TOPIC: The Year of Publishing a Book (pt.2)

Last post I outlined some of the process of what happens once you sign that elusive book contract. If you didn't get to read it, click here so you can go back and read that post and so this one is read in context.

This is the continuation of that post. Read on...

Sometime between REVISIONS and LINE EDITS you could find yourself submitting ideas for your cover for your editor to take to COVER CONFERENCE. This may involve you submitting character descriptions, pivotal scenes, photographs or images of settings/characters/clothing/weapons etc.

My editor asked for my input and I put together a portfolio of ideas for her to take to the cover conference with the art department. And, once the cover was done, I was able to feedback and request (smallish) changes.

The COVER COPY crew will write the back cover blurb and try to come up with a tagline for the front cover. This is part of the process where an author usually gets the most input into as you're the one who knows the story inside and out. You can suggest changes - producing a blurb that accurately reflects the story is vital.

GALLEYS involve checking the manuscript from cover to cover - including the acknowledgments or dedication pages - for errors. Spelling, punctuation, style, formatting, names, words specific to your world-building etc. This isn't the time to rewrite big chunks or change the story. Again, you're more likely to be given a deadline to complete this by.

BOUND GALLEY's/ARC's may or may not be send to you - it depends whether this is in your contract. These are printed versions of your book, just without the cover art. You can use them in contest give-aways or for promo purposes.

Sometime between LINE EDITS and receiving your GALLEY you may be assigned a publicist. She'll help plan your marketing strategy and line up promotional opportunities like interviews, book reviews with bloggers, book signings, media interviews etc.

The last part of the publishing process is seeing your BOOK IN PRINT! In traditional print publishing this may be a process that takes a whole year - and it's a cause for celebration!!! Yay! You'll receive your allotted amount of author copies, to do with whatever you like ie.promotion, give-aways, hand out to family etc.

Then you get to PROMOTE yourself - in any number of ways, over a range of media. Bookmarks, postcards, signings, blog interviews, guest blogs, radio or newspaper interviews, magazine articles...the list is endless (and time consuming, VERY time consuming).

Now while I've outlined this process in a fairly linear fashion, if you sign for a multi-book contract like I did, then you'll find yourself juggling elements of each stage, from book to book. For example, as you're doing galleys for one book you may be giving your input for a cover conference and writing another book all at the same time! And you'll repeat this juggling act with every book you submit.

But, I have to admit, while this year has been a whole new learning experience and there's been some ups and downs, for the most part I've found the process fascinating and enjoyable. And I wouldn't swap it for anything! :-)

TOPIC: The Year of Publishing a Book (pt.1)

I've labelled 2011 as The Year of Getting VENGEANCE BORN published. And it has been a year long process.

A year of steep learning curves, a year of excitement, a year of rushing to get things handed in by a due date, a year of waiting patiently...

So, what happens after you get that elusive email or phone call from an editor offering to buy your book?

Well, besides the manic week or so of FINDING AN AGENT (if you haven't already got one), the next part is NEGOTIATING THE CONTRACT. And that can (sometimes) take weeks.

I received the email to buy my book in October 2010, the final version of my contract came in December 2010. A number of things may impact the speed with which this happens, it varies from deal to deal.

Your agent will go through the contract clause by clause making sure bits like signing away your "next book" is clarified to "next book in the series" or "next book in that genre" are altered or removed or rewritten.

This is why I think an agent is worth their 15% commission - I'm not a legal-ese expert by any means and would've had no idea what was a good clause and what needed work.

A part of this is negotiating deadlines for your book or books. Be sure to take into account every day life - family, health issues, work, what you're capable of producing word-wise and by when - and then add another month onto that time for good measure. These dates are binding.

I read every clause in the contract once I received the altered version. I asked questions to clarify what specific bits meant and once I was happy with that, only then did I sign it.

Next step (besides beginning the next book) is REVISIONS - the larger picture stuff suggested by your editor to make your book better. Sometimes there might be pages or maybe an overall comment like "up the romantic conflict".

