Saturday afternoon I got to send the best email of the book-writing process: the manuscript submission. Nine months and ~67,000 words since I first pitched this book idea to my literary agent, I’ve filed the full draft with my editor at Brazos Press. I guess I probably should have taken a selfie or something, but here’s an equally interesting screenshot of a PDF email attachment instead:
So the big part is over, but there’s still lots of little stuff to do. As I understand it, here’s roughly what happens next:
My editor at Brazos will edit the book and return it to me with any changes and requests for revisions
After I do that and we’re both satisfied with the result, then it goes to a project editor, who does more of a copy edit, makes sure I cited things correctly, works on formatting—that sort of thing
At some point in here we’ll finalize the title and cover design, which I’ll share with you here
The foreword writer will also be reading the manuscript and doing his thing
After the project editor’s review, and once we get the foreword in hand, then the layout happens, resulting in proofs
Everyone gives the proofs a read to catch typos, do final tweaks, etc.
Around this time the galleys are printed. They’re almost the same as the final book, but they may be missing some endorsements and still have some typos. Usually the back cover has a lot of administrative info about release date and the like. They’re also printed on thin, cheap paper and will be paperback (the real deal will be hardback!)
The galleys get mailed out for reviews, endorsements, promotional stuff of all sorts while the marketing campaign gets into full swing (it’s probably Spring 2022 by this stage). If there’s a launch team, as some books have these days—basically, a group of readers who get free, early copies in exchange for promoting the book online and off, among family and friends—they’ll likely get galleys. I’ll be sure to mention any such opportunity here first in case you want to join
After all the endorsements are collected and (hopefully) all the errors caught, the real books begin printing ahead of the release date, which is tentatively fall of 2022, though maybe my early filing will move it a bit sooner (the submission date was Nov. 1, but I filed early because of the job schedule changes I mentioned in my last post)
Finally, the book is out!
I’ve still got some more reading recommendations from my research pile, which is now a tower against my bookshelves, standing taller than our toddlers, to whom it poses a dangerous attraction. But I think I’ll end here and save those for a future note, because it’s nice out, and I’d like to take a walk.
Best,
Bonnie