How does a book actually get published? We followed one from draft to shelves. Clare Mulroy, USA TODAYSun, March 22, 2026 at 1:01 PM UTC 0 They call it a "book birthday" for a reason. After all the hard work, a novel finally lands on bookshelves. A new story is born. But the gestation period, if you will, is often a mystifying process to readers. How does a book go from idea to physical product? Curious, I spent a year following Lucy Score and her new romance novel, "Mistakes Were Made." For most authors, writing a book starts as a solitary mission. It's just you and the page.
How does a book actually get published? We followed one from draft to shelves.
Clare Mulroy, USA TODAYSun, March 22, 2026 at 1:01 PM UTC
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They call it a "book birthday" for a reason.
After all the hard work, a novel finally lands on bookshelves. A new story is born. But the gestation period, if you will, is often a mystifying process to readers. How does a book go from idea to physical product?
Curious, I spent a year following Lucy Score and her new romance novel, "Mistakes Were Made." For most authors, writing a book starts as a solitary mission. It's just you and the page. But after spending months in seclusion, dozens of people come on board. Between agents, editors, marketers and manufacturers, it can take years of decision-making to get a book into readers' hands. Last week, we brought you a retelling of our entire journey following Score. Now, learn exactly how a book is born.
Score's "Mistakes Were Made" debuted at No. 4 on USA TODAY's Best-selling Booklist this week. Here's where it started.
Writing the book and planning the publishing timeline
Every book and every author has a different timeline. Score, like many romance authors, has a prolific output – this is her 35th book in just 11 years. Some writers take years, even decades, to finish a draft. And for first-time authors, there's an entire process to find an agent (called "querying" a manuscript) and sell the novel to publishers.
Score started as a self-published, independent author before nabbing a lucrative print-only deal at Bloom Books, an imprint of Sourcebooks. Because she maintains digital and audio rights, she's in the driver's seat more than the typical author. Sourcebooks is known to sign previously self-published authors with successful or BookTok viral books.
"Authors who come into Bloom already have a very fast flywheel going. They already have a lot of demand and what they're really looking for is being able to have an increased distribution, increased presence in the marketplace," says Christa Désir, the publisher's editorial director.
Score signs an early copy for a reader the night before "Mistakes Were Made" goes on sale.
Many factors go into deciding the timeline and on-sale date. For Score's "Mistakes Were Made," the publisher worked backward from Score's preferred on-sale date. That's an unusual process. Often, the publishers decide on a sale date independent of the author. With all eyes set on March 10, 2026 for Score's new book, Désir's team broke down how much time the manufacturers would need to print each special edition.
Knowing it would take Score about six months to get the draft ready, Désir also had to account for the time the author is touring, during which she won't have time to write or edit. They'll need to budget a few extra months to build early buzz with trade publication reviews (like Publishers Weekly and Kirkus), preorders and marketing campaigns. Books typically release on Tuesdays, and the publishers consider what they'll be competing against on a given date. After they square away those details, Désir gives Score a year's worth of deadlines. If they want to keep up, she'll need to turn in the draft by June 11, 2025.
Back at home, Score starts with a rough character sketch of her protagonists and then fleshes out the scenes, writing in strict 25-minute increments. After she writes the first draft, she'll go back to the beginning and rewrite nearly every sentence.
Team Lucy Score includes a dedicated crew of the author's family, former readers and more. The publisher houses dozens more specialists to edit, design and distribute the book.Editing the manuscript and designing the book
In July, Score walks me through her editing process at her farmhouse in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania. She's started on developmental edits, which deal with plot and character. These are the most intense edits on her draft, emotionally and otherwise. After turning in the book, she has "two weeks of bliss where I think the book is perfect and done and everything's wonderful," Score quips. "Then the developmental edits come in and my soul has to shatter and I have to rail at the injustice of it all."
After this, Désir's team embarked on line edits, proofreading and sensitivity reads to look for smaller typos and inconsistencies.
Around this time, a team of designers from Bloom is strategizing cover art with Score. She knew she wanted a yellow cover and thought disco balls were an apt metaphor for the main character, Zoey, who is "made up of broken pieces" but "can still shine."
Bloom originally showed her a mockup, but the disco ball's lines were too thick, and it didn't sparkle quite right. She went to Kari March, a Colorado-based designer who has crafted nearly all of Score's cover art, and started work on something new. Designing a cover is "a lot of stock photos and trial and error," March says.
