The first draft of the art heist book is turned in! And I owe you all a catch-up post, but instead I wrote this one. I want to unpack for a second the uncharitable myth that publishers (and the people who work within them) do “nothing” for books in traditional publishing that did not garner six figure advances. A sentiment that has certainly been floating around the ether lately. Or, even as many of us have been saying THANK YOU FOR YOUR HARD WORK, I want to demystify a little bit what that means, who we’re thanking, the kinds of work people in publishing houses are doing at a given time.
This is just a tiny illustration of the number of people who touched my next book from St. Martin’s Griffin, MR & MRS WITCH, in a period of the last month or so. This is based on what I can see/know, so it almost certainly involved other people and stages too. The book is out March 7, 2023, so we’ve already been through a few rounds of edits (in this case with two editors), copy edits (a whole different copy editor, plus the production team who work on assigning and reviewing CEs), and finalizing back cover/sales copy (editor), plus cover design (an artist, the cover designer, editor again who writes the initial art brief and gives input, and input from others in-house).
In the past two weeks, I finished reviewing first pass pages — this is the first time you see your book all laid out and formatted and get a chance to go over it like that. Leading up to this, my editor discussed the interior design with me (it’s got some delightful touches), and then obviously a production person and whoever did the interior design to turn it from manuscript to book did their, ahem, magic. I also received Advance Reader Copies, shiny shiny, which were produced from the first pass pages and this next bit is why those always say “advance uncorrected proof” or some such and suggest you check against the final copy if you’re a reviewer.
First pass pages are generally the last stage at which you can make — hopefully small — changes and tweaks and flag any issues that were missed during previous rounds of edits in addition to catching small formatting or spelling/grammar errors that crept in despite all the people mentioned above’s best efforts. I marked up a PDF with my changes and sent them back last week, by the requested deadline. (The only significant-ish thing involved changing a couple of sentences because somehow when Christopher read the book he neglected to tell me just how bad the Georgia Bulldogs are as a basketball team, so I had to tweak a passing reference that implied otherwise because I’m told that is a fantasy bridge too far. Witches and hunters? Fine. Capybara familiar? No problem. The Bulldogs advancing in March Madness? No way.)
Then this week, my editor sent me a number of pages back with queries from a proofer — who was an absolute goddess of thoroughness and caught quite a few more things that needed either confirmation or changing (perfect three times on one page? no, not intentional; peafowl instead of peacock, really fine details here and so appreciated!). I don’t know exactly the work flow in-house at St. Martin’s, which is part of Macmillan, and that varies between houses and imprints, but the production manager probably also either had that person incorporate my changes from first pass or someone else in production did it and the same thing will happen for the responses I just returned to my editor to go back to the proofer yesterday afternoon.
Also in the past two weeks, the subrights team at St. Martin’s held an auction for the audiobook rights to MR & MRS WITCH and sold them to Findaway (owned by Spotify now), which was fabulous news. Then this week the producers sent four narrator options, two each for Savvy and Griffin, through my editor for my feedback. I sent back my top two choices, which I probably can’t share just yet. (THIS IS GOING TO BE SO GOOD, Y’ALL.)
Then, this morning, I randomly hopped over to Goodreads and discovered a new giveaway for advance reader copies of MR & MRS WITCH, which an entirely different team would have arranged (I’m not sure if it was my fabulous publicity folks or my fabulous sales/marketing folks — but probably marketing because Goodreads giveaways cost $$ and publicity is usually but not always about “earned” media). Obviously, you should go enter! And it to your Goodreads TBR! And preorder!
The ARCs will have also been sent, probably by publicity (please correct me where I’m wrong anyone!) to the major trade review publications and will be sent to other influential publications, booksellers, librarians, and online reviewers appropriate to a paranormal rom-com. Early digital copies have already been added to Edelweiss, which is used by many booksellers and librarians (go request if you are one!). At some point, I presume it’ll be on Netgalley, a touch closer to publication.
I also expect to see another round of questions/reactions from at least one cold reader. My editor — the divine Tiffany Shelton — is shepherding all of this through, along with working on the contract for my next books there, and her entire list. There’s a whole slew of other things that happen in the life cycle of a book and getting it into the world — we haven’t even talked about the work the sales force is or will be doing, trying to convince stores to stock the book and libraries to order copies. The work above is all designed to help the book get to readers in the best shape it can. There are many, many hands and a lot of work involved is what all this demonstrates.
Every book is different, but a lot of these stages are common. And some of this is likely invisible to many authors because everyone involved is juggling a million things. There are almost always things going on to help your book that you aren’t told about, and that’s okay. Everyone is busy. But, when in doubt, ask! Keep an eye out for stuff yourself—create an Edelweiss account, check Goodreads (and then close it and back away quickly if it gives you hives). And always, always thank people for the hard work they are doing, just as you thank readers for reading.
Again, all of this is to say, despite the impression some of you may have from the DOJ trial (perhaps due to certain CEO testimony cough cough), the “alchemy” of publishing involves a lot of hard work for many many people — and that’s actually not just for books that got huge advances. See above.
It’s one reason I still love this business and, yes, the traditional publishing side of it. Flawed? Absolutely. Structurally borked? Yes. Reliant on the hard work that goes largely unrecognized of so many, authors and those at publishers? Hell yes.
But I’m grateful I get to do this for a living, and work with book people, who are the best. Grateful for every person who touches one of my books along the way to shelves and readers. You are appreciated.
More soon, and feel free to leave questions or corrections in the comments! I will answer as I can,
Gwenda
Thanks for sharing! This is awesome. ... Also full-cast audio?!?
Congrats, Gwenda. Lovely to learn of all the hard work being put into your book. I hope it's a runaway success.