Talk about a productive weekend! We used both days to get everything done as far as page design and copy editing review. Saturday, we spent the first six hours on design tweaks, and in my OCD-ness I painstakingly created mockups to send to the production team to show them exactly what I want. I know, I am a nutcase. But I want what I want, and I don’t want there to be any chance for misunderstanding. This team is so “in the box” as finance book designers, and we’ve taken them out of their conventional comfort zone in a really good way, because, after all, this isn’t a conventional business book.
We then spent another five hours accepting and rejecting tracked edits that the copyeditor had made. It wasn’t that there were so many edits, it’s that I actually had to keep a spreadsheet accounting for every edit I accepted. Don’t even ask – the whole process is ludicrous. The publisher also uses the Chicago Manual of Style, which to me is antiquated and, well, stupid. And the copy editor was overly anal and fairly inconsistent, which drove me crazy. I guess when you don’t give them all that much to edit, they start to get nitpicky and a little holier-than-thou to justify their jobs. In a few instances, he/she gave me the most chain-yanking author queries just to bust my chops, and I felt like writing back, “STFU!” but I resisted the temptation.
Anyway, we got through all the changes the copy editor had tracked, and then Sunday I decided it would be wise to print out the whole edited manuscript and review it again. Except we were dangerously low on black toner. And we’re out in our little office-supply-store-free hamlet. So we tried the local CVS, which carries ink and toner, but they didn’t have the HP cartridge I needed. We proceeded to Bridgehampton to the KMart, which also didn’t have it. So we went all the way to Southampton to fetch it at the place where we had bought the printer. Someone could clean up with a good office supply store here on the East End!
I printed everything out and then spent the rest of the day doing my check-of-edit in the pool, because…why the hell not? I found a bunch of things the copy editor hadn’t noticed or been consistent with, and finally got a chance to read my writing with a fresh eye, having taken a month off from looking at it. Whether or not people agree with the content, I have to admit that the writing is pretty damn good! Thank you, Mom and Dad, for sending me to Boston University College of Communication. I sure done some decent book-learnin’ there!
David and I both unhesitatingly picked the same publicist to handle the book – she is beyond fabulous – and now we need to let her know and inform the other folks who pitched the project that they didn’t get it. David and I have completely different strategies where stuff like this is concerned. He’s more comfortable being passive-aggressive; as in, don’t call these other people or return their calls for weeks and eventually they’ll get the idea. I’d rather be up front and let them know, but I have that cruel, bitchy side that’s dying to let it slip that their writing samples sucked or that we laughed out loud at their proposed financial arrangement. Shall we perhaps send them a scan of the signed contract with our selected publicist to give them the idea? Call them and say, “Everyone who we picked to be our publicist please stand up. You, sit down!”? Tell them, “I break with thee, I break with thee, I break with thee,” and then throw dog poop on their shoes? Send a landshark with a candygram, ma’am?
Tomorrow morning we’ll receive the design changes back for our prompt final review/approval, and then the next time we see our book, it’ll be as page proofs next week! Woohoo!!! I have to finalize the Acknowledgement page before the end of today, so if you want me to acknowledge you in print, you’d better do something acknowledgeable before 3 p.m. EST!