Frequently Asked Questions

How to Start
At the risk of blowing our own trumpet you need to talk to a professional corporate book publisher.

Publishing a corporate book is a specialist task. It has all the elements involved in the publication of a novel overlaid with a range of corporate imperatives and processes. We have explained the key issues you need to consider in our section on How to Publish Your Book, and you should work through all of these. Once you have done this you will have established an initial platform for starting your book.

The easiest way to start is to talk to us, Focus Publishing. We have 'done it all before' for a range of large, medium and small companies. Have a look at About Focus Publishing to see what we have done. Look at Our Publications to review some of the books we have published.

Main issues for consideration
The first issues you need to consider are:-

• when do you need/want the book to be available?
• who is the book aimed at (your target audience?)
• what are the key messages you want to get across in the book?
• who needs to be involved from the company in the project?
• do you have the time and expertise to undertake the project?
• do you have a budget to work to and what does this mean in terms of the options you can consider?

When to start
You should start planning your corporate book at least 12 months before you need it. You may need a longer or shorter period depending on the size of your company and the number of years you have been in business.

We have worked on projects that have taken four years (Woolworths, the Hydro-Electric Corporation, the Australian Stock Exchange) and others that have taken six to nine months (Colonial, Qantas, Crown Casino, Traveland).

The key thing to remember is that the more time you allow, the more options you will have in terms of what type of publication you can produce. It will also allow your organisation more time to review and assess key elements of the books such as the manuscript, design and layout.