It's about time for a LifeTips books update, so here's where we are:

 We just finished two books, the LifeTips 101 Public Relations Tips by Mary White book and American Bridal's wedding tips book. They came out great, and we're moving on down our list of books in production. I've just started editing Sheri Ann Richerson's 101 English Garden Tips book, so depending on how many other projects come in the door and how long the printer takes to set up, we're probably looking at 2-5 weeks on that one (there can be up to 2.5 weeks of waiting for the printing company to do their prepress stuff, and my availability to do editing and layout for books depends, as I said, on what other projects we have going on)

 Now that I have a better feel for book production, I think it would be helpful to outline the process:

1. The author writes the book. This should involve at least one round of copyediting by a competent person, or two or three rounds of REALLY CAREFUL self-editing. The single best way to make sure your book comes out quickly and without problems is for your manuscript to be well-organized and error-free.
   
2. The author submits the book. What I'm about to say is a pretty significant departure from what LifeTips policy has been, but I'm personally amenable to writers submitting books in .doc form over email. I lay out books in InDesign, so it's easier for me to import text from a .doc file than the .xls our cms gives me. In the future, I'll create a .doc template for writers to download and use for their manuscripts.
3. I edit the book. This is the stage that is likely to take up the most time if the manuscript hasn't been carefully edited already. Layout is a fairly automatic process, but editing requires a lot of time and attention. In addition, manuscripts with glaring errors of grammar or style can change significantly in the editing process, so a round of careful edits on your part is the best way to ensure that what you write is what gets printed.
4. I lay out the book. This is a relatively straightforward process that takes up to a week or so, depending on how busy we are.
5. I make a .pdf of the book. If the author wants, I can email him or her this pdf for review. That review is time for fixing glaring errors: if a tip has been included twice, if there are problems with numbering, etc. It's the exact wrong time to come up with a lot of text edits--those should all have been made in the very beginning. It's also the wrong time to decide on major changes to the structure of the book; again, that's what the beginning of the process is for.
6. Once the review is done, I send the book to the printing company, which does its own prepress work. That can take up to two and a half weeks, and when it's done, the book is available for printing through us. A month later (give or take) it's available on Amazon.com.