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I got some work done on III today, finishing a chapter that started out one way and ended up harrowing. But now comes the time of hard deadlines…once out of my editor’s hands and into Production’s, all the deadlines are granitic. Copy edit review must be done and CEs returned on time. Other stuff’s supposed to go in at the same time or shortly thereafter. copy edit crunch and the associated bits that must be done before getting back to III full time. So what you’ll probably hear from me is all about other stuff, and some snippets, if I can remember what I posted of snippets from Kings before so I don’t bore you with repeats. (Yes, of course I should note down what I’ve already posted. But I haven’t. Or not always.) You don’t get any III snippets until later.
Right now, before I dive into the copy edits, we have a missing squire, a dead royal courier, a dead many-times-transferred Verrakai magelord, and once more people are looking at Dorrin mistrustfully.
Comment by Robin S — May 1, 2010 @ 9:19 am
If you finish all the edits required does that mean it will get published faster? I just want all my Dorrin questions answered now not next year. LOL, I’ve never been able to be patient about things that I like and enjoy.
Robin
Robbibird3@aol.com
PS Happy May Day and Mother’s Day
Comment by elizabeth — May 1, 2010 @ 9:48 am
Robin S, the production stage of book publishing has its own timetable…so if I sent the copy edits back Monday they’d say “Oh good” but nothing would change. If I don’t get them back by May 11, there will be snarling and grinding of teeth, because I’ve messed up their schedule. Here’s why.
Every stage of a book’s production is rather like scheduled airline flights coming into a busy airport: each has its assigned “window” in which to land. Other books–many of them–are rolling through the same production process. Each is allotted its space of time for copy editing…for the author to check copy edits…for typesetting…for the author and other proofreaders to check page proofs…for the uncorrected proofs to be sent to a printer to produce ARCs (what reviewers are sent, early on) for artwork to be finished and made camera-ready and then converted to a digital image of the right size and pixel density (no, I still haven’t drawn the maps for this volume, what with family illnesses and other impediments)…for the cover art to be done and delivered and sent to the cover printer for printing…for the typeset approved pages to be sent to a different printer (often) and printed…for pages and cover to be sent to the bindery for binding, packing in boxes, and shipping, etc. Each of these major steps has minor steps, also scheduled. The wiggle room is small…just as a plane that takes off a half hour early can’t land a half hour early because that’s when another is scheduled in.
So being slow causes everyone trouble, and unless you’re a massive bestseller–and I’m not–you’re going to acquire a bad rep and will eventually be eased to the bottom of the list. Reliability counts…and not just for authors. If you’re a copyeditor, or a typesetting company, or a printing house, you will be dropped if you don’t make the delivery dates you’re supposed to meet. Writers are the ones everyone hears about–we’re not, as a group, as business-oriented as the others–but copyeditors, typesetters, printers, binders are all human operations, small or large, and people have problems and–if they don’t immediately inform their customer the publisher–they’ll be considered unreliable too.
Comment by Abigail Miller — May 1, 2010 @ 12:47 pm
I’m sorry for Dorrin but delighted another ancient Verrakai has bitten the dust.
Comment by Genko — May 1, 2010 @ 2:49 pm
I was a typesetter way back many years ago (I’m not sure I want to calculate how many), and we mainly did books. We got a temp proofreader in who gave me back five galleys (about 14 inches long each) of type with NO marks on them. I looked at them, and looked at him, and gave them back to him, saying “I’m good, but I’m not that good — proofread these.” Sure enough, he finally got them back to me with the more typical 3-5 errors per galley. He didn’t last long with us.
Yes, deadlines are deadlines in that production world. You have to do the work, and you have to do it on time. If you don’t, you end up doing some other kind of work.
Comment by elizabeth — May 1, 2010 @ 5:04 pm
My difficulty with proofing copy edits or page proofs is that I can’t completely detach from the story. That’s fatal, as you know. Half a page can slide by because the story’s coherent, though there’s a typo or three right there in front of my unseeing eyes. I do at least two run-throughs, fifty pages at a time, forward and backwards. And still either I miss something, or it’s not corrected at the next stage.
One time, a change the editor had requested, that I made, disappeared from proofs. Long change, too. Had to be re-added, which messed up the pagination, but it wasn’t my fault–editor had seen it, approved it, and sent it on. It just…vanished.
Other times, Production has flat out saved us all, and that includes the time I had the worst copy edit EVER, requiring over 1000 “stets.” The copy editor had written entire paragraphs of opinion and changes, obscuring the original text in multiple places; since authors aren’t supposed to erase any editorial marks, and I still had to convey what was accepted and what was stetted, the ms. was a messy monster indeed. Production–all praise to them–was able to figure out what the real text was–and there were remarkably few errors in the page proofs.
But yeah: it’s a business, and meeting deadlines is part of it.
Comment by John Williford — May 3, 2010 @ 7:43 am
Hopefully I can give you a respite from copy editing drudgery with a bit of positive news… I’ve been dying to share with you and fellow fans that the Miami Herald ran my review of ‘Oath’ in yesterday’s Books section: http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/05/02/1606408/decades-long-wait-for-sequel-is.html
Short version – I loved it, and I’m looking forward to the next one!
Thanks for sharing your stories.
Comment by John Sandstrom — May 3, 2010 @ 4:26 pm
Please don’t worry too much about repeated snippets. Some of us just found this blog and haven’t had a chance to read the back file yet.
LOVED Oath of Fealty and I’m really looking forward to the next. I understand about book production (I’m a librarian and my mother is an author) but any hints about expected publication date would be appreciated.
John
Comment by elizabeth — May 3, 2010 @ 5:21 pm
Oh…my. Wow. Thank you!!
Comment by elizabeth — May 3, 2010 @ 5:23 pm
John S.: Thanks…and I will share a snippet soon. The predicted publication date is next spring–they like to bring books out a year apart–but that catalog isn’t out yet. When I know a firm date, I’ll share it.
Comment by arthur Piantadosi — May 5, 2010 @ 12:11 am
This is Arthur. I know some of what you’re talking about in production. I’ve been volunteering my services for Librivox, the free audiobook site. It always takes longer to first record chapters and then edit them.
Comment by elizabeth — May 5, 2010 @ 7:43 am
Arthur, I think it would be even harder to edit recordings…at least on pages there aren’t a lot of “uh” and “mm” and throat-clearing noises.
Comment by Steve — May 9, 2010 @ 1:45 pm
Due to several boring introductions as a kid I don’t think I’d read fantasy to this day except a friend handed me Sheepfarmer’s Daughter in sixth grade with a “You have to read this!” and you hooked me. So, I was overjoyed to find Fealty unexpected at the bookstore a few weeks ago, and that you’re finishing up its sequel and writing the third is exciting news for this fanboy of yours.
And reading about these editing and production deadlines and processes in your field is interesting. I work for a reviewing agency in civil engineering, which as a field has its own create/proof/revise cycle and mix of hard and malleable deadlines, so learning your process and comparing it to mine is kind of interesting for me.
Comment by elizabeth — May 10, 2010 @ 12:59 pm
Steve: Thanks for letting me know that Sheepfarmer’s Daughter hooked you…and I hope you’ve found other fantasies you enjoyed. I came to reading fantasy fairly late, myself–was bored enough by Charlotte’s Web and Stuart Little (then considered premier fantasies for kids) that I never got past the first few pages. I liked mythology, folktales, and legends well enough, but the fantasy handed to me then…meh. (I now like E.B. White’s work a lot, but I had to grow into it.) I was in my late teens before I suddenly switched mental gears and started liking fantasy.