The people behind the book edition!

As an author it is difficult to understand how complex a process publishing a book is. Because of this very complexity of a publication, most of us cannot imagine the number of professionals required to get a perfect book into the hands of readers. And we say this primarily as writers, since all of us in the iWrite family are lucky enough to belong to this special category of Greek creators.

Somehow, most people outside the industry have the mistaken impression that a book is mostly about the author and maybe an editor, but the reality is far from that. The truth is that the process is much more demanding, since the writing and printing of a book are only two of the dozens of stages that each book must go through before it is transformed into a perfect and neat (in all respects) book.

And make no mistake, at iWrite we firmly believe that writers are truly unique people. They belong to that small caste of people with great patience, inexhaustible imagination, terrifying self-organization and countless reserves of self-confidence that are tested every time they receive a criticism from friends, publishing houses, marketing experts, philologists, etc. Ultimately and above all, they are the soul of a book.

If it wasn't for them, their book would not have been published, since their own text is the paints & brushes that publishing professionals are called upon to use to fill the blank canvas that is every book at the beginning of birth of.

On the other hand, if it were only the author in his struggle for recognition, then his book would by no means have the form it finally has when it reaches the hands of the readers. It wouldn't have all those quality features that make it enjoyable to read, all those "small" things that have become and must remain "invisible" to the reader's eyes when he starts reading and magically enters the author's world .

The creative editorial team at iWrite hopes that this text will help you understand all the demanding and amazing work that goes into each edition by a large team of outstanding professionals involved in each edition. From the proofreader or editor of a book, to the individual bookseller who, with his own criteria, is called upon to recommend books to the potential reader.

Publishing a book is a "chaotic process" to the untrained eye, which only through the help of a team of hard-working and talented professionals can lead to an excellent result.

Η Special Conditions Group of iWrite has the responsibility (and always acting in the background, i.e. remaining "invisible") to ensure that everything (just before the end of the process) will "bind" in a magical way and the book that will be published will essentially be the author's vision…

Before an author sends their book to an agent or publisher, they entrust it (all or parts of it as they write it) to their first readers for initial honest reviews. First readers can be friends, acquaintances, the author's family, or online “friends” who love books and the process of first reading.

First readings are a necessary process, during which the author is called upon to make minor corrections and adapt his original text to the needs of his readership.

Without the generosity, the available time and the encouraging words of the first readers, the book would never have "escaped" from the manuscripts or the computer of the author.

Another common misconception is that the publisher reads every book proposal sent to them (manuscript or digital text file) and ultimately decides which books will be published and which will not. But this can be a reality only for a few and very small publishing houses, which receive 20-30 proposals from authors every year and publish 5-10 books per year.

In short, the reality in the industry is far from over. Who, then, is the one who reads the authors' initial proposals and distinguishes which ones are worth the attention of a publishing house?
In addition to the first readers, there are also the so-called "professional readers", that is, those who, on behalf of each major publishing house, read every book proposal that is made and send their comments to the editorial team. Based on these comments, then, it is decided which book and which author is worthy of the publisher's trust to work on the next best-seller.

Speaking of iWrite, we work with dozens of professional readers across Greece, each of whom focuses on a specific genre (novels, fiction, poetry, DIY books, technical books, etc.). Over the years, we have managed to find the right people and trust their opinion knowing that it is close to our own philosophy.

You will already have begun to understand that for the publication of each book, dozens of professionals are involved. Somehow, it is impossible for an author to talk to each one of them separately, let alone be sure that the decisions he will make together e.g. with the philologist they will arrive in time to the atelier or the marketing department.

This work at iWrite is undertaken by the "publishing consultant", an experienced and trusted partner of ours who has proven over the years that he puts the author at the center of every process. So every author has as a point of reference their own publishing symbol, with whom they talk often (so often that they often develop a friendly relationship) and trust them with any small or big issue that arises.

The "publishing consultant" always has in mind the "big picture" of each publication, i.e. he knows what stage the book is at, what problems arose and how they were solved, what different points of view exist and need to be bridged, what problems the author (and the perhaps prevent him from being available at any time during the publishing process of his book) etc.

For iWrite, the "publishing consultant" of each project is an important and necessary member of the team, since he is the first to understand the author's vision and the one to ensure that this vision is realized...

Another common misconception is that the text of a book is overwhelmingly the original text handed down by an author. This is not true, however, regardless of whether the author is a newcomer or established.

Besides, consider this: the role of the writer is to take you on a journey, to entertain you and to educate you. He is not obliged to know all the syntactic and grammatical rules of the Greek language, nor details such as the correct way to use punctuation marks, what is and what is the meaning of enclitic tones, where is placed and where is not final -n, etc.

