Last month, I realized I was writing the very same email for the fourth time. It’s an email I’ve written what must be countless times before in answer to some variation on the question, “how do I publish a book?” I’m asked this question even more than “how do I write a book?” which may say a whole lot about the priorities of today’s aspiring authors. But I’ll cover that question next month.

Now there are lots of ways to publish a book. You can just create a document, post it on Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing, and you’re done. Or you can find an online print shop like Lulu.com and they will offer you ways to self-publish an ebook or print, distribute, and publicize physical copies.

What I’m going to share here is a super crash course on the more mysterious process through a person gets an idea for a book to a traditional publisher and into the market. Here goes:

First, you write a pitch. Ideally, it’s a whole proposal. What’s in a book proposal? Basically, it’s the introduction to your book in five or ten pages; then a list of chapters with a couple of paragraphs on each one; then a page or two on why you’re the best person to write this book; then a page or two on how you’re going to market the book (who is your audience, what magazines have you written for, how many people follow you on Twitter,); and finally, a page of books that are comparable to yours (but somehow different or lacking what you bring). If you’re really advanced, you’ll want to have a sample chapter.

Most folks aren’t in a position to put together something like that without a bit of guidance, so at the very least, start with a short pitch. Three to five paragraphs. If you’re a pilot who saved thirty babies from behind enemy lines or the inventor of a successful nuclear fusion reactor, you don’t need as much support for your pitch as someone with an untested theory for how to use crypto to save penguins, or new approach to meditation.

In any case, you bring your pitch to an agent. Ideally, find an agent through a friend. Thanks to social media, most people know a few writers. If you don’t, or can’t find one willing to introduce you to their agent (most of us are rather protective of our own agents, and try not to send more than a couple of friends to them each year) you can go to the Literary Agents Database at Poets and Writers, or the List of Literary Agents at LiteraryAgencies.com and see who is interested in your kind of book.

You need an agent because most publishers won’t read an unsolicited manuscript. They have to come through an agent. Besides, a good agent will improve your pitch, or help you develop your pitch into a full book proposal. That’s half their job. You will go back and forth, changing and improving, fighting and compromising, until the agent is comfortable sending your proposal to the literary editors they believe will be receptive. You can’t blame them for making sure they really like the proposal before it goes out; it’s their reputation on the line. If they send out marginal proposals, editors will stop accepting their submissions.

Then the agent sends the proposal to a set of editors. Some use a shotgun approach, sending it to thirty or forty editors all at once. Others use a more iterated approach, sending the proposal to five or maybe ten favorite places to see how they respond. If they all reject it but have a common issue, you can regroup and rewrite the proposal before sending it to the next set. Once someone likes the proposal enough to make an offer, the agent calls anyone who hasn’t yet responded and announces they have an offer, and pressures everyone else to bid or pass — usually within a week or two.

So, assuming you’ve gotten this far, you and the agent pick an editor or publisher based on the amount they offered, the reputation of the house and, most importantly to me, how the editors say they want to develop the book. They’re going to be your partner in delivering this baby, so their approach and sensibility matter. Let them earn the 85% of cover price they’re taking off the top. (Yeah, that’s what publishers get).

Your editor will negotiate the particulars of the deal, like how the money is paid out (usually 1/3 on signing, 1/3 on acceptance of the manuscript, and 1/3 on publication), what happens if the editor rejects the book altogether, whether you get approval of the cover, and so on. I try not to worry about this stuff because this is what I’m paying the agent 15% to worry about on my behalf. Oh yeah — the contract also has your deadline, which is usually nine to twelve months from when you sign. After you sign the contract, which takes a couple of months to be generated, your agent requests the first check from the publisher, which usually takes another three months to arrive.

You write your manuscript, sometimes turning in bits and pieces to the editor for guidance along the way. Your editor will write lots of notes on the manuscript (these days, that means comments on an MS Word file) and a nice long “editorial letter.” That’s the important stuff: which chapters worked and which didn’t, whether the book needs to be reorganized, and what needs to happen for the editor to accept it for publication. You may go back and forth with the editor a lot. The more experienced you are, the less like demands and more like suggestions these notes are.

(For me, the older and more experienced I’ve gotten, the more I listen to my editor’s notes. I’ve got a really good editor at this point, though, and I pretty much do everything he says — or at least I respond in some way to every one of his concerns.)

Anyway, you go back and forth until your manuscript is approved. (Or you reach an impasse and it’s rejected. Then you go back to your agent, who tries to sell it somewhere else. Usually, you pay back your advance out of the ‘first moneys’ you receive from the new publisher.) Assuming it’s approved, you then go into “production.” And you get your next check

You work with a copyeditor, who is like an editor except more meticulous. They’re less concerned with the big ideas than your writing and clarity. You’ll get another copy of your manuscript file with hundreds of little notes, and you have to accept or reject (stet) each one. Once the copyedit is completed, your manuscript is converted into “unbound galleys.” That’s your book, laid out in a PDF file as it will be in the final book.

That PDF gets sent to people for blurbs. Usually, the editor asks you for a list of famous people you know who might be willing to offer an endorsement. With any luck, your editor will like the book enough to send it to a couple of their own favorite authors in related fields, as well. The blubbers have a month or two to read it and send their lovingly crafted comments for the cover.

Meanwhile, various forms of copyediting and proofreading continue. There’s a lawyer who does a “legal read,” which is the publisher’s way of making sure no one is going to sue over what you’ve written. So you may need to produce your research, recordings, or evidence, particularly if you’ve named names.

Around the same time, an artist comes up with one or more possible covers for the book. You’ll hate them all at first, but eventually one will grow on you, or you’ll be allowed to suggest a change or combination of elements from a couple of them. If you’re really lucky, they may ask you if you have a “look and feel” in mind before they hire the artist.

After all that, a bound galley is generated — a paperback version of the book with a slightly lower res version of your cover and the text laid out the way it will be in the book. Bound galleys are crazy expensive, so if you want enough to give out to your own friends and press people, ask if you can order and pay for maybe 50 of your own. They will usually be shamed into buying them for you, but if not it’s better to have them for the eight or ten bucks each one costs.

This is about when you’ll meet your publicist. The publisher either provides one or hires a freelancer. People always ask whether it’s worth it to hire your own publicist in addition to theirs. It depends. I usually ask the publisher’s publicist if they’d prefer it. If you do, then the publicist’s usually split up the tasks — like, one does radio and podcasts, and one does print and reviews.

After all that, the final blurbs come in, your editor works with you on copy for the jacket and flap, you give them a nice author photo, and they send the book to the printer. Wait another couple of months, and the book is in stores, you are on podcasts, and a combination of jubilation and disappointment replace the previous combination of excitement and anxiety.

The length of time between “submitting finished manuscript” to “book in stores” is usually about a year. I know. And that’s after at least a year of pitching and writing. That’s why if you really want to publish a book as opposed to a series of Medium posts, you have to be ready to strap in for a long ride, and pick your subject accordingly. Whatever you are pitching at the beginning of the process is meant for human beings living two years in the future.

Later this year I’ll share how to produce a manuscript from an idea. If you think the above looks arduous, just wait.