Writing a Book

Just so you don’t think the whole publishing process was all rainbows and unicorns, there was some good drama here at the end, and a bitter, knock-down drag-out with the publisher over the cover design. Guess who won.

I won’t go into the monumental level of frustration we’ve continually encountered in dealing with most of the folks at this publishing house, since they typically like to just shove everything into their boring, uninspired, yawn-inducing box, and we’re decidedly “out-of-the-box” (but not off-the-wall) people. I had to fight tooth-and-nail to get them to design the interior pages the way I wanted with the fonts I spec’d (They balked at Berthold Garamond BQ 12/16! It’s not like I spec’d something like…

Category: Writing a Book

Though I haven’t blogged in a while, it’s been a busy summer in Book Land, between copyediting and proofreading, designing page layouts and the jacket, securing advance “endorsements” from a wide variety of individuals, hiring a publicist and web designer, and developing promotional strategies and copy. It’s been at once rewarding (seeing my words in print) and frustrating (working with the very “in-the-box” publisher), but we are going to press next Monday, and the book will be in the warehouse on September 22nd and in stores a week or two later. In fact, it’s already for presale online at amazon and Barnes & Noble.

David and I are also thrilled to announce that Letters from Home will be…

Category: Writing a Book

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…

Category: Writing a Book

Letters from Home has officially entered the production process! We had a conference call with our production team earlier this week to give them (lots of critical) feedback on the preliminary interior book design samples they proposed. I had made notes on everything from type faces (Berthold Garamond, if you please, for text; Felix Titling for chapter titles only; and Nobel for running heads), sizes (12/16, not 11.5/14), margins, facing pages, chapter title page design, paper stock, edge trim, etc. I’m pretty sure our designer and the production editor wanted to shoot themselves (or, more likely, me), but they said it was actually helpful to have me be so specific rather than just say I didn’t like it in…

Category: Writing a Book

So now that the manuscript has been completed and edited, what’s next? Well, there are still a bunch of odds and ends that need to be done.

My first order of business was to produce a bound manuscript, meaning I took all the edited copy and made it look nice, put together a quick table of contents (sans page numbers), added the front and back cover, put some publisher-supplied legal language on it about it being an advance copy and not for sale, and took it to Kinko’s yesterday to have it copied and bound. I’ll have 18 copies back this afternoon.

What do you use a bound manuscript for? That takes us to the next two pieces of business: finding…

Category: Writing a Book

Holy freakin’ cow. Two minutes ago I sent the two final chapters plus the epilogue to my editor. If I can just take a moment to process this…I actually completed the 250-page manuscript!

I’m not exactly sure how I managed to write three chapters and the epilogue in less than a week. It’s a blur, sort of like the pain of childbirth. And though they were written in a short span of time, I think they actually might be my finest pieces of writing. They’re very personal and heartfelt, which is my bailiwick.

Now what? Well, I need to keep the champagne corked for a couple more days as I go back to square one and review the minor editorial comments…

Category: Writing a Book

Okay, so I began this project last fall with an office set-up on the cavernous third floor. Over the winter I moved my work area to the sitting area on the the second floor. When spring rolled around, I relocated to my actual office on the first floor. And yesterday, because of the distracting noise and commotion in and around my office, I moved my computer to a folding table in the basement. I am officially working from the crypt. The dungeon. If I move down any further, it’ll have to be to Class A office space in Hell.

On the upside, I received feedback yesterday from my editor, the first person outside this house to read what I’ve written…

Category: Writing a Book

Oh my! If I squint and crane my neck at precisely the right angle, I can just about make out the light at the end of the proverbial tunnel! But I don’t want to get myself quite as excited as my little white dog was when we gave her a veal bone Sunday night, so let me pull in the reins a little. Okay. That’s better.

Against my will—and my better judgment, I might add—I was dragged away over the long weekend to the faraway paradise known as Amagansett. David packed up my big desktop computer into its original box for the trip to the beach, and although I protested all week long in anticipation, I’m immensely glad to…

Category: Writing a Book

I am absolutely over the moon to announce that we have finalized arrangements to donate half the royalties from our book to support hereditary breast and ovarian cancer research and education. We have chosen two highly respected organizations as the beneficiaries, each doing groundbreaking work in this area.

Forty percent of the book’s profits will help fund research being conducted by Dr. Kenneth Offit at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York. It was Dr. Offit’s research team that identified the BRCA gene mutation, and being able to know that I carried the mutation was life-changing for me. I elected to undergo prophylactic mastectomies in 2007, and have tried to use the gratitude I took from that…

Category: Writing a Book

Eerie story to share. Spent much of the day stumped and arguing about a chapter I’m about to write that we’ve been calling “Vision.” I haven’t been quite satisfied with the concept, because it didn’t capture exactly what I wanted to express. Tried to refine our thoughts by exploring related ideas like determination, ambition, motivation and a few others, but nothing seemed to fit. I think David would’ve been satisfied calling it “Armpit Hair” or “Chocolate Pudding” if it would get me writing quicker. It was all very maddening, especially with our looming deadline.

Suddenly got interrupted by a call from the school nurse that one of our munchkins wasn’t feeling well and had a low fever, so we…

Category: Writing a Book