How To Write and Publish Your Book in 6 Months

It is possible to write and publish your book in just 6 months, as long as you have a clear, realistic timeline and adhere to it. 

In this article, I’ll break down what a 6-month book timeline could look like. For a full breakdown of what each step entails, check out our step-by-step guide to creating and publishing a book.

Preproduction: 4 Months

Strategy and Outlining: 1-2 Weeks

Before you begin writing, you should determine exactly why you’re writing your book and outline the content it will include. Give yourself about 1-2 weeks for this planning stage.

Writing: 3 Months

You can realistically write the first draft of your book in 3 months if you establish and stick to a consistent writing routine.

The length of most books I work with is about 50,000 words, so I’ll use that number for this example. To write a 50,000-word manuscript in 3 months, you need to write about 3,850 words per week, and to do that, you’ll spend about 6-7 hours writing each week.

Here are a few options to consider for your writing routine:

• Daily writing: Write for 1 hour every day. For most people, this writing schedule is not sustainable, as it doesn’t allow you to take any days off from writing and makes it easy to get off track. 
• Weekday writing: Write for 1.5 hours on 4-5 weekdays. This is a great option for authors who can squeeze some time in to write before or after their workday.
• 3 designated writing days: Write for 2 hours 3 days per week. Many entrepreneurs choose this option because they find that their schedule is lighter on some days than others. 
• Weekend writing: Write for 3-4 hours on Saturdays and Sundays—ideal for busy entrepreneurs who don’t have time to write during the workweek.

Of course, these are rough estimates and will need some adjustment based on your target word count and writing pace. 

Editing: 1 Month

If you’re hiring an editor after you’ve already drafted your book, you’ll want to allot at least 1 month for editing. This timeline will vary based on the level of editing your manuscript requires and your editor’s typical turnaround time. 

If you work with a ghostwriter or coach throughout the writing process, it’s likely your manuscript will only need light editing after it’s finished, which would take about 2 weeks.

Postproduction: 2 Months

Design: 1 Month

Once your manuscript is finalized, it can be sent off for layout design. Most layout designers can return your print layout within 2 weeks, plus an additional week for any final adjustments and for them to export the ePUB version for your e-book.

At the same time, your front cover can be designed, or you could even have it created while your book is in the final stages of editing, as long as you’ve finalized your title and subtitle, if applicable. 

However, the full version of your print cover, which is a single file containing the front cover, spine, and back cover, cannot be created until your print layout is finalized, as the width of the spine will depend on your book’s page count. This adds about 1 more week to the timeline.

Audiobook (Optional): 1 Month, Overlapping With Design

Creating an audiobook takes about 1 month, but this can happen concurrently with the design stage.

If you’re narrating your own audiobook, you’ll want to give yourself about 2 weeks for recording. A finished audiobook for a 50,000-word book will be approximately 6 hours long, but most authors spend about twice as long actually recording their raw audio.

Before submitting your audiobook for publishing, your raw audio will need to be edited, which will take approximately 2-3 weeks. Depending on who you’re working with and your recording schedule, you may be able to submit files for editing as they’re recorded, rather than waiting until you’re completely finished. 

Publishing: 2-3 Weeks

Most self-publishing platforms advise that it can take up to 2 weeks for a book to be approved and available for purchase after it is submitted for publishing. In my experience, books are typically approved within 72 hours unless you’re submitting at a particularly busy time of year (like end of December/beginning of January), but it’s best to plan for a 2-week window to be on the safe side and ensure you can lock in your launch date. 

I’ve added a possible third week into the timeline here to account for the actual process of submitting your book for publication because this involves making several decisions, such as:

• Whether to purchase your ISBN(s)
• Categories, placement, and keywords
• Paper quality and color
• Placement

If you plan ahead though, these publishing decisions can be made earlier in the process, keeping this portion of the timeline at 2 weeks.

Where To Start

While writing and publishing a book in 6 months is absolutely doable, it is difficult to do successfully on your own. You can hire freelancers to help you with each individual component—writing, editing, design, audiobook production, and publishing; however, managing all of those moving parts is quite time consuming.

For busy entrepreneurs, it makes much more sense to have everything taken care of under one roof, while a trusted partner guides them through the entire process. If that sounds like something you’re interested in, I’d love to chat with you and answer any questions you have. Just schedule a free, no obligation call here or shoot me an email at [email protected].