Welcome! This page is intended to be your go-to resource for questions, guidelines, and materials throughout the life of your book. It serves as a secondary repository of the information that we verbally share in meetings.
Author Portal
Most of these FAQs and resources are oriented towards the sales and marketing side of publishing—for questions about the editorial process, your developmental editor should be your first stop. Our sales and marketing teams are always available to answer further questions or offer specific advice, but we hope that the Author Portal empowers you and educates you about the often complicated world of publishing.
To get started, we recommend that you read through this entire page thoroughly and bring any follow-up questions you may have to your next marketing check-in. Once you’ve familiarized yourself with the portal, you can use the following shortcuts to quickly access one resource area. You may find it useful to bookmark particular pages.
Author Portal
For questions about the editorial or design status of your book, please email your developmental editor.
For questions about your contract, royalty statements, or sales reports, please email
sales@thecollectivebook.studio
To order copies of your book, please email Angela Engel (Founder & Publisher) at angela@thecollectivebook.studio
For marketing inquiries, including questions about your marketing plan, endorsements, changes to your author intake form, or updates on publicity hits, please email Angela Engel (Founder & Publisher) at angela@thecollectivebook.studio
For questions about your ebook or audiobook, please email Elisabeth Saake (Director of Operations and Acquisitions) at elisabeth@thecollectivebook.studio
Author Portal
Phase I of the marketing and publicity timeline occurs between signing your contract with the Collective Book Studio and the manuscript going to design for layout, which covers 6+ months prior to publication date.
The marketing tasks for you as the author in Phase I are planning oriented—this phase is primarily in place to establish a roadmap for success.
That said, below are a few key dates and tasks to know about:
The catalog due date is when your book’s metadata is fed out to online retailers with preliminary specs, description, and design elements. This generally occurs 8-9 months before pub date. In the 4-6 weeks following catalog upload, you may be able to find your book listing online.
This initial upload is a work-in-progress that is buried on sites and consumers can only find if they are actively searching for your title. All marketing copy for online platforms is drafted by The Collective Book Studio. It is optimized for sales within the book trade and consumer SEO.
Early (non-final) versions of the cover and interiors might be part of this initial data feed. This same data that appears in online retail sites feeds into the portals used by our sales team and they often require visuals early (before materials are finalized) to sell-in the title successfully to accounts. These visuals will be updated in the feed and replaced with finalized versions when they become available.
*Please Note: We have no direct control over Amazon categories. We can try to influence categories with keywords and BISACs, but some of the categorization also has to do with consumer behavior and what other types of books are often searched or purchased with a specific title. Meaning, consumer behavior can influence where a book is categorized on the Amazon marketplace.
The kickoff marketing meeting lasts 30-45 minutes and is the author’s first introduction to the marketing team. There are a few goals for this meeting:
Phase II of the marketing and publicity timeline occurs between receiving 1st galley interior design and sending files to the printer for pre-press.
This phase begins five months before pub date and ends just before the publication of your book. This is a very busy time as you will be actively reviewing the in-process book file.
The purpose of Phase II is to begin implementing the plans discussed in Phase I and determine any additional marketing initiatives now that the book is in layout.
The overview marketing meeting is intended to cover the detailed outline of the marketing plan. This is the time to ask questions about specific marketing targets and bring in a publicist if you so choose.
There are a few goals for this meeting:
Sales Conference is a seasonal conference where we present titles to our sales team. During this event, our sales reps get direct insight into our upcoming titles and a full overview of our marketing and publicity plan for your book.
From there, our sales reps use the information they learn at Sales Conference to sell your book into stores like Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and other specialty accounts.
This is when two copies of your book, hand bound, arrive for final approval and early sales outreach. All materials for your book have already been printed at this point, and our team is primarily looking to approve production of the binding and format.
Typically, one copy of the book will go to you, and the other will go to our sales team at S&S, or will be used at industry events.
This is when a number of advance copies (typically 30-60) arrive for early sales and marketing outreach. These are pulled from the regular stock that arrives by boat/train and shipped by air to expedite arrival.
The marketing team sends these advances to our sales team and key accounts, as well as to trade review media, booksellers, librarians, and book bloggers for early reviews.
The marketing team will work with you and your publicist (if you have one) to determine the correct amount of advances to order.
Phase III of the marketing and publicity timeline is anything and everything that occurs after your book is published and available for sale.
Pub date is the day that your book is released (e.g., goes on sale across retailers). This is one of the most important dates in the life of the book, because friends, family, media, booksellers, and other partners will naturally gravitate towards promoting your title on this day.
Pub date is the day that you saturate your social media with book promo, and push hard for sales and reviews. For more specific pub date to-do’s, reference the FAQ list.
As long as you are promoting your book, there will be the opportunity for press coverage. As these key dates and press hits come along, make sure you share them with our marketing team.
Author Portal
Have a question but don’t see an answer below? Email your question to faq@thecollectivebook.studio and we’ll update our FAQs for you and other authors. We’ll also reach out directly to make sure you get the answers you need for your book specifically.
