What happens once the bridge is crossed?

[SnowOwl]

I feel like kind of a fraud for asking this, but I'm curious.

I'm an unpublished nobody working on a non-fiction book. From what I understand, the majority of NF is sold in its early stages. Let's say that Agent X takes me on as a client, and they quickly sell my work to Publisher Y and we enter a contract expecting the work to be completed in a year's time.

How close of an eye does the editor usually keep on this writer? Is it usually a laissez faire relationship, where emails are shot back and forth and a chunk of the work is handed in at a time? Or do editors expect to see a completed chapter every month? When does the process begin to really speed up as far as working on the book's cover art, publicity, et cetera?

Thanks, guys!

[maestrowork]

I think it really depends on the editor. But my guess is, if the editor is worth his salt, he will make sure that you're not slacking, that by the end of the "time frame" you would have at least a significant portion of your ms. done and revised. Nobody likes to be surprised in a bad way.

[Cathy C]

Well, in FICTION, the entire ms. is due no later than the contracted date. You don't turn it in piece-meal. For NF, the people I've known who regularly do them generally have a schedule to adhere to in their contract, like "Chapters 1-10, no later than July 1, 2005; Chapters 11-14, no later than September 1, 2005", etc. Usually, they expect the full manuscript in 6-9 months after contracting.


As for cover art, publicity, etc. -- they are handled simultaneously by different departments. You can usually expect to see your cover art at about the time that copy edits arrive. Sometimes it won't be until galleys are done.

Here's the brief schedule AFTER contract signing (all of these dates are fluid, but are stated in the contract, so look at those numbers CAREFULLY before you blindly sign it to make sure that you're capable of delivering what you're promising):

6-9 months after full contract signing, completed manuscript is due in the publisher's hands.
60-90 days after manuscript is presented, an edit letter is forwarded by the editor
30-60 days after the edit letter, the edited manuscript is due back in the publisher's hands
60-90 days after edits are accepted, the author will receive back the manuscript with "copy edits", or grammar, punctuation, spelling, etc.
30-60 days after receipt, the edited manuscript is due back in the publisher's hands.
30-60 days later, the author will receive "galleys," which are the pages as they will actually appear in the book, formatted and in the proper font. The author must then completely read the book to look for errors missed, and ESPECIALLY "wrap" errors. For example,

"Mary went to the police station and visited Sgt. Smith to talk about changes to the case."

When formatted, this might accidentally become:

Mary went to the police station and visited Sgt. Smith to
the case.

See what happened? The typesetter accidentally dropped the words "talk about changes to" from the text. The author has the final word on finding those errors.

Does that help any?

[azbikergirl]

See what happened? The typesetter accidentally dropped the words "talk about changes to" from the text. The author has the final word on finding those errors
Cathy, your posts are so helpful. Thanks! Now I have a question: don't publishers have the books typeset from the final electronic file the author provides? How could stuff get dropped like that?

[TashaGoddard]

[Note: all my knowledge/experience is based on (non-fiction, mostly educational) publishing in the UK. So things may be different in the US (and elsewhere, of course).]

Now I have a question: don't publishers have the books typeset from the final electronic file the author provides? How could stuff get dropped like that?

In non-fiction it is becoming pretty much the norm to use the author's original files, but there are still editors/publishers out there who prefer typesetters to rekey a hand-edited manuscript. Some editors will edit on screen - directly into the author's files, or sometimes copying and pasting text from the author's file into a template file. Other editors edit on paper, then key in (or have someone else key in) the changes to the author's file. Some editors edit on paper and then the typesetters take the author's files and add in the amends before importing the text into the pagelayout software.

Even when there are clean edited files for the typesetter to work from, however, there are occasions when they may manually key in small chunks of text. Examples include things like titles, headers and footers, labels and captions, which will usually be separate to the main text flow and therefore might not come in with the import. Tables are also frequently keyed in from scratch, though modern page layout software is getting better at importing tables from Word now, so it's becoming less common.

Where the typesetter (or even the editor herself) is inputting amends into files, there is always room for keying errors. If the editor is having to do a very high-level edit (e.g. moving paragraphs around, rewriting sentences here and there, adding in new copy from the author to fulfil an unmet requirement, etc.) there is potential for smaller things (like a missing and here and there) to be missed at this stage.

So, yes, even with the author's electronic files, there is still plenty of potential for error.

I would clarify the following:
The author has the final word on finding those errors.
This is when the author has her final word. She doesn't necessarily have the final word. Some publishers only send authors 1st proofs, for example. In which case the final word comes a bit later than that, after the author has in a sense left the process (e.g. at final proofs). I believe that with novels and some kinds of non-fiction, the author will get to see (and be obliged to check) all editing and proofing stages. However, in some non-fiction (especially time-sensitive non-fiction, such as educational publishing), the author does not get as much input in the proofing stages. It should state how many proof stages you will see, how long you will have to check them and what level of changes are allowed before you have to start paying for them (generally, if you make 'blue' changes over 10% at a proof stage you will be obliged to partially or fully cover the extra cost of making these changes).

Hope that helps!

[Cathy C]

Good point, Tasha!


The final galley edits that the author sees isn't necessarily the final galley edit ever. I haven't done any non-fiction, but have known a number of professors who frequently write both non-fiction and textbooks. They often mention that things got changed after they finished with it, and it was frustrating to them.

I've only had to look at one second galley pass, when we discovered that the typesetter apparently made changes that weren't in the copy edits (heaven only knows why!)
Also keep in mind, azbiker, that both copy edits and galleys are actually printed pages that you write on, not on the computer, because they have all of the crop codes and proofreader's marks written on the page for the final pass before going to the printer.