Talk to your editor about them, clarify points, brainstorm, compromise. You'll be asked when you can have them done by - again, make sure you set a realistic timeframe and add a few days on for wriggle room.

Once your editor signs off on these, she'll send the manuscript to the line editor. LINE EDITS involve things like punctuation, grammar, word/phrase changes, world-building checks etc. Usually the document has comments made down the side using TRACK CHANGES, one color for the line editor, one color for your editor, and one for you to respond as needed.

You may or may not get to set the timeframe for these to be returned by. More often than not you'll get a due date, perhaps a couple of weeks, maybe more.

This ends Part 1 of this post. Join me next week to find out what happens next - same Bat-time, same Bat-channel!

TOPIC: Life on the flip-side...

This article was published in the WRITERS' LIFE column of the August 2011 edition of  the RWAustralia Hearts Talk magazine.

With conference fast approaching, part of the fun of attending one is meeting the authors and listening to their stories of ‘life after getting the CALL’. I took it all in with keen anticipation, dreaming of the day I walked in their shoes, but it wasn’t until I stepped over the threshold that I really understood what they were talking about.

Simple fact is getting the call really does change your life in many, many ways. Some good, some unexpected.

What initially caught me by surprise after getting that email was the speed with which everything happened. I had a week to accept the offer.

Having done the research yonks ago I was already in the process of submitting queries, so contacting my top list of I’d-kill-to-be-represented-by-these-agents was a matter of whipping off a few emails alerting them to the book deal on offer.

I can’t stress enough if you’re submitting work to editors, and intend being represented by an agent then make the time to find out about whom you’d like to represent you. Leaving it to the last minute is stress you don’t need.

Why? Well, that seven days will be manic (particularly if you’re working across time zones). Let me repeat that.

The.Week.Will.Be.MANIC.

Organise representation, scheduling phone calls, e-mails to’ing and fro’ing from your agent and editor, and then sealing the deal with the publisher. Be prepared for a week of little sleep.

And if this isn’t excitement enough for you, the prospect of embarking on two new professional relationships – with your agent and editor - is a feeling you won’t ever forget.

Another thing, if you end up with a multiple book deal offer, like I did (ie. a series), have a short outline of your books ready to send your agent/editor. Think back cover blurbs. With only a week to negotiate the deal, and most of that taken up arranging representation by an agent, I ended up writing two extra blurbs in less than twenty-four hours. Not recommended.

Once the initial chaos of representation and the deal is over, the decision of deadlines needs to be made. These dates go in your contract. I knew what I could produce word count-wise and thought I’d factored in things like family, work, the publishing process, health-issues, unexpected interruptions etc.

Remember all those sessions at conference where you heard authors say ‘be disciplined, produce a daily word, write even though you don’t feel like it’? Engrave those words on your forehead or pin them up in your office at eye level. You no longer have the luxury of time or procrastination once you have a legally binding deadline.

Producing my first and second contracted books has been a huge learning experience but the one thing I now understand is that it takes more time than you think to juggle everything.

It’s life vs. the publishing process (sending in a synopsis & sample chapters, author bio/photo, acknowledgements page, revisions, copy edits, cover copies, galleys, marketing and promotion etc., beginning the next book and repeating that process).

It all takes time away from writing your next book. Next contract (yes, being optimistic here!), I’m adding another two months minimum to the deadline.

One of the true eye-openers of being under contract is the precious amount of time I have for reading for pleasure. Pre-call I read 3-4 books a week, now I’m lucky to read a book a month.

Another lesson I learned – it’s easy to get tied up writing your own stories and end up feeling ‘stale’. Reading for pleasure is a must, even when I’m writing. I need it. It’s like a respite or recharging of the batteries.

It’s been an amazing journey so far, a lot of exciting firsts – getting The Call, receiving the first cover, being hit by the realisation that my book is really going to be in print, finding out who’s going to write the cover-quotes of my book, and meeting fair dinkum deadlines.

I have a quote on the wall in my office that says, “When I’m writing I know I’m doing the thing I was born to do.” (Anne Sexton). It’s so true. I’m almost a year into my journey and while I’ve yet to experience the joy of seeing my first book on the shelves, I wouldn’t give up or swap what I’m doing for anything.