The final files for your book will be made available to you after your title officially passes “OK Press”. At this time, the printer is given the “okay” to print your book and all materials are officially final for the 1st print run.
Our team requires 1-2 weeks to archive and package the final book materials. Once the files are ready, you will receive a Dropbox link to your official Author Portal. All final book materials will be stored in this folder, including:
We recommend that you bookmark this link and reference it for any material needs in the future. We also strongly advise our authors to archive or delete old versions of the book from their devices to avoid confusion.
S&S is our distributor. They are based in New York, where they warehouse all of our books. S&S’s sales team handles outreach to accounts including Barnes & Noble, Amazon, Target, independent bookstores, gift stores, etc. to get your book into stores.
Your book will be available everywhere books are sold. That means that while not every retailer will have copies on hand, it should be available for order online, or customers can request a copy in store.
Most stores, including Barnes & Noble, have an inventory or store locator tool that will let you know whether they have copies on hand.
If you would like your book to be sold in a particular store, there are a few steps to take:
Author photos are requested as a part of the initial kick-off form. While these can certainly change over time, we always ask that all book contributors always submit a photo of themselves so we can use it for early sales materials.
Your final author photo should ideally be:
Your author photos should NOT be:
Yes! If you need to offer a discount for a particular event or marketing opportunity, we can create a promotion code for a particular date range. This will be applicable for buyers purchasing directly from our distributor. Please note, this discount code is only applicable at The Collective Book Studio online store.
Yes! You can either send a digital PDF review copy, or you can request free Apple eBook (or Libro.fm audiobook) download codes. In turn, we will request these from our distributor, so please allow 2-3 weeks for delivery.
Here is a document from our distributor with helpful tips and information about your Amazon Author page.
You’ll need to register through Amazon’s Author Central. Please note that we cannot do this on your behalf, as your author profile is linked to your personal Amazon login details.
Upload your photo and author bio, plus any relevant video materials. This step is important to increase visibility in Amazon’s algorithm.
The Goodreads Author program is very straightforward. First, you need to log into or create a Goodreads account. Then, you visit your title page, and submit the application to “claim” your book. For more info on this setup process, visit Goodreads.
*Note about Goodreads: Goodreads does not accept data feeds from publishers and instead gets their data directly from Amazon.
If there is an issue with key title data (author name, pub date, etc.) S&S is able to request changes through Amazon, which will eventually feed onto the platform (S&S has no control over this timeline).
We are unable to influence formatting issues on Goodreads or impact when they ingest new data. We understand that this can be extremely frustrating. Often the best path forward is for authors to reach out directly to the volunteer Goodreads Librarians who manage the site.
You can get early reviews for your book in several ways, including:
ARCs - A cheaply printed and bound version of your book in it’s earliest stage. ARCs are usually mailed to a list of reviewers and media contacts. They are most commonly made from the 2nd Galley interiors of your book and takes 4-6 weeks to create once files are available.
DRCs - A digital PDF version of your book that is uploaded to industry-facing platforms. DRCs are automatically uploaded and managed by the Collective Book Studio team.
Advance Copies - Early copies of your book sent via air directly from the press. These are generally used for high-profile media connections and key sales accounts. Advance copies arrive 6-8 weeks before the bulk of your books land in the warehouse.
Your book will begin feeding out online around 6-8 months before your pub date. Your book will not be easily viewable to consumers until 3-4 months before pub date and our team builds all marketing timelines with this in mind.
This data feed originates from our distributor (S&S) and early materials is intended exclusively for account specific sales purposes (not consumer facing sales).
2-3 months prior to your publication date we will have a flip video of your book available on both our YouTube page and in your book’s listing on our website.
All marketing copy for online platforms is drafted by The Collective Book Studio. It is optimized for sales within the book trade and consumer SEO.
The online marketing copy will evolve as your book moves through production and the pub date approaches. Early (non-final) versions of the online marketing copy are part of the initial data feed and is used for early sell-in to accounts by our sales team.
We are not able to customize online marketing copy based on author requests. However, if you see an error in the online data please reach out to data@thecollectivebook.studio
Preordering is available for books as soon as they become available online at the following online retailers:
You can also pre-order ebooks at the following stores:
Preordering via the Direct from Publisher link becomes available three weeks before the pub date of your book.
If you need copies of your book for personal reasons, use the Author Fulfillment form to request copies.
Please note that if you are planning to use these books for resale, these books can only be sold for private parties, corporate gifting, libraries, and schools.
If you are looking for The Collective Book Studio to process and bill a special order from a bookstore or organization, please email orders@thecollectivebook.studio.
Orders placed through the Author Fulfillment form will be delivered within 10–14 business days. All orders are shipped via UPS Ground unless a specific rush date is specified.
For book orders under 100 units, shipping costs will be applied to your royalty statement for this period. For book orders over 100 units, an invoice will be sent out for payment prior to shipping your order.
