Sunday, May 02, 2010

Editing Progress Report #2

Timelines, timelines, and more timelines. I suppose I’ve come a long way in two weeks. Today, I finished charting, on an Excel spreadsheet, a detailed timeline of all events in my mystery novel. I’ve also compiled a chapter-by-chapter outline, a list of editing changes to make, and a list of characters. The character list includes their purpose in the book and their relationship to my protagonist, Casey. Now I’m creating another spreadsheet that will show me and my editor exactly when Casey meets these people. As mentioned last week, it’s a lot of work and given that I’ve worked on this task every day, except one, over the past fourteen days, I’m feeling a little punchy.

Oh, but there’s more. My publisher’s publicist (isn’t it good to know that some publishers still have one?) has requested an author statement and a synopsis of my book. By the way, I’m not mentioning the title because that might change too. Anyhow, I thought the author statement wouldn’t be too much work because I’ve written my biography before. So I nearly fell off my chair when I discovered that the document she sent me is ten pages long and filled with much more requested information than the biography. Of course, I see the relevance, but I hadn’t anticipated detailed questions regarding sales and marketing strategies, and contacts, etc. this early in the process. Still, a big kudos to the publicist for getting the ball rolling. Mercifully, I finished this task today. I also had to spruce up my synopsis because it was written quite some time ago.

So, now I have 59 days left to get the revised manuscript to the publisher. Tonight, I just received the first two chapters with editorial suggestions, though I haven’t had time to read them. And so it begins. Here’s hoping things go smoothly.

FATAL ENCRYPTION can be purchased at http://tinyurl.com/ddzsxl
TAXED TO DEATH can be purchased at http://tinyurl.com/czsy5n

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