Yes, the learning curves have been steep, and I know I’m still wearing L-plates having just crossed over the unpubbed-pubbed line, but I love my ‘new career’ - the learning, the passion of creating, the pressure and stress, the satisfaction of meeting goals, they’re all part of the life I’ve chosen for myself.

It’s a delicate balance between portraying the joys and the reality of being published. I don’t want to discourage anybody or put anyone off achieving their dream, but I hope that by sharing some of my journey with you, yours will be that little bit more informed.

See you on the flip-side!

CRAFT: Editing Your Manuscript - Layering

You've finished your manuscript and set it aside for a couple of months. What now?

Well, editing is a good first step. There are a lot of techniques you can use to polish and primp your manuscript in preparation for submission to an agent or editor.

Recently on one of my writing e-loops we discussed the technique of layering. Several of us came up with differing interpretations of what it meant. For me it involves a couple of things.

1. Deeper POV (point of view) - can I add anything to the text to get me deeper inside the character's point of view?
2. Sentence structure - can I restructure/add/delete/rephrase a sentence to give it more depth?

How do I do that? Well, here are a couple of examples taken from my WIP (work in progress). I'll tackle sentence structure first then deeper POV.

Sentence Structure
(unlayered sample for setting)
 
He scanned the clearing ahead. A large tree had fallen across it. It's bark was weathered and scarred. An animal trail ran alongside it but no tracks marked it. He hadn't expected any, not with this warrior. He was too cunning.

(layered sample)

With eyes narrowed he scanned the sunlit dappled clearing ahead. A large fallen tree lay partway across it, years of rot and weathering scarring its gnarled length. An animal trail paralleled the downed tree but the debris along its path was undisturbed, the moss coating its bark intact. He hadn’t expected to see any telltale marks or tracks, the warrior was cunning and unpredictable, moreso with the pressure of being hunted by half a dozen Na’Chi.

*This is more about sentence restructuring and adding description to give it depth. The first example is character, setting description, setting description, setting description, character. Pretty straight forward.

The second example tries to tie both together, so you're getting it through the characters eyes (POV) and there's added description (adjectives) and the sentence structure is more complex.

Deeper POV
(unlayered sample)
Varian stood there, a strange feeling curling in his gut. He shook his head. The yearning made him ache and he craved it with a hunger so powerful it terrified him.
He wanted to pull away. He couldn't. He ground his teeth together.

*You can see the character wants something, a little about how he reacts to it. A lot of the sentences are pretty "standard", and the sentence construction very straight forward.

(layered sample)
Varian stood there feeling peculiar, an uncertain warmth curling in his gut even as he shook his head. A part of him wanted to laugh in disdain at the idea, but another, more selfish part coveted every word.
The yearning made him ache. Made him crave with a hunger so powerful it terrified him. He wanted to pull away, break the physical connection so he could unravel the thread tying her words to his soul.

He couldn’t.

He ground his teeth together, hating that he could be so weak.

*Can you see how much more we get "into" Varian's thoughts/head with this version. There's much more depth to how he reacts and what he's thinking (hopefully this pulls you deeper into his character).

The sentence structure is also more complex and takes away the "standard" feel by adding that little more description.

Also check out the physical paragraphing. Sometimes that can also add emphasis to the scene. Instead of running the last two sentences onto the back of the second paragraph, I gave them each one of their own. I wanted to emphasis what the hero was feeling - doing it sort of adds invisible exclamation marks, mental pauses, and emphasis to what he's experiencing.

One of the best ways to see this layering effect at work is to pick out one of your favourite authors and analyse a paragraph or page of their work.

Deconstruct it. Look at how they structure their sentences, how they described physical reactions, emotional reactions, comparisons etc. then add some zing to a scene of your own.

Experiment (just don't forget to cut and paste your experiment into a new document rather than work on your original version).

So, there you have it. That's my interpretation of layering. Here ends the lesson. Any questions? :-)

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