In fact, the philologist, in addition to the correction or editing he will do (two different procedures that the choice between them is based on the original text) is also a first... paginator. That is, it ensures that the text that will be sent to the design studio will be structured in such a way that it is possible to properly paginate it: for example, it ensures that the text will not have double spaces between words, punctuation will have the correct spaces with their adjacent words and more.

In the event that a philologist is asked to edit a book, then he is asked to be involved in the expression of the author, in the semantic coherence of the story he tells and many other things. In this case, the story remains the author's, but the flow of the text is a joint work of the latter with his editor.

Translators are in a way the "secret superheroes" of the publishing industry, since they are not recognized in the slightest for the real work they do in translating a work into a new language.

The misconception here is that translation can be done by anyone who knows e.g. English or has a foreign language degree. In short, it could be the author himself. But the reality is very (very) far away.

First, translation is never verbatim or sentence by sentence. The translator should know very well the language into which he is asked to translate a book, know the slang of the new language, its different dialects, the way the average reader expresses himself in it, verbs used by the average e.g. English and more.

In short, the translator must be able to take an author's writing style and feeling and transfer it to a new language, making the final text as readable and engaging as the author's book in its original language.

After the work of the philologist and the translator (when the latter is necessary), professional designers finally enter the process. They are the people who focus more on the technical aspects of a book, such as correct color separation (even black and white in black and white books), correct spacing (in millimetres) between text and page edge, between body text and headings or pagination etc.

Also, from an artistic point of view, the interior designer has a responsibility to choose the right typefaces from an aesthetic point of view, which at the same time will be easy to read and will not be a reason to pause while reading a book (or even cause a reader to give up the book) .

It is a common phenomenon that authors, excited about their work and using Word, choose inappropriate fonts and proceed with a single "euphemistically" pagination that "dooms" their book to obscurity.

The pagination of the interior of a work is the A and Z for the pleasant reading of a book and is a stage where a professional designer is necessary and not just a "luxury".

This is where the "crazy artists" of the publishing industry come in, the people who spend hours every day watching what book covers are being published, how the different currents of aesthetics are evolving globally, what is common and what is innovative in the book covers of the category of each work respectively and more.

He is the man who will take the author's idea and make it into an image, giving it form, power and effectiveness. He is the person who will ensure that a book's cover will lead the prospective reader to pick it out and pick it up at a bookstore or book fair.

Finally, it is the professional who will prepare the cover - back cover mockup in an impeccable way, from a technical point of view, in order to print an excellent quality book: he checks distances, color separation, cutting points, bleeds and slug areas, as well as a series of dozens of others issues. In fact, no matter how much inspiration there is, if the designer is not capable of handling all these technical issues of a model with ease, the final result will turn out to be amateurish at best!

After all the editing processes of the book are completed (at the level of philologist, design, etc.), the book enters the production-publishing process. At this point, the publishing consultant of each project is responsible for choosing the right printing facility and the right professional for the perfect production of a project.

The first stage, therefore, is the printer, who, in addition to the extensive experience he must have in publishing, is also responsible for choosing the appropriate printing machines for the careful printing of each book.

Books, depending on their content and design, have different printing requirements. For this reason, the last decade has seen a "revolution" in the development of printing machines, which now moves on two levels: offset printing and digital printing.

This is where companies - giants on a global level, such as Xerox, Konica Minolta, etc. "come into play", which are evolving every year in their effort to remain pioneers in the field of printing.

Therefore, the appropriate printer must be informed and remain alert by developing his fleet of printing machines every year. This, combined with its recognized experience with hundreds of successful publications over the past few years, makes it a suitable choice for iWrite's “Special Circumstances Team”!

Immediately after printing and cutting the pages of a book, it is the bookbinder's turn. Like the printer, he too has the responsibility to maintain a sophisticated fleet of specialized bookbinding machines and at the same time to train every year in their proper use.

After all, how many times have we not seen in excellent works (at the level of writing and design) that the pages leave our hands and the book is destroyed? Why does this happen? Why did the author or publisher choose an inadequate professional for such an important and demanding task.

So after the production process of a book is completed and the copies are delivered to the premises of a publishing house, the role of the distributor is activated. It is the person (or team of people, as is the case with iWrite Publishing) who will contact physical and online bookstores, ensuring that the book will be available either in their shelves or on order in less than 1-2 days.

