Timing your proofs around a launch date
A launch date is arithmetic, not ambition. Either the blocks of time between today and that date add up, or they do not, and the proof cycle is the block people leave out.
Build the schedule backwards from the date. Forwards, every step feels like it fits. Backwards, you find out in an afternoon whether the date was ever real.
The rule that governs everything: two cycles
Plan for at least two proofs. Not one, and not "one, and a second if something is wrong."
The first proof always finds something. That is what it is for, and a first proof that finds nothing usually means you did not read it properly. So the first cycle is a discovery pass, and you should expect to spend it.
The second cycle is the one that matters, because it confirms the fix rather than hoping. You changed the gutter, or the spine, or a chapter opening. You have a file that should be right. Only a printed copy tells you it is, and approving a change you have only seen on screen puts you back where you started.
Two cycles is the floor, not a target. Plenty of books go to three, and the schedule should not fall over if yours does.
The blocks, in reverse order
Start at the launch date and walk back. Each of these is a real block of days, not a rounding error.
- Launch date. The day readers can buy it.
- Distribution processing. After you approve, the book still has to go live at the stores you distribute to. This takes time and it is not under your control.
- Final approval. You approve the files after the second proof is in your hands and checked.
- Second proof: print, ship, and read it. The reading is a block too. A careful pass through a book is not an evening.
- The fix. Correct the file, re-export, re-upload. Small on paper, and never as quick as you think once the change touches the page count.
- First proof: print, ship, and read it.
- Final files uploaded. The date everything above depends on.
Whatever date step 7 lands on is your real deadline. If it is behind you, the launch date is already gone and you have not admitted it yet.
Use your printer's own numbers, not anyone's
Do not take a printing time, a shipping time or a review time from a guide — including this one. They differ by printer, by country and by season, and they change.
Look them up on your own printer's site, on the day you build the schedule, for the shipping method and destination you will actually use. Then add margin, because the two things that break these plans are international shipping and public holidays, neither of which appears in a quoted estimate.
If you are shipping a proof across a border, treat customs as an unknown block rather than a fixed number. If the schedule only works with the fastest shipping option at every step, the schedule does not work.
The dependency nobody plans for
The interior has to be final before the cover can be.
The spine is computed from the real page count, the paper color and the printer. Change the interior — widen the gutter, add a dedication, cut a chapter, fix a widow that reflows three pages — and the page count moves, so the spine width moves, so the cover file you already approved is the wrong width.
This is the failure that costs a launch. An author approves the cover first, because the cover is the fun part and it feels finished. Then a late interior correction lands, the page count shifts, and the approved cover is now wrong. That is a new cover file and, if you are honest about it, a new proof.
Lock the interior. Then build the cover. In that order, every time.
In the tools. The Interior Formatter flows the final page count straight to the Cover Maker, which computes the spine from it — so a late interior change shows up as a changed spine while you can still act on it, rather than as a wrong wrap on a printed copy. Start your book → · about the tools
Pre-orders make the date immovable
A launch date you have only told your newsletter about can move. A pre-order date is a commitment to a store, and stores treat a missed pre-order as your failure, not a scheduling detail. Some of them have consequences attached — restrictions on setting up the next one, and readers who charged for a book that did not appear.
Check the specific terms wherever you are listing, because they vary and they change. The scheduling rule is simpler: do not open a pre-order until you have a printed proof you would be willing to approve. Announce the date after that, not before.
When the days run out
Sometimes the arithmetic simply does not work. You have one proof cycle left and a date you have told people about.
Launch the ebook on schedule and let the paperback follow. The ebook has no proof cycle, no shipping and no press — you check it on real devices and publish. The print edition arrives a few weeks later with a note on your listing and in your newsletter saying so.
Readers do not punish a staggered release; almost every publisher does it. What readers do notice is a paperback with the text running into the gutter, because you approved a file you had never held.
A delayed print edition costs you a little momentum. An unchecked print file costs you a corrected reprint, a run of one-star reviews about the margins, and every copy already in the post.
The expensive mistake
Ordering the first proof after announcing the date.
At that point every finding has a price attached. The gutter is tight, and fixing it means widening the margin, re-pouring the text, moving the page count, rebuilding the spine and ordering another proof — and you have already told people when the book arrives. So the correction gets argued down to something cosmetic, and the book ships with the fault.
Order the first proof when the files are done. The announcement is what happens after a proof you would be happy to hand to a stranger.
Make your book
The tools are free to use: name your book, bring your manuscript or your artwork, and work as long as you like. You only pay when you want the files without the preview watermark.
Next: Comparing proofs from two printers · More: Order the proof. Then read it in daylight · Pre-orders: what they buy you, and what they cost · Launch week, without the panic · Changing your page count on purpose