If you somehow missed it, you can catch Part 1 here. Last time, on the Road to Publication…
August 22, 2022
The contract with Ravenstone (an imprint of Turnstone) had been signed! This meant it was official: Pale Grey Dot was sold.
I’d handled contracts before, both as the publisher and published, but those were for short stories. No, this one was much larger.
The key sections covered were:
- I owed the final manuscript to them by November, 2023
- They then had two years to publish (so latest publication date would be November 2025)
- An advance
- How new or revised editions are handled (basically, if 25% of the book is changed, then it’s no longer a revised edition but rather a new work entirely)
- I receive 10 free copies of the book to do whatever I want with them, and can buy more at a reduced rate
- The publisher will send two copies to the National Library in Ottawa
- How royalties are divided for…
- English language print editions
- French language print editions
- Copies sent to book clubs
- Film/television/theatre
- Microfiche (yeah that’s right)
- Audio books
- Braille editions
- Audio books
- Serialization (in case some magazine wanted to publish it in, I don’t know, 20 separate installments)
- and more!
- The list is exhaustive, but also hilarious. Microfiche? Seriously? I guess it makes sense to include anything and everything, just in case. Who knows–maybe Microfiche is due for a big comeback.
September 13, 2022
I had a little questionnaire to fill out for Turnstone. These are for things like social media information, my personal biography, previous publications, a favourite excerpt, and the inspiration for the book.
Why?
Because these are the sorts of things useful for press releases, book fairs, and the sales force (i.e. selling directly to bookstores). I actually wish I knew more about how the sales force works. TDotSpec‘s advertising was mostly through Social Media and word of mouth, but this is an entirely new bailiwick.
October 31, 2022
Turnstone’s official announcement went out, as you can find here.
This meant I no longer had to be cagey about who I informed. No more telling people: “Uh… no, I’m not querying right now for… some reason.”
With that done, the next step would be for Turnstone to hire an editor for an official structural pass of the manuscript.
May 10, 2023
Six months after the announcement, structural edits began! That might sound like a long gap, but… well, yeah, it is.
I remember being a bit nervous since the final manuscript was due at the end of November, but ultimately it seems like a pretty soft deadline. I’m glad the focus is on doing it right rather than doing it fast. They had to find and hire an editor who could handle political intrigue, action, and hard-ish science fiction.
They found it in Adria Laycraft, who did an excellent job. Basically, she pointed out any logical inconsistencies, improvements to sentence structure, and cutting anything that could be cut. The draft I originally submitted was around 109k, and we trimmed that down to 103k, mostly from the middle sections.
There’s a bit of a balancing act when it comes to sentence structure. On one hand, you want everything to be clearly understandable. But there should be room for being poetic. You don’t want your prose to be perfectly correct if it comes with the cost of being boring.
July 11, 2023
Turnstone asked for an official author photo, for use in press releases, their website, and maybe the book.
Like a lot of folks, I despise photos of myself–Y.M. Pang is about the only person to successfully take a photo of me that I liked. But I had to suck it up and get one done professionally.
I’ll update when it’s available for public consumption.
Amusingly, the photographer had to sign a release form so I could actually use it for whatever I want. Copyright is weird, and being the subject of a photograph doesn’t mean you own it.
August 11, 2023
So began copy edits!
Grammar and spelling are super boring, but also super essential. I get first crack at making sure everything meshes with the Turnstone Style Guide. The guide includes such exciting topics as:
- Canadian vs American spelling (we went with aggressively Canadian)
- Grammar
- Typography (are ellipses three dots or the special character? Smart or dumb quotation marks?)
- Hyphenating words (reelection or re-election)
- Spelling out numbers vs not spelling out numbers (I bought 40 cakes vs I bought forty cakes)
- Time formats (10 o’clock, Ten o’clock, 10 PM, 10 pm, 10 P.M.)
Not fun, but again, essential.
The only interesting part is that we’ll need to mark up the text in order to make it accessible to the visually impaired. Italics, for example, can be used in multiple ways:
- Thinking: Gosh, I sure hope I win the big game, Bob thought.
- Written signage and notes: The bright neon sign read Trespassers will be shot.
- Emphasis: “Not there, you idiot,” Bob said. “Here!”
- Titles: I recently read An Abyss for the Ashes, by Danny F. Santos.
- Flashbacks: (no examples here. Only monsters use this method)
If you have an ebook reading the text aloud, the computer needs to be explicitly told what the italics are for so it can inform the reader.
Big fan of making sure all books are available to every type of reader, even if it’s a bit more work.
At any rate, I send my revisions in on August 19th and went back to Plan Alpha: Wait.
August 26, 2023
Brief interlude to attend AugurCon. Fun stuff. Got to meet some neat people. I may write about it in the future.
October 13, 2023
Slightly longer interlude to attend Can*Con, which was a zillion times larger than AugurCon and a zillion more neat people. I’ll definitely write about it in the future.
October 18, 2023
The Literary Press Group of Canada, a non-profit association that represents Canadian book publishers, includes PGD in their display at the Frankfurt Book Fair in Germany. Frankfurt is the world’s biggest trade fair for books. Exciting! I don’t really know what will come from it, but still exciting!
Throughout the whole process are hints of the promotional materials being used. This includes advanced review copies and blurbs. Blurbs are kind words given by someone in the industry who’s read and enjoyed the book. They can appear on promotional material, the website, or even the book itself.
I’ve received a few already and they’re a joy to read. Providing my own is something I hope to be able to do for others in the future.
November 1, 2023
Turnstone sent their copy edit pass back to me. Now, I had initially thought this would be pretty straight forward. How hard could it be to slap in a ‘u’ every so often to Canadianize everything? But nooo, I was quite wrong.
I can’t overstate how excellent of a job Turnstone’s in-house editor, Melissa Morrow, did. She was amazingly thorough, questioning multiple lines on each page to see if they could be improved.
It’s a tiny bit agonizing, since I thought PGD was locked up and as complete as could be. To paraphrase: “Just when I thought I was done, they pulled me back in.” But despite needing to tinker with its guts some more, the book is stronger as a result.
Ultimately, that’s what’s important.
So I gave my feedback on their copy edits (it’s like a manic game of ping pong) this brings us up to today.
What’s Next?
We’re close to the fun part (I think):
- Layout: This is where the manuscript gets formatted into a novel. The book will look like a book! I’ve done this before with Strange Wars, and it takes a surprising amount of time.
- Cover Reveal: Yes, I have a preliminary version of it. No, I cannot share it yet 🙂 Soon, though.
- Release Date: Yes, I have a potential release date. No, I cannot share it yet 🙂 Also soon!
- Launch Party: Once we have a date, we can plan something in person!
- Convention Planning and Promotional Material: Oh yes. Yet another thing that will be “soon”.
Big shout out to those tagging along for this journey. The writing community makes everything better. I wouldn’t have gone to AugurCon if Justin hadn’t mentioned it, and I wouldn’t have gone to Can*Con if Peter hadn’t organized it. To say nothing of all the beta reading and feedback.
Catch everyone next time!
