RACKETHUB VERSION 2 IS OUT

AN INSANELY POWERFUL, FLEXIBLE, COMPREHENSIVE, AND INTUITIVE BOOK MANAGEMENT SYSTEM FOR AUTHORS, COACHES, GHOSTWRITERS, AND PUBLISHERS.

NOW WITH CHARTS AND DEDICATED MEDIA TRACKING FUNCTIONALITY AND REPORTING

Racket Publishing began a few years back with a singular goal: to give authors new tools and technologies to simplify the research, writing, and publishing processes.

There is plenty of room for improvement—and Racket founder Phil Simon should know. He has worked with legacy publishers since 2009. As a general rule, their tech has remained stagnant—and authors often bear the brunt of their gaffes. Even many hybrid publishers cling to antediluvian tech and processes.

It’s high time for a better way.

Enter RacketHub—a sophisticated, proprietary, comprehensive, flexible, and revolutionary book management system. It’s designed to track and organize every aspect of the process: writing, interior and cover design, editing, marketing—you name it. Authors, ghostwriters, book coaches, and publishers of all sizes serve to benefit from it.

Features

RacketHub is a holistic solution for serious publishing professionals. Use it to:

  • Manage all aspects of the project and process.
  • Conduct book-related research.
  • Easily view key aspects of your project with Notion’s new charts. 🆕
  • Chat inside the app via a simple message board. No need for Slack, MS Teams, e-mail, or texts.
  • Offer your designer feedback on covers and galley templates.
  • Track manuscript progress through simple visuals.
  • Develop and track reader personas.
  • Minimize confusion, lost files, and general miscommunication.
  • Organize, group, and analyze the content for your book. (Thanks to NotionAI, RacketHub can also make relevant and even surprising suggestions.)
  • Coordinate with everyone involved in a book project, including designers, indexers, editors, proofreaders, and the like. Employees, clients, and independent contractors can all participate.
  • Maximize the chance that a book hits its deadlines.
  • And much, much more.

Authors, book coaches, ghostwriters, and publishers who fly by the seats of their pants won’t benefit from RacketHub. Ditto for those who are looking to skimp on expenses to put out a passable book.

Underpinning RacketHub is Notion—the über-flexible, user-friendly, and customizable magnet app that has exploded in popularity. (More on this here.) RacketHub is jam-packed with useful templates, powerful formulas, and rich views of key project information, deadlines, and goals. It is, quite simply, the ultimate writing and publishing system.

RacketHub Book Project Plan: Main Database View

This robust database lists the 17 phases and more than 200 tasks you’ll need to complete to research, write, edit, design, publish, and market your book—and more. Of course, you can add new tasks as needed, tweak existing ones, and archive ones that don’t apply. For instance, if you don’t want to do an audiobook, you can easily archive the phase and related tasks. Ditto if you’re working with a traditional publisher and don’t need to buy your own ISBNs.

RacketHub Book Project Plan: Late Task Database View

Identify late tasks by simply clicking on this view.

RacketHub Book Project Plan: Weekly Calendar View

Along with the accompanying list view, this scrollable calendar tells you what’s coming. Easily switch to a monthly view if you prefer.

RacketHub Link Clipper

See a good article or dataset on the web? Quickly clip it into a database and assign key attributes to, including in which chapter in your book it should go. If you’re away from your computer, don’t fret. You can add content on the go via an app on your smartphone or tablet.

Automations

RacketHub also takes advantage of Notion’s new database buttons to kick off automations. In the video below, I show how this functionality can save time, eliminate errors, and improve data quality. (Click here to read more about this cool feature.)

Updated: August 9, 2024

As of today, RacketHub now contains the Simple Publicity Tracker to effectively manage your book’s PR pre- and post-publication.

Solving the Publicity Tracking Mess

Updated: August 13, 2024

RacketHub now ships with native charts. Here are a few of them. To enlarge the images, just click on them.

 

 

FAQ

Just what is Notion, anyway?

Notion is an all-in-one magnet app with more than 9 million users and 4 million customers as of this writing. From its onset, it has embraced blocks. Notion turns the idea of a standalone Word Doc, Google Sheet, or database on its head.

For more info, check out this video:

I've never heard of Notion. Will RacketHub be too advanced for me?

No, being able to use RacketHub effectively does not necessitate an advanced understanding of—or experience with—Notion. With any new system, however, there’s always a learning curve. Notion and RacketHub are no exceptions to this rule.

That’s why Racket Publishing founder Phil Simon provides four 45-minute personalized training sessions to all new RacketHub clients recorded over Zoom. Yep, your purchase includes three full hours of individual instruction.

Can I view the license agreement?

You can read this short document here.

Does RacketHub make writing a book easy?

No, but it makes the process easier. Big difference.

I bought RacketHub. When do I get it?

After making the purchase, Racket founder Phil Simon will contact you ASAP to arrange two 45-minute onboarding sessions. During that time, the two of you will either:

After the requisite permissions get ironed out, Simon will import RacketHub into your Notion workspace and the first session begins.

