Now you'll need to edit, design, copyright, publish, and possibly illustrate it.

EDITING

Editing your book is extremely important.  Doing this will take it from appearing to be a high school English assignment to a professionally completed, Barnes and Noble bookshelf-worthy book! Anyone may pick up your book; from the very young to the very aged.  Therefore, go through each page with a fine tooth comb.  Consider spelling, grammatical, and punctuation errors lice on that comb and eradicate them!  They don't belong there.  Fix that nasty problem.  Consider your book an elite club where everyone appears to belong but, if you do your due diligence, you'll realize some got right past the bouncer without a hitch!  Look for words out of context, that used a disguise to get in. 'Week', using a photocopied invitation, managed to outsmart the bouncer and find a seat at the bar. However, 'weak' (standing outside, yelling at the bouncer to let her in) is the one with the real invitation.  Using that analogy, I'm pointing out how homonyms (weak/week, two/to/too, time/thyme, do/due, waist/waste, there/their/they're, weather/whether, etc.) can easily be overlooked by the author and even your computer's spell-check feature.  However, if you're lazy, I suggest a new editing and proofreading program offered by +Grammarly.

DESIGN

The design of a book is basically the way all of its components are laid out, making one final product. When an architect designs a building, a house, or a mall, he or she considers what the final structure will look like and how its users will see it and interact with it.  Things should be placed in such a way that they're pleasing to the eye of the beholder, user-friendly, and functional.  So must the author do during the book designing process.  For example, keep in mind the following: 

• What (if any) pictures or illustrations will grace the book's cover?
• Will charts or graphs be included and, if so, where?
• Should page numbers be inserted?
• Should the book be divided into chapters?
• Will this book benefit from the use of illustrations throughout or would they be a distraction to the reader?
• What size font(s) would be most appropriate for this book?
• Should the lines in each paragraph be single or double-spaced?
• Should it be in color or in black and white?

COPYRIGHT

A book is considered intellectual property.  You created it from your mind.  Because of this, anyone can claim ownership of it if you don't claim it first.  Therefore, I admonish you to copyright your work by submitting a physical or electronic copy of your manuscript to the Library of Congress.  It costs $35 to do this.  

PUBLISHING

Once upon a time authors faced such daunting tasks as making multiple photocopies of their manuscripts, packaging them with a clever cover letter addressed to the editor of each publishing company, then knocking on the doors of or phoning each publisher in hopes of getting signed.

Today, one need not even leave home to send a copy of a manuscript and cover letter to multiple publishing companies with a simple click of a mouse.

If you're like me, you don't want to wait eons for some editor to see past your exterior, see the talent you were born with and have enough mercy to sign you.  You want total control over your book, from the content, pricing, royalties, distribution, etc.  If you're like me, you'll want to self-publish your book even if that means waiting longer to be the next big author.  

ILLUSTRATIONS

Most storybooks, manuals, textbooks, biographies, auto-biographies, comic books, and travel books contain illustrations and/or photographs.  If you're writing a children's book, it would behoove you to include lots of colorful illustrations.  Without pictures your book will be as appealing to a kid as school on a Saturday.  If you're an artist this would be an auspicious time to add 'illustrator' to your title.