a comprehensive marketing plan in place early in the game. This way, you can book space, time, and locations while your book is in production so that you can begin promoting and selling it the minute it is delivered to your door.

If you plan to produce a website to sell you book, you will need to plan and develop it while your book is in production so that it's launch corresponds with delivery of your books.

Christmas in July

If we assume that the stores begin to promote holiday shopping right after Halloween, on November 1st, then the saying of "Christmas in July" is very true for producing your book. Taking into account the time needed to edit, design, layout, and print your book (16 weeks or 4 months), assuming that you have either a marketing plan or have secured a distributor you would need to begin your book in July in order to receive your books at the end of October.

With proper planning and a detailed schedule, your book cam hit the market during the busiest selling season of the year.

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