How Do Manuscripts Become Books? Part 2
September 16, 2010
The editorial process is where the manuscript starts to become a book.
You have slaved over and polished your manuscript seemingly forever. You likely had at least a first reader read the whole thing from page one to the end and they’ve provided you copious notes. Maybe you’ve had a critique group read your manuscript and make similar suggestions.
Now after all this has been done you’ve sold your first manuscript and signed a contract with a publisher that says an editor will provide a number of edits to prepare the manuscript for publication. And after the editor is finished a copy editor will further polish the manuscript.
After the editorial process is complete a galley will be produced for one final review. The galley is a mock up of what the final book will look like without the cover.
Of course, you’re thinking with all the critique group/first reader/spell checks already done the editorial process will be a breeze. It should take about ten minutes and one run through to fix very minor things and then a copy editor will tell you everything is fine and how brilliant you are, right?
No. Sorry.
The editor’s job is to take what you’ve created and help you make it better, at least in theory. Now often this is very true but on occasion the editor and the writer don’t see eye to eye and the process can go off the rails. Fortunately, this is an exception.
One of the problems first time authors run across is the editor who has just graduated from college and has limited life experience and they want to remove things that they don’t know about or understand, but for the most part editors are very bright, well read people who do a great job.
Anyway, the editorial comments can be lengthy and very time consuming and the editor will give you a short deadline to get it back to them because the editor has to meet a publishing schedule. For you this means long hours fixing the manuscript and everything else in your life must be put on hold. The good news is you only have to make the changes you agree with, but having been through the process I found the editor is usually correct, especially with us newbies.
Now this editing may take more than one go around and will often take some discussion with editor. Once this is process is complete the copy editor does their job. This involves copy editor marks. The copy editor uses a unique set of symbols, essentially their own language to convey changes to punctuation, grammar, unnecessary words etc that were missed during the editorial process.
I know you’re thinking this will be minor and take no time at all. Sorry to tell you but this may take some time, and again the editor will give you a tight deadline.
So once this is all done the galley is produced. At the galley stage the writer should only suggest changes that are very obvious, such as the protagonist’s name changes on page 110, or the pages in chapter six are out of order. Does this mean you must read the whole thing from beginning to end again?
The bad news is yes. The good news is after this process the book will then be published. The bad news is it may be many months to hit the book store shelves so hold off telling friends and family your book is about to come out just yet.
Are you going to be sick of this precious manuscript when it becomes a book? Yes. Do you still have to talk enthusiastically about it on panels and on your website? Yes.
Once the manuscript becomes a book it becomes a product that needs to be sold.
The manuscript is art, the book is product.
This is why they are so very different.