Does RacketHub only work on my desktop or laptop?

Since RacketHub runs on the Notion app, you can access it on any device you like. 

Does RacketHub replace all other tools involved in writing a book?

No. You’ll still need to write the manuscript in Microsoft Word or Scrivener and take meetings via Zoom. What’s more, your designer will lay out the book in Adobe InDesign.

Still, RacketHub dramatically reduces the number of tools you’ll need to get your professional book out there.

What are the Notion billing requirements?

Notion Q&ARacketHub requires a paid Notion plan. (The Plus plan should suffice, depending on your team’s size.) Depending on how much you use Notion’s native AI tools, you may want to pony up an additional $8 to $10 per month per member.

Can I buy RacketHub as a template on the Notion website?

No, you won’t find it on the marketplace. Clients will get more out of RacketHub through the three hours of personal training that you’ll get when you buy it.

Help me understand the tech behind RacketHub.

RacketHub runs on Notion, and Notion runs on Amazon Web Services. It looks something like this:

What's the deal with support?

RacketHub lives on Notion. If there’s a Notion bug, then you’ll have to contact the company and open a support ticket. If RacketHub isn’t working properly, just fill out the simple form inside it.

Can I try the product for free?

Unfortunately, no. Racket founder Phil Simon will, however, give you a free, customized 15-minute product demo. Click here to set that up.

Can I customize RacketHub after buying it?

Yes. You bought it. You can tweak existing databases, add and remove fields (technically, called properties in Notionland), create new database views, add formulas, and whatever else you like. Note that you needn’t know how to code to make the vast majority of changes.

But …

Your changes may break existing RacketHub functionality.

It’s always wise to duplicate a page or database in case you make a mistake. Proper Notion customers can also effectively travel back in time and reverse an error.

If you want additional customizations and tweaks, you can hire RacketHub creator Phil Simon here.

Can I view the licensing agreement?

Click here to read it.

What are the technology and system requirements?

RacketHub sits on top of Notion, so it runs on any device. If you’d prefer not to download the standalone Notion app for your desktop or laptop, have at it in a contemporary browser.

Can I use RacketHub for more than one book?

You can use RacketHub for as many of your books as you like. The operative word in that last sentence is your. You cannot white-label or resell RacketHub. For more information on this topic, see the license agreement.

Authors, book coaches, and publishers will want create separate Notion databases, pages, and templates for each title. Put differently, you’ll quickly confuse yourself—and the others on your team—if you attempt to fuse two or more book projects into the same buckets.

Could I use RacketHub to write my entire manuscript?

I can’t stop you, but I wouldn’t recommend it. TL;DR: You’ll encounter a bevy of problems and waste time. Just because you can doesn’t mean you should. Now for the longer answer.

Notion ships with a decent number of styles—and RacketHub embraces them. Still, never mistake Notion for a proper word-processing program. You wouldn’t use a stapler to build a house.

Make no mistake: When writing a manuscript of 30,000 words or more, document styles matter. This goes double when your book moves to the design phase. Laying out a book requires a professional program, typically Adobe InDesign. The latter can easily read Word’s styles.

In theory, you could write a simple manuscript with minimal styles in Notion and then export it to Word. You’re going to have to do a great deal of rework, though. 

Is RacketHub suitable for any type of book?

Yes. RacketHub is comprehensive, but you can easily customize it as needed. For instance, RacketHub ships with tasks related to the book’s index. Say you’re writing a nonfiction book. Since those tend to ship with indexes, you’ll want to keep those tasks. Authors writing children’s books can simply archive those tasks. Ditto if you opt not to do an audiobook, ebook, and the like.

Talk to me about the onboarding process. Do I have to learn RacketHub all on own?

No, you don’t.

Because RacketHub is pretty involved, licensing includes 90 minutes of personalized training over Zoom that I’ll record and send to you.

What types of licenses are available and how much do they cost?

You can find pricing information at the bottom of this page.

Is there an affiliate program?

Yes. If you refer a customer to Racket Publishing who buys RacketHub, you will earn a 10 percent commission. Click here to sign up.

Buy RacketHub Now

Includes four 45-minute sessions of recorded personalized Zoom training. Note that by making the purchase, you accept the end-user license agreement.

Options

License Type
Price

Single author, unlimited use.

$1,999.99

Ghostwriter/book coach, unlimited use

Typically works with two or three authors per year.

$4,999.99

Small publisher, unlimited use

Typically works with five to ten authors per year.

$9,999.99

Medium publisher, unlimited use

Typically publishes ten to 50 books per year.

$14,999.99

Large publisher, unlimited use

Typically publishes more than 50 books per year.

$19,999.99

Buy RacketHub Now

Includes four 45-minute sessions of recorded personalized Zoom training. Note that by making the purchase, you accept the end-user license agreement.

 

Options