Forgive me…it’s been four months since my last post (sounds like a confession). But I haven’t been off in blog vacationland. I’ve been researching and writing the next Karen Vail novel, which will follow Crush (due out NEXT MONTH!!). That’s the other thing I’ve been doing—getting ready for Crush’s launch.
So let me briefly bring you up to date on what happened since I last posted on the process of publishing a novel. When we last spoke, I’d handed in my Crush copyedits (see post of 4/2). The project editor reviewed all my notes and changes—I’d “touched” 130 pages of Crush, and made about 200 changes. Some of those were formatting (incorrect quote mark, missing period, improperly formatted paragraphs)—stuff that happens when a Word document is digitally converted into publishing software. But a lot of it consisted of contextual changes. This can be merely polish (fixing repeated words) or seeing something I (or my editor and copyeditor) hadn’t seen earlier when the novel was in manuscript format. There’s something about seeing it printed like a book that makes the eye and brain see the text differently.
Unfortunately, “galleys,” or “Advance Readers Copies” (ARCs) are printed and bound based on the first-pass pages—before copyediting and author review, with all the errors intact. Thus, when a reviewer reads the ARC, he or she is reading an inferior version of what the final product is. In some cases, it is a different book from what the reader buys in the store. It’s unfortunate it has to be this way, but because of the timing of when the ARCs are printed and sent out, there’s no alternative. The lead time is long enough (nine months or longer) wherein a novel is “in production.” Things are happening during this time—lots of things. This lead time is a necessary evil.
So…after I submitted the changes to my project editor, she reviewed them, combined them with notes that their own proofreaders made, and then sent me back a revised PDF file of Crush to review. I checked all the changes I had made, to ensure they were input properly, and sent it back.
What happened next? Check back in a few days (hey, I write suspense). Gotta get back to the new novel. I left Karen Vail in a bad part of town and I need to get her out of there before something bad happens. (Or is it too late?!)