As the daughter and wife of sailors, and a sailor myself—though more rarely than I’d like—I adore watching boats zip back and forth. Recently my dad got me hooked on watching the America’s Cup hydrofoil racing. And, as usual, my brain started ticking, drawing connections between it and my true passion: helping authors turn their manuscripts into books and send them out into the world.
The boat has a lot of moving parts.
In hydrofoil racing, teams of about eight people crew high-tech 75-foot yachts with pedal-powered hydraulics and lots of buttons. While all the boats generally work the same way, zigzagging along the course using sails and little fin things (foils) that lift them out of the water to reduce friction, the details of each boat’s design are a closely held secret. Some boats use hand-pedaled hydraulics. Others have hired some professional cyclists to pedal stationary bikes. This year the Americans, deciding to look cooler while doing less, switched to recumbent bikes that face the wrong way. The size of the foils differs. Each hull has a different shape. Each sail is different. They all make little custom tweaks to give themselves an edge, and it is very mysterious. It’s also very, very fast. If you’re curious, here’s an explainer about the physics.
The publishing process can be a bit like that, well, except for the fast bit. People with more technical knowledge might know of certain tricks to use in Word that will prevent orphans and widows from showing up, or punctuation from breaking weirdly across lines. Some editors have complicated custom macros that automate a lot of the tedious drudge work, making their process more efficient and much less annoying. Some books have amazing graphic headers or pretty symbols instead of asterisks for scene breaks. How did they do that? And don’t get me started on the magic of sprayed edges.
You might then think a self-published author can never compete with the slick, polished feeling of a traditionally published novel—the headings fit perfectly in the genre, the text lies just right on the page, and all the dialogue punctuation is exactly where it should be. Traditional publishers have whole secret bunkers full of wizards who tap into secret resources and churn out refined, professional products. Right? Actually, they farm a lot of this work out to freelancers like me.
The physics doesn't make sense.
Watching the America’s Cup, it is easy to think “I could never do that. They’re rich people with fancy toys, and I am baffled by the physics … No way. That’s unattainable for me.”
And a lot of authors feel the same way about turning the story in their head into a published book. “It’s impossible; getting an agent is too hard; I don’t know how to navigate the publishing process, and there’s too much competition just to break in. And if I do it myself, it’s just going to look amateurish. I don’t know how to turn this into an ePub. What even is full bleed, and why does it sound so violent? Where do the commas go? And why is everything so difficult and expensive? Do I really need to learn how to do this? I just want to write the story!”
It's all about teamwork.
The thing is, the captain of the ship is not doing everything on their own. Cyclors build up pressure in the hydraulics to adjust the angles of the flaps on the foils, or to raise and lower them. Navigators watch the wind and time the turns, finding the most efficient route. Trimmers make sure the sails are catching exactly the right amount of air to push the boat forward.
In addition to the other seven people in the boat, there’s a whole support network. A coach helps with strategy, and ground crews fix the boat when things go wrong. Another boat tows them up to a fast enough speed just to get to the start line of the race without foundering on their belly. Formula 1 designers help with making sure the hull is both aerodynamic and hydrodynamic. There are people who design the sails. People who secure the sponsorships that pay for the whole thing. Safety crews standing by to save lives. And they’re all in constant communication via radio.
Building your crew
Whether you’re publishing traditionally or independently, you don’t have to do it all on your own. Check out the acknowledgments in the next bestseller you pick up in a bookshop, and you’ll see that they didn’t do it alone either. The key is to find the right crew for you:
- A writing coach helping you strategize and get the story onto the page in a way that makes sense.
- A development editor watching the wind of genre expectations and helping you hit the best pace, so you turn on the right beats.
- A line editor adjusting your sails, tightening your writing, and helping you avoid the throat-clearing and awkward stumbles.
- A copyeditor streamlining your grammar and punctuation.
- A formatter turning your Word text into something that looks like a “real book,” making sure it will whizz through the print and upload steps without capsizing.
- A proofreader picking off the barnacles, polishing the hull, and letting you know that the sail is upside down; was that intentional?
- A cover designer slapping on a slick paint job, turning your book into something that stands out on a shelf while looking professional and genre-appropriate.
- ARC reviewers cheering you on from the sidelines and drumming up support so you can draw in preorders and reviews and leap onto the bestseller lists.
Permission to come aboard?
Self-publishing doesn’t have to mean doing everything yourself. You need a crew and a support team. And I’m working on building one for you.
Part of that involves adding a new add-on service to my packages: Book layout. This interior formatting includes generating ePubs and PDFs that upload smoothly to your ebook and print distributors. They will follow industry standards while giving you a little room to flex your creativity and express the unique voice of your story. Each bespoke layout will be unique to you and fully customizable. Writing a series? I’ll hold onto your settings so you can apply them across all the books, giving the reader a sense of continuity, with a discounted fee after the first book. This service will help you sail through book production, taking you from line editing to copyediting, then formatting, then proofreading, and giving you the ready-to-publish files at the end.
You’re the captain of this ship, but your Gecko Edit crew will trim the sails and do the pedaling for you. And we’ll communicate with you throughout the process, so you have full control.
Weigh the anchor!
PS – I don’t work alone either. A member of my crew proofread this blog post for me: Lorenzo Fusini.