Also, the distribution manager is the one who has chosen the appropriate partners for sending the books throughout Greece, Cyprus and abroad and knows at all times what stage an order is at. Because what's the point of aiming for a big promotion of a book, if when the orders come you don't manage to serve them immediately and professionally?

So after a book appears on the shelves of a physical or online bookstore, the bookseller or a bookstore employee takes an active role.

In small local bookstores, we often see incredibly knowledgeable people who are able to recommend the right books to the right readers. In larger bookstores (or their chains) the specialization is even greater, since a bookstore employee is often responsible for a specific category of books (literature, poetry, science books, etc.).

They, the unseen "heroes" in the publishing industry, often have a lot of responsibility and "power" in their hands, since regardless of the effort of promoting a publishing house, they are the ones who at the end of the day will decide whether a work is placed (and in which position) on the shelves of a bookstore!

In a world where the internet is taking on an increasingly large role in the process of searching for and buying a book, traditional methods of promotion in the industry are not enough on their own.

For this reason, organized and serious publishing houses cannot exist today without a web designer - SEO (Search Engine Optimization) strategist in their team. The latter is the one who will prepare the subpage of a book on the publisher's website (or sometimes even a separate website for a book, as is often the case with iWrite Publications), will make sure that everything is compatible with the promotion through Social Media ( Facebook, Twitter, etc.), that there are the right keywords for search engines, that proper search engine optimization has been done at all levels, etc.

That's why working with an inexperienced or self-proclaimed developer (many times known to the author or publisher) is the most wrong choice that is capable (by itself!) of condemning a book to online obscurity. And the wrong presentation of a new book on the internet, several times means "non-existence" for the eyes of the readers!

And what about conventional and modern media and promotion? What about television and radio broadcasts, newspapers and magazines, specialized blogs and websites, organized Facebook pages for readers, etc.?

Clearly, an author can try to promote his book somewhere (at some point), but if this is not done in an organized way, then its impact will be limited and with an expiration date. The right and professional marketing manager will therefore create a promotion plan, making sure that a new book is presented in different media and at the right timing. He will also make sure that the promotional moves are not all done in a few days, but are "spread" over time, thus building and maintaining the interest of the readership.

In the iWrite team we have some of the strongest names in book marketing in Greece. Being authors themselves, they understand that a proper promotion plan can only be established through communication with the author...

So, is it possible to publish a book without giving the author the opportunity to talk to the reading public about his new work? With a few special exceptions, at iWrite we think not! For this reason, book launches are a big chapter for us, which we prove in practice with dozens of related events throughout Greece every month.

The person in charge of book presentations therefore undertakes the correct organization of an event from start to finish: correct choice of date, choice of suitable venue, composition of panel of speakers, preparation of promotional material and its production (posters, invitations, Facebook and social media images, etc.) , sending books to the site and communicating with the people responsible for it and much more.

It is the person who will make sure on the day of the book launch that everything is properly organized, so as to allow the author, the reader and the publisher to enjoy an all-in-one writing evening...

Just before the end, we should by no means forget all the helpers who put their little stone into a book edition. They are the people who, loving the book, chose to do their internship for 2-3 months in a publishing house.

They are the people who, while they had the choice to spend a quiet period of practical work in some vast enterprise or public service (just having a coffee once in a while), chose to contribute to the book space and help an author make his dream come true.

While we can't speak for internship conditions across the publishing industry, at iWrite we make sure that young professionals who choose us for internships feel proud of the few months they spend with us. And when we say we want them to feel proud of their choice, we mean on all levels…

Finally, we must not forget to mention the release coordinator. He is the man whose name we often find on the identity page of every book and about whom we know nothing.

As you saw above, dozens of professionals are involved in the publishing process of a project. In fact, the stages of this process are often so many that in the eyes of an outside observer everything looks "chaotic". Order in this "chaos" is therefore ensured by the release coordinator, communicating with all involved professionals at the right time, supervising all release stages, coordinating all individual tasks and solving all problems that may arise.

In short, he is the person with perhaps the greatest responsibility in a publishing house, since he is tasked with being everywhere when and if needed!

And of course, we should not forget the publisher or publishers, that is, the people who take financial risks on a daily basis focusing their efforts on culture and the book. They are the people who know the vision of the respective publishing house better than everyone else, they live and breathe for the books they publish, sleep and wake up with the creative stress of evolution and creating a cultural legacy for the future.

Publishers are responsible for properly staffing the remaining positions with equally creative people. In short, it is their responsibility to seek out and discover the right restless spirits who will give future and perspective to their joint publishing journey.

Finally, there are not a few times when they are asked to make the final decisions when the plurality of opinions makes a unanimous decision of all the above impossible...