How do I go about getting my books copyrighted, and then edited in the way I'd like?

Yes; if you do a presale, those buyers will get the book immediately upon release. Include a message in either the front or back matter that encourages them to leave a review once they finish the book. You should also encounter them to join your mailing list, that way you can continue to build a relationship with them.

Have you considered providing the book in electronic format. If somebody wants the book and are willing to pay the shipping fee, they get the paper copy, otherwise, it's a download.

This is a hugely important question. Thanks for asking it. You have to first understand the goal of your book. Book sales are a terrible return on investment for 99.99% of authors. The real value is in growing your business and creating new opportunities for more substantial returns. You can often put the same amount of energy into selling a book (and gaining a few bucks) as you would into creating a new client (depending on your business that can be substantial revenue). So know your goals. If your goal is to use your book as a lead generator for your business, then sure, you want to make it available for sale wherever people buy books (at least online), but you want to get that book into the hands of as many potential clients as possible. So plan on giving away lots of them for free. To do that, you're going to need a printing partner who knows how to get you fantastic bulk discount rates so you're spending no more than a few bucks a book. What you also have to consider is that if your book is going to be your calling card, it has to be exceptional. Not good. Not alright. But exceptional. It has to capture the essence of you. Your voice has to resound through the writing. And it has to be a page turner. So hire the right expert or team to help to ensure you are showing off your brand in a way that excites the kind of people you want to attract. Feel free to get in touch with me for more thoughts in this direction. This is the world I live in. Big Love, Corey

It can depend on the type of book and goal for your book. But the strategies I know of working and that have worked for me. Involved building an audience of your own and leveraging other peoples audiences. So if you don't have an audience go through and find the thought leaders and personalities in that space. Chat with them about the book and see if you can get them on your launch team. Start Sending out advanced copies to these people to get their feedback and support. Then you want to create some pre-sale freebies. With Mark Mason The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck. Had a bunch of freebies if you pre-orded it for 20 bucks or something. He also appeared on a shit load of podcasts and had a bunch of people promoting his pre-launch.

Focus on having one place for your editorial schedule. We use teamwork.com for our project planning - but other solutions include Trello and Basecamp. Set in place working processes that force users back to the project management app for all their work. E.G. we use Teamwork as the agenda for our update meetings - it is immediately obvious if someone isn't using it or it isn't up to date with their status. Name and Shame works as a motivator. Secondly, the editorial calendar (which can be a spreadsheet of monthly activities) sets out what needs to be done in advance so you can plan. Thirdly use cloud services so there's only one version of any document you are writing. We use Google Docs and from the fall you'll also be able to do the same on Apple with their Yosemite update. One document, multiple users. Fourthly, if you want to be picky - as I am, have a file naming convention on your documents. We use date followed by client name and detail of the document. Note using a YYMMDD date format means all documents sort into reverse date order easily (the US date format does not work). How is that for starters? Get in touch if you want a 20 minute update on what you've chosen and I can try to spot any issues or working practices you may need to reinforce.