People in the Publishing Process
In Book Publishing Options in 2026, we discussed the types of publishers and publishing options currently available for authors. Whether your goal is traditional publishing, hybrid, or self-publishing, the process follows a similar trajectory and generally involves several professional collaborators with very specific roles. Traditional publishers will offer these services in-house as part of your publishing contract. Hybrid publishers may offer these services in-house or contract them out to freelancers at the author’s expense. If you’re considering the self-publishing route, you’ll seek out, vet, and pay for each of these services yourself.
Coaches and Editors
You’ll likely want to start with a writing coach and/or developmental editor. When choosing a coach, think carefully about what you need. There are writing coaches (like me!) who have significant formal education and background experience in writing and editing and can guide you through both the writing and publication processes from a professional writing standpoint. A coach with a professional writing background will provide clear developmental guidance along with practical support like accountability, network connections, problem-solving, and the benefit of industry experience. Other coaches may have completed coaching certifications but lack extensive writing and editing experience. A good writing coach will be both an experienced developmental editor and a knowledgeable personal guide throughout your writing and publishing journey.
If you decide to use a traditional or hybrid publisher, your writing coach should be able to help you with pitching your book, writing a proposal or query letter, and evaluating a potential press.
If you want to pare down and start with someone who is strictly a developmental editor, you’ll look for someone who provides high-level guidance around issues like structure, organization, pacing, storyline, voice, characterization, and other considerations that affect development. Good developmental editors are collaborators who generally analyze a complete manuscript draft and offer specific editorial feedback and in-draft mark-ups, targeting and refining the larger-order issues you’ll want to solidify before moving on. Developmental editing could be a one-and-done situation, or there may be several rounds of revisions and evaluation. The time and complexity of this stage will depend on your needs and the agreement you make with your developmental editor.
Many developmental editors will also offer line-level editing and language suggestions, but, even so, you’ll want to have a designated line editor, also called a copy editor. Each editor has a very specific job, and it is important that your developmental editor, copy editor, and proofreader be different people. If you’re on an extremely tight budget and you’re asking your writer friends to serve in editorial roles, you’ll still want multiple sets of eyes on your manuscript at strategic intervals. Even if you have the skills to do all the editing yourself, I caution you against doing so. You, the writer, are too close to your draft, which is why you brought in a developmental editor. After working with you to revise your manuscript, your developmental editor has also become too close to your project. This means it’s time to bring in a copy editor. And so on.
Once your developmental draft is complete, you’ll look for a line editor or copy editor who will give you more detailed sentence-level feedback. A copy editor will analyze your draft for consistency, phrasing, and clarity. A copy editor will also develop a style sheet that lists standard spelling, capitalization, and formatting choices so these choices remain consistent and can be conveyed to your proofreader for the next, and final, stage of editing.
A proofreader is the final set of editorial eyes, evaluating your draft for errors and inconsistencies. A proofreader comes in when the manuscript is complete and ready for the polishing kind of editing that makes all the hard work shine.
Design and Preparing for Print
The next step is design, although this may happen in concert with proofreading. A designer uses a computer program like Adobe InDesign to set the pages so that margins are precise, font is perfect, and each page is laid out just so. This includes titles and chapter breaks, front and back matter, headers and footers, and everything in between. If your book includes visuals or images in addition to text, those will come in at this point as well. The designer will also design and set the front cover, back cover, and spine of your book.
Once design is underway, it’s time to purchase an ISBN (or ten!) from Bowker Publishing Services, the Library of Congress’s official identifier service. You’ll need a separate ISBN for each format, including hardcover, paperback, audiobook, and e-book. Any book, whether e-book or print book, that you intend to sell widely across different retailers requires an ISBN, or International Standard Book Number. You can publish for personal use without an ISBN, but you cannot sell your book or place your book in public or university libraries without one. If you intend to sell an e-book exclusively on Amazon, you may not need an ISBN, as Amazon has their own identifier system. If you’re at all serious about publishing your book, my suggestion is to get the ISBN.
Printing (Or Not)
By this point in the process, you have probably decided whether you want to publish your book in print, electronically, or both, and your designer has formatted your manuscript for the appropriate path forward.
While all aspects of the manuscript preparation process are personal, the available paths really diverge here, where the author identifies and chooses an outlet or outlets for presenting their work to the world.
If you’ve chosen to publish your manuscript as an e-book, you may choose to work with Amazon or another online retailer like B&N Press or Apple Books. You might also choose a print-on-demand option like Amazon KDP or IngramSpark.
If you decide to print your manuscript, you’ll want to find a printer. You can do this locally and manage inventory and fulfillment yourself, or you may choose an all-in-one company, like Accutrak or Omnipress that will print your books, manage your inventory, and manage the fulfillment and shipping parts of the sales process for you. All of this depends on the kind of book you are selling, your budget, and your goals.
Marketing and distribution can be the most challenging part of the publishing process. We’ll tackle sales in Let’s Talk About Publishing, Part 3.
