What Publishers Ask Us
Straight answers to the questions we hear most often from Catholic publishers considering BookLab.
How long does the process take?
Twenty-eight to thirty-five business days from the time we select a title and load the source text. Expedited timelines of twenty-one business days are available when scheduling allows.
What exactly is in the package?
Book DNA analysis. Positioning Memo. Nine versions of positioning copy, each built for a specific context: retail, back cover, academic, faith market, institutional, series, and trade-facing. Avatar reader and buyer profiles. A metadata strategy built for AI-driven discovery, including secondary BISAC codes and natural-language keyword fields. Channel-specific outreach language for schools, parishes, libraries, and reading communities. A Classroom and Adoption Kit for titles with educational potential. A Publisher Brief, readable in five minutes, with thirty-, sixty-, and ninety-day next steps. A setup guide and custom instruction card for your own title notebook on Google NotebookLM. And one revision round.
What is the difference between the two packages?
The Backlist Refresh is for titles already in the world. The work is forensic: go back to the source text, find what the book actually is, and rebuild the positioning around that discovery. Correction and recovery.
The Full Publisher Package is for new titles. The work is generative: build the positioning architecture before the first public description ever goes out. Launch architecture, pre-launch strategy, and first-to-market positioning built before the book goes live. A book only launches once. The first description is the one that sticks.
Do I need technical skills?
No. The real investment is editorial. Defining your house rules. Building the Publisher Voice Profile. Confirming the Positioning Memo before full production begins. This is work you already know how to do. You have just never had to write it down in a form a tool could follow.
I am skeptical about AI. Most of the hype does not hold up.
You are right to be skeptical. BookLab is a disciplined editorial workflow, not a magic button. The tool does structural analysis, drafts copy in a specified voice, and surfaces metadata patterns across a market. It produces better materials faster, but only when the publisher brings serious editorial judgment to every step. Nothing leaves without human review. If it sounds like a machine wrote it, it does not go out.
Will my results look like everyone else's?
No. Every BookLab engagement is built from the source text of your specific title, shaped by your Publisher Voice Profile, aimed at your specific readers. The tool sounds like your house because it is built from your materials and governed by your voice. No two engagements can produce the same output, because no two books are the same book, and no two publishers carry the same mission.
How do you protect doctrinal integrity?
The tool does not author theological or doctrinal content. It does not make faith claims or write formation material. Positioning language touching faith themes is grounded in actual named Catholic Social Teaching documents and reviewed by the publisher before it goes anywhere. The theological judgment always belongs to you. That is the operating principle, not a reassurance.
Can I test the process on a public domain title first?
Yes. Download any public domain text from Project Gutenberg and bring it to the pilot. A Christmas Carol and Last of the Mohicans are both real BookLab demonstrations built exactly that way. It is a practical way to evaluate the process before committing one of your own titles.
What about out-of-print titles?
Out-of-print titles are some of the best candidates. The author's work is not lost; it just needs to be described in the language the world uses now to search. BookLab goes back to the source text, finds what was always there, and builds the complete positioning package. The book re-enters the conversation as if it were published today.
What does consulting or a team workshop cost?
Consulting runs $125 per hour. Half-day workshops are $1,500. Full-day workshops are $2,500. These are separate from the title-level packages and can be tailored to your operation. Fill out the form on the main page and we will figure out what fits.
Can I just talk to someone first?
Yes. BookLab offers a free thirty-minute consultation. No commitment. You tell us about the title. We tell you what we see. If it makes sense to go further, we talk about that. If it does not, you have lost nothing but half an hour.
Ready to talk about your title?
Fill out the form and Grant will be in touch within forty-eight hours.