For maximum support, we encourage your readers to purchase their books directly through The Collective Book Studio's website.
Your book can also be purchased "everywhere books are sold"—that includes Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Bookshop.org, gift stores, and independent bookstores. Even if a store is not currently stocking your title, they can always special order it.
Plan to arrive 15-20 minutes before the event begins.
Most authors choose for their website domain to be their name or their book title. If you want to be known as a leader in your field, or your identity/experience is very important to your book, then your website should probably be your name.
If your book stands on its own, and you’d rather the content is highlighted first, then a title-specific domain may be more appropriate.
There are many routes to creating a great website, whether that’s hiring a web designer or building one yourself through WordPress, Squarespace, etc.
A great, customizable, and low-maintenance option is PubSite. The Collective Book Studio authors get special discounted rates at this time.
There are two PubSite packages:
DIY Option
Authors can sign up for a free 14 day trial here. PubSite has videos and information on their help site.
PubSite Creates
Please review their setup service, testimonials and our portfolio for inspiration. Fill out the following form. In either case, authors will get a discount of $14.99/month for the first year.
Once your book goes to press, all of your book’s files/assets will be added to an author portal folder in Dropbox. If you have trouble locating this folder, or something is missing, contact the marketing team.
While your website can include any number of things, these are the most important things to feature:
Home Page
Your homepage should feature your book(s) and have a brief description of who you are.
Buy Books
This page should include images of your book and buy links to top bookselling sites.
About the Author Page
Go in-depth about who you are and, perhaps your journey as a writer/professional. You may also choose to add a page here with different versions of your bio for media usage.
Social Media
It’s also a great idea to make sure that you have links to all of your social media platforms like Instagram, Twitter, or LinkedIn.
At the very minimum, you should include the following retail platforms on your site:
If you have an eBook available for sale you should also include links on the following platforms:
If you are holding signings and events in partnership with a specific local bookstore, you can also highlight the buy link for that bookstore.
At this time, it is not necessary to add bulk ordering information to your site. If you would like to add something, you may add a simple line saying the following:
"For bulk ordering information click here."
Link that text to this URL: https://thecollectivebook.studio/pages/ordering
There are tons of great author websites out there, but these are some of our favorites:
Author Portal
Royalties on Direct Sales are paid out in the same royalty period that they are received by The Collective Book Studio.
Distribution Sales are entered into the system one quarter (90 days) behind when payment is received. Author royalties are reflected on statements the following quarter. The Collective Book Studio does not receive the net royalties until three months after the actual sale.
See below for important royalty statement dates. Click on the left and right arrows within the table to toggle between years.
The fiscal quarter of your book is determined by the book’s pub date. Your first royalty check will be issued within a 90-day period after the closing of the relevant fiscal quarter.
For example, if your pub date was November 1st 2021, your first statement and royalty check would be issued by September 30th, 2022.
Your royalty statements will be sent via email from statementportal.net [at] mailgun.statementportal.net
Statements will go to the email address you confirmed in the Contributor Information Form.
If you are having trouble locating your royalty statements, please search for the email address above in your spam folder. If you are still unable to find your statements, please email sales@thecollectivebook.studio
Royalty statements will be issued 90 days after the closing of each fiscal quarter.
For example, if your pub date was November 1st 2021, your first statement would be issued by September 30th, 2022. Your second royalty statement would be issued by December 30th, 2022.
These are called adjustments, and they are noted in your statement under Statement Summary > Advances and Expenses. They can include charges for shipping, award submissions, or other shipping/marketing expenses.
For questions about a specific adjustment, contact sales@thecollectivebook.studio
Author Portal
So you just scored an amazing press hit, review or blurb? First off, congratulations! Second, we want to know about it and help you shout it from the rooftops!
In order for The Collective Book Studio team to robustly support the sales of your book and keep your book’s metadata clean, we need to know about any and all press hits as soon as possible. We also need to make sure to get all of that information in a specific way so that it can feed directly online and to our distributor.
In this section, we outline how you or your publicity team can share your latest press hits with our team. All confirmed, live press hits need to be shared with The Collective Book Studio in one of two ways:
This form contains all necessary fields to input press hits and directly feeds into our database.
If you need to upload more than 10 press hits at once, please reach out to publicity@thecollectivebook.studio. That internal team member will then need to import the data into our internal database.
After submitting, external users have the opportunity to view all press that has been input into our system for each title. The goal in sharing this is to be as transparent as possible about what we have access to at any given time. If you have questions about what is shown in this view, please reach out to publicity@thecollectivebook.studio
Author Portal
Have you just set up a book reading, appearance, event, or festival? First off, congratulations! We want to hear about it and help you promote it effectively!
To ensure that The Collective Studio Team can support your event by providing the necessary books and communicating information to our sales and marketing teams, please inform us about any author events as soon as they are planned. The sooner an event is on your radar, the sooner you should share it with us.
To share information and receive assistance, please email us at:
events@thecollectivebook.studio
