The Publishing Process
I just finished writing my 14th book, Rich People's Problems: The Story of Raggedy Ann and Andy. That doesn't mean it's ready for publication, however. There's a process from here.
First, I spell check using Word's Editor function. It's far from perfect, but it's not bad. It catches most of the glaring errors, like subject-verb disagreement and the occasional use of the wrong word entirely. Word and I disagree on the comma before the word "but". Word doesn't use it often, whereas I was taught to use it more than not. I turned on the use of the Oxford comma in the Editor, as that's my preference. Using the Oxford comma is a source of much discussion in the writing community. Personally, I think it makes sentences clearer. The other place that the Word Editor and I have a certain style disagreement is on a series of conjunctions. For example, if I wrote, "Jack met Jill and Anne, and together they went somewhere", Editor would flag the second comma as unnecessary. However, again, in the way I was taught, you put that comma in to distinguish that Jill and Anne go together. Review using Editor often takes a while, as Editor flags a lot of things, and you have to read the sentences to make sure the edit should be accepted. I'm probably 40/60 - I only accept about 40% of Editor's suggestions.
Next, I order a copy of the draft book in paperback. I could order a hard cover, I suppose. It would solve the same purpose. But the hardcover has a different ISBN than the paperback, and I traditionally use the paperback ISBN in my drafts (and for the Kindle versions, where the ISBN is not needed). So, I just got in the habit of ordering a paperback version for my hard-copy editing.
Once I get that copy, I do two editing passes. The first editing pass is from the front to the back, reading as a reader would. In this way, I catch continuity errors. I make notes of breadcrumbs along the way, to make sure that all of them are used throughout appropriately and/or resolved in the end. Most of the time, I track the breadcrumbs on 3x5 cards. I might put other notes on the cards, as well. Generally speaking the cards are things I want to make sure I didn't forget about as I was writing. This is particularly important as my outline often changes as I write - as I've noted in other blog posts. So, an idea I might have had at the beginning of the story might not apply by the time we get to the end.
The second editing pass is from "back to front". I can't read every word from end to beginning - that wouldn't make much sense. But I read each chapter as a whole, starting with the last chapter and moving forward. In this way, I try not to get caught up in continuity, but only read for edits. I also use a different color pen for these edits, so they don't get confused with the first pass.
If I've made a lot of changes or had to restructure whole sections - which happens sometimes - then I'll order a second paperback copy and do the whole editing thing again. I haven't had to do that too often - thank goodness - but if needed, I would definitely do that.
Sometimes I put the edits from the first pass in before I do the second pass. Sometimes I wait and do them both together. Either way, I do check that I've incorporated all the changes by doing a scan of the edits from the back of the book to the front. Again, this avoids getting caught up in continuity. I'm just looking for the changes to have been put in.
Finally, I run Word's Editor again. This is just in case I've introduced new errors. Unfortunately, Word doesn't "remember" what I ignored from the first round. So this process will involve ignoring the same edits all over again. Again, it's probably 40/60 as to whether I accept the edits.
Then, the novel is ready for publication. The KDP site likes PDFs for the paperback and hardcover editions, so I will create those - swapping out the ISBN from paperback to hardcover, appropriately. The Kindle upload has to be a Word file, though. So in the end, I end up with three versions of each book: Kindle (Word), paperback (PDF; paperback ISBN), and hardcover (PDF; hardcover ISBN).
All three will be released for publication around the same time. But it's always the Kindle that gets approved first. Followed by the hardcover. And finally the paperback. Not sure why the paperback takes longer than the hardcover, but it always does.
Then there's updating all the other books with the new book in the list of books. That's a whole other process documented in an earlier blog post (12 x 3 = 36). This time, it will be 13 x 3 = 39, in addition to the new 3. Whew.
First, I spell check using Word's Editor function. It's far from perfect, but it's not bad. It catches most of the glaring errors, like subject-verb disagreement and the occasional use of the wrong word entirely. Word and I disagree on the comma before the word "but". Word doesn't use it often, whereas I was taught to use it more than not. I turned on the use of the Oxford comma in the Editor, as that's my preference. Using the Oxford comma is a source of much discussion in the writing community. Personally, I think it makes sentences clearer. The other place that the Word Editor and I have a certain style disagreement is on a series of conjunctions. For example, if I wrote, "Jack met Jill and Anne, and together they went somewhere", Editor would flag the second comma as unnecessary. However, again, in the way I was taught, you put that comma in to distinguish that Jill and Anne go together. Review using Editor often takes a while, as Editor flags a lot of things, and you have to read the sentences to make sure the edit should be accepted. I'm probably 40/60 - I only accept about 40% of Editor's suggestions.
Next, I order a copy of the draft book in paperback. I could order a hard cover, I suppose. It would solve the same purpose. But the hardcover has a different ISBN than the paperback, and I traditionally use the paperback ISBN in my drafts (and for the Kindle versions, where the ISBN is not needed). So, I just got in the habit of ordering a paperback version for my hard-copy editing.
Once I get that copy, I do two editing passes. The first editing pass is from the front to the back, reading as a reader would. In this way, I catch continuity errors. I make notes of breadcrumbs along the way, to make sure that all of them are used throughout appropriately and/or resolved in the end. Most of the time, I track the breadcrumbs on 3x5 cards. I might put other notes on the cards, as well. Generally speaking the cards are things I want to make sure I didn't forget about as I was writing. This is particularly important as my outline often changes as I write - as I've noted in other blog posts. So, an idea I might have had at the beginning of the story might not apply by the time we get to the end.
The second editing pass is from "back to front". I can't read every word from end to beginning - that wouldn't make much sense. But I read each chapter as a whole, starting with the last chapter and moving forward. In this way, I try not to get caught up in continuity, but only read for edits. I also use a different color pen for these edits, so they don't get confused with the first pass.
If I've made a lot of changes or had to restructure whole sections - which happens sometimes - then I'll order a second paperback copy and do the whole editing thing again. I haven't had to do that too often - thank goodness - but if needed, I would definitely do that.
Sometimes I put the edits from the first pass in before I do the second pass. Sometimes I wait and do them both together. Either way, I do check that I've incorporated all the changes by doing a scan of the edits from the back of the book to the front. Again, this avoids getting caught up in continuity. I'm just looking for the changes to have been put in.
Finally, I run Word's Editor again. This is just in case I've introduced new errors. Unfortunately, Word doesn't "remember" what I ignored from the first round. So this process will involve ignoring the same edits all over again. Again, it's probably 40/60 as to whether I accept the edits.
Then, the novel is ready for publication. The KDP site likes PDFs for the paperback and hardcover editions, so I will create those - swapping out the ISBN from paperback to hardcover, appropriately. The Kindle upload has to be a Word file, though. So in the end, I end up with three versions of each book: Kindle (Word), paperback (PDF; paperback ISBN), and hardcover (PDF; hardcover ISBN).
All three will be released for publication around the same time. But it's always the Kindle that gets approved first. Followed by the hardcover. And finally the paperback. Not sure why the paperback takes longer than the hardcover, but it always does.
Then there's updating all the other books with the new book in the list of books. That's a whole other process documented in an earlier blog post (12 x 3 = 36). This time, it will be 13 x 3 = 39, in addition to the new 3. Whew.
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