If you have ever looked at the production timeline for a book, you know how overwhelming it is. If you haven’t seen one before, imagine an intense excel spreadsheet with a hundred different deadlines, many of which can’t be adjusted or lenient. When you first see it, you might think, “How on earth do I navigate this?”

Well, the good news is that you don’t have to do it alone. You have a team of talented individuals to help you. Whether you are working at an independent press, a Big Five press, or a student-run press like me, you are surrounded by all the tools you need to publish a book.

There are many hard-set dates when it comes to book production. The files must be sent to the printer by a certain time in order to get the actual thing printed by the launch. The sales video and book trailer need to be completed before it can be sent to sales representatives five to six months before launch. And, of course, any designed collateral must be ready and approved before your social media campaign can begin. When I became a project manager for a title my first question was, how do I know what to delegate to other people and what tasks to handle myself? What if I give too much to others to handle? Or, on the other hand, overwhelm myself with too many tasks?

Let’s take a look at the sales video for example. At Ooligan Press, we create a video that is part book trailer part sales video to send out to sales representatives later on. This video consists of an author Q&A, narrated hook and description, designed slides, and clips all edited together. I like to break this down into ingredients and a recipe (I’m a big baker):

• 4-6 questions for the author
• 4-6 slides corresponding to the questions
• 4 stock video clips that represent the novel
• 1 narrated hook and description
• 1-2 clips of music for any long pauses

Bring all components together in an edited video using Adobe Premiere (or similar software).

You can get a lot more creative with the steps in your recipe, but this gives you the gist of it. The biggest task here is getting all the individual ingredients, so I assign this to my team members, who know the book just as well as I do. Two people brainstorm some thought-provoking questions. Someone looks for representative video clips. And someone else finds stock music I can use. I trust that they will bring me the ingredients I need to make a sales video that best represents the book we are producing. I delegated all the necessary parts to make a whole and baked the end result myself to make sure we were on track.

Delegating is an important management skill, and one that you may feel unqualified to use when you’re just starting out. But a big part of delegating is also communicating with your team members. Keeping open communication with each other allows you to see which people are best suited for which tasks, and to also let them know when you are going to need additional help. You have each other’s backs and book production, unlike most baking, is a team effort.

Written by Elizabeth Sommer.