The truth about having your book published
It's not quite how I imagined...
It’s a scarily long time since my first book was published. It was written on parchment and opened out like a giant scroll.
Okay, it’s not quite that long ago. But I was at toddler group, with my then two year-old daughter, when the call came to say it had been bought by a publisher (Erin is now 23).
Thrilled and overwhelmed, I asked my friend Tania to keep an eye on her while I bolted out of the church hall and into the street.
My book was going to be an actual book! It was going to be in the shops and this big, famous publisher was willing to pay actual money for it!
If you’ve ever thought about writing a book, or are in the process of writing one - and have yet to be published - I thought I’d share my experience of those early days.
This is it, I thought. This is going to change my life. And it sort of did - although the process wasn’t quite how I’d played it out in my fantasies.
Fantasy version: parties, glory, being feted by important publishing types and swishing off to sumptuous hotels to write subsequent books.
Reality: When you’re taken on by a publisher you’re assigned an in-house editor who works with you throughout the whole process. I genuinely had no idea about this at all.
I’d assumed that all I had to do now was sit back in glory and wait for my book to roll out into the shops. There’d be a launch party, I decided. WHAT THE HELL WOULD I WEAR?! Should I have a manicure? Would we just offer wine and beer or cocktails as well?
Never mind parties and cocktails because the first email from my editor had arrived.
‘I really enjoyed your first draft,’ it started.
First draft? FIRST DRAFT? What was she on about? That was the bloody book!
As I read her mail, feeling sicker and sicker, it became apparent that it wasn’t. At least, it wasn’t the book yet. Because attached to the email were her ‘notes’ - i.e., a lengthy document, running to six single-spaced pages, detailing how my book should be improved.
Outrageous! I thought, mopping tears from my face. Would some gallery owner have waltzed into Picasso’s studio and said, ‘Hey, Pablo - this painting you’ve been slogging over for months. She looks a bit weird. Maybe have her eyes open and smiling more?’
But I’m not Picasso. I was a debut author and, although I’d written for magazines for many years, clearly it bore no relation to the book publishing world.
So I forced myself to be sensible. I downed several large glasses of wine, cried some more and finally got down to the business of doing ‘the structural edit’ according to my editor’s suggestions (directions, really, if we’re being honest).
It took a month of intense work. I hesitated, typing that - because I wasn’t performing eyeball surgery or removing a foreign object from a dog’s bowel. I was only fiddling about with words. But still, it felt difficult. Feeling battered and bruised, I sent it back to my editor. Back it came again, for the ‘line edit’ this time - the smaller fixes. Fiddly, yes, but not as arduous. I was getting used to this process. I wasn’t anaethetising myself with corner shop sauvignon (at least, not quite as much).
So this is how it goes. After the line edit comes the copy edit - yep, a THIRD round of edits - which is usually done by a freelance copy editor rather than an editor in-house. This is the fine tuning stage, where bloopers and inconsistencies are flagged up - things like timeline mistakes and George suddenly becoming Simon and wasn’t he meant to have been run over by a tractor three chapters ago? The copy editor makes zillions of comments in the margins and they go like this:
Sophie left her lunchbox sitting on the step. Did she ever go back and pick it up?
Ben’s eyes have gone from green to blue. Consistency?
Daffodils don’t bloom in January you goon!
Hannah has been pregnant for 27 months!
You have used the word ‘clearly’ 82,476 times. So what? Clearly, I’m very fond of the word!
There are no trains from Brainboggle to Lower Arsenbury on a Sunday, please change.
‘Who cares about Sophie’s lunchbox?’ I’ve found myself grumbling. And will anyone start checking train timetables or notice Ben’s peculiar colour-changing eyes? (Answer: yes. Every reader will notice and some will email you, crowingly, to put you straight).
Every copy editor I’ve worked with has been ludicrously pernickety. But that’s her job, I remind myself. She is the neighbour who know which days all of the different coloured bins are emptied, and that the road to the train station will close from 31/8-15/9 - stuff most of us can’t be bothered to engage with.
Of course, when we try to drive to the station and find bollards and workmen and the stench of hot tar, it comes back to bite us on the backside. Our unwillingness to pay attention to detail, that is.
I’m old enough to know that I despise detail. It’s why I never learnt how to work the DVD player and was delighted when it finally became obsolete.
Anyway, that’s what copy editors are for. The detailed stuff. So I’m actually delighted that they - and all of the other editors - exist.
Something like 18 books in, it’s a relief these days to reach the stage when the process becomes collaborative. A good editor will suggest - rather than enforce - changes. They’re not the police. They just want to coax the best story from you that they possibly can, and avoid readers crowing, ‘Marcia’s hair was brown on page 37 and on page 250 it’s gone BLONDE!’
(Well maybe Marcia fancied a change eh!!!).
Are you writing a book? Please feel free to ping me your questions about the publishing process.
Oh, and I can’t remember what I wore for that first launch party. But I do remember looking around at the small audience while I did a short reading. My mum was sitting in the front row. She was so proud, I realised. So proud that her daughter was a published author at last.
At least, she would have been if she hadn’t fallen asleep.
Love,
Fiona xx
PS You can dive into my latest novel, The Man I Met on Holiday, by ordering here! It’s garnered over 500 lovely Amazon reviews and some readers are saying it’s their favourite. If you read and enjoy it, would you mind leaving a review? It makes all the teeth gnashing and corner shop wine sloshing worthwhile. xx
We buy a book, or toddle along to our local library and borrow it, sit down and read it and hopefully enjoy it. We rarely give a thought to how it came about.
Until now - the age of social media - we are learning just how much work goes into producing that book we take for granted and enjoy reading. It is said that it takes a village to raise a child, I think the same could apply to books, according to the acknowledgement pages in the books I read.
I love reading that your proud Mum sat snoozing in the front row - that would be me! My son was once being interviewed about his job as CEO of an international company and was asked "What keeps you grounded?" - no hesitation - "My Mum".
So I raise a glass (orange juice - it's early in the day) to all my favourite authors (yes, you are on the list) and their teams. Thank you for all your hard work - and hats off to all us Mums!