Bestselling author Lucy Score takes us behind the scenes for an exclusive look at the creation of her latest romance novel, Mistakes Were Made.
"Mistakes Were Made" was an easier design because they'd already agreed on fonts for the Story Lake series. Over a video call, March walks me through her process. It took her about a week to play around with concepts and incorporate Score's feedback. Then she sends the mock-ups to Bloom and they add additional text to the front and back.
Bloom tests the cover with retailers and potential consumers ("I've had some cover concepts that a retailer was like, 'No, no, that won't sell on our shelves,'" Score says).
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In the event of missed deadlines or unexpected changes, it'll be up to Désir's team to see where they can "squeeze."
"Can we get this to the printer slightly later? Can they print the covers first and print the book after?" Désir says, as an example. "There are different ways where you just get really creative when you have a really tight drop-dead."
Then, the Bespoke Publishing Operations team gets the manuscripts ready to print, preparing the layout and design of the book, including internal art on chapter headers, font and maps. They send it back to Désir, Score and others to proof. Then, it's off to the printers.
Printing the book and reviewing quality
Next, I follow the book to the Lakeside Book Company printing facilities in Harrisonburg, Virginia. This is just one stop on the journey to print the five different editions. The exclusive Barnes & Noble and Walmart editions have extra features, like colorful edges and inside illustrations. In total, the book will travel to two cover printers, three book binderies and two edge printers across five states.
I don steel-toe boot covers, earplugs and a reflective safety jacket. I watch as text from the digital files is burned onto large plates of aluminum, then stamped onto paper and cut into long strips to be bound in smaller segments. In another room, a machine will layer the segments and dispense warm glue dots to attach the covers. The manufacturers let me pick up a copy of Score's hard-earned efforts as it's spit out of the machine. The book is still warm; "Mistakes Were Made" is literally hot off the press.
Five different editions of "Mistakes Were Made" traveled to two cover printers, three book binderies and two edge printers across five states.
There's a lot that can go wrong at this step. The manufacturing leads show me how quality check software monitors to catch fluke pages printed upside down or missing, but there are sometimes one or two that will slip through the system.
Of course, some "Mistakes Were Made" with this book as well. After production, Désir noticed the map misnamed the town's funeral home. It should've been "Pushing Up Daisies," not "Pushing Daisies."
Another hiccup: The page where Score typically signs was placed farther than intended, meaning Score would have to flip through several pages to find it when signing for readers. It's a small misstep, but it has the potential to add unnecessary time and energy when Score goes through hundreds of books in one sitting.
Both errors weren't egregious enough to call for a reprint, throwing thousands of books into recycling. They'll correct them on the next reissue, after all the current copies are sold.
"Nothing's ever going to be perfect," Désir says.
Marketing to potential readers and hitting bookshelves
While the finished books are being printed the old-fashioned way, the publishers use a cheaper digital printer to produce low-quality early copies for readers. Sent to journalists, influencers and some avid amateur reviewers, these "advanced reader copies" help build buzz before the book goes on sale. Sourcebooks' marketing team gives me a hands-on lesson for boxing up early copies, stuffing clever-sloganed pens, notepads and stickers into bright yellow bubble mailers.
"We're really, really trying as a publisher ... to get readers excited enough before an on-sale date to buy the book in advance so it lands on their doorstep the day it comes out," says Molly Waxman, Sourcebooks' executive director of marketing. "There's a lot that goes on before the book ever hits the streets."
Lucy Score mingles with readers and publishers the night before "Mistakes Were Made" goes on sale.
By the time March 10 rolls around, it may seem like the work has finished for Score and the publishers. But really, it's just begun. Score begins the "Mistakes Were Made" book tour in New York City and will soon jet off to Kansas City and Los Angeles to greet fans. As readers dip into the story, the publishing team is still working hard to sell copies. Marketers spread punchy graphics and advertising. Data teams look closely at bestseller lists. Word travels in person and on social media.
A book is born, but it'll still take a village to raise it and keep readers coming.
Clare Mulroy is USA TODAY's Books Reporter, where she covers buzzy releases, chats with authors and dives into the culture of reading. Find her on Instagram, subscribe to our weekly Books newsletter or tell her what you're reading at cmulroy@usatoday.com.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: How to publish a book – We followed one from draft to bookstores
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Published: March 22, 2026 at 03:09PM on Source: RON MAG
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