Hi guys!  So, in case you were curious about how the whole publishing thing works (at least from what I’m experiencing right now) here’s a few thoughts I have about it.  I’m going to do two sections, because I have both a book and a short story being edited.  

1.  Treat Me Kindly (Urban Supernatural book)

I’m going to assume all publishers are different, but the general idea is the same.  The job of the editor is to strengthen your book, not to completely change it.  They’ll mark grammar and things, of course, but they’ll also ask questions, point out inconsistencies, things like that.  

First, there’s the “Author Form.”  This goes through every possible thing you can think of regarding your book.  What do you want the cover to look like?  This question itself has several parts to it, as far as Damnation Books go.  They ask what you want it to look like, who are the main characters so they have an idea of who the story is about.  Location?  Season?  Characters’ physical appearances?  Tone of the story?  Theme?  Tag line?  Just… all things I really had to sit down and think about.

The rest of the form included things like: what do you want the back of it to say?  Do you want an author pic on the inside?  Write up a bio about yourself.  Any dedications?  Acknowledgements?  All stuff I think you see in books, but you never think of what yours should say until the questions come up.

Then there’s the first round of editing (which is where I am right now).  They have a certain format they want you to put the story in.  This includes font, font size, how to do scene breaks, whether to spell out “Chapter 1” or not, trying to avoid “and” or “but” in the beginning of sentences, thoughts being in italics, just… pretty standard things, I think.  I’m sending this off today to their senior editor, who then will send it back to me within 20 days with edits.  Then, the two of us go back and forth until we reach a point that we’re satisfied with.

As far as actual editor’s comments… that’s what this next part is for.

2.  Press “START” to Play (Gay Romance short story)

This is the gay romance short story I’m going to have in a Dreamspinner Press anthology in June.  I just got the first edits back yesterday.  The way they do it is very, very clean and precise.  The first thing you should realize is that the edits are NOT meant to be discouraging, they are meant to be helpful.  When you get your story back, be prepared to see a whole lot of red.  It’s not going to be perfect.  The thing to remember is that the entire reason why they’re putting so much work into editing isn’t because there’s something wrong with your work, but because they REALLY LIKE your work and they want to make it shine.  They wouldn’t be editing it in the first place if you didn’t like it.

The editor I have for this short story is awesome.  I’m not sure if all editors start the edits this way, but this person took the time to say good things about the story.  Essentially, my editor for this loved the plot, the characters, the theme, just… actually they pretty much loved everything.  Then, there was the note of, “Don’t be discouraged,” because it can hurt to see someone correcting so many things on something you worked hard on.  But it’s there to help guide you into making the story better.  My editor pointed out some really, really good points, like things I never thought about.  This certainly doesn’t mean you have to agree with everything your editor says.  The point is to have a conversation back and forth (key word: conversation, not argument).    

And you know, when you’re writing, you’re not going to think of EVERYTHING the first time, no matter how many times you read it over.  The way I usually write is this:  I write something, I finish it, I reread it.  Then, I have my partner read it.  Then I reread it again after she makes comments and things.  Then, I send it off to hopefully be published.  As you can see, before it’s been sent to a potential publisher, it’s been read three times.  Still, you’re not going to catch everything, and that’s fine, that’s what the editor is for.    

I’ll write more about how this works as I go through the motions, but I’m at the first steps right now in two stories  :)