At the time the manuscript is submitted, publishers pay authors the rest of the negotiated money. In the next six months or so, the manuscript is edited, the book is designed and copyedited, and illustrations are obtained. In the succeeding month, book covers are created, and the book is printed and bound. Books are shipped and billed roughly 20 months from the time the contract was signed. The business of publishing, like any commercial venture, is not risk free.
Publishers incur substantial costs before a book is actually published.
Post publication costs include royalties to authors, distribution and order fulfillment. Publishers begin to receive payments in about 22 to 24 months. Just as we learned to recognize the grey literature in format, and process it accordingly, we can begin to conceptualize grey literature on the Internet and Web. The complexity of the book publishing process is to some degree determined by the type of content presented and by type of target audiences.