Cover Flaps and Page Proofs

[jpskewedthrone]

Arriving home at 3am I found . . . page proofs! And cover flaps! All for Cracked Throne of course. The cover looks SOOOOOO much better on the cover flaps than on the file of the cover flap I got earlier on. It somehow looks darker, more sinister. Which I love. All of this was accompanied by a little note saying they need the page proofs on their desk not later than . . . July 5th.

Ach!

I say again:

ACH!

So I started work on that today. I'm halfway through chapter 2 and have about 8 pages of corrections so far. For those not in the know, the page proofs are the actual copies of what the pages inside the book will look like, including all the fancy graphics and whatnot. I have to go through and read everything and can make MINOR changes to the text. It's too late for me to change entire scenes (not without it costing me anyway). I'll have to get all of this done this weekend and then overnight it on Monday or something, since I like to be safe and get it in a day ahead of time, just in case. So I'll be busy, busy, busy. I'm supposed to be busy right now, but I've already got a headache from reading . . . possibly because I'm operating on 3 hours of sleep.

But the covers for both Cracked Throne and the paperback of Skewed Throne are up at amazon now. I have a blurb from Locus on the cover of the paperback of ST. Not sure what the back of that looks like. I don't think I'll get page proofs for that, since I already did that for the hardcover. I assume they just use the file for the hardcover and resize.

Oh, one interesting fact about Cracked Throne: It's 100 pages longer than Skewed Throne in the current version. Which shouldn't change much. And another interesting fact: Apparently Vacant Throne is supposed to come out in 2007.

Hmm. . . . I guess I should continue writing that. I'd need to finish it this year for that to happen.

Once the page proofs are done. I promise.

(And PS authorm: There is absolutely no way in hell I can catch up, let alone beat you. I concede!)

Comments

[authorm.livejournal.com]

This is all so exciting!! ;)

As for beating me, no worries. I think I've been pretty up front about the fact I HAVE NO CHOICE!!! If I was my regular slacker self, it would be way, way different. :)

August deadline = Megan working like a madwoman.

I'm very excited to read your book(s) too, which I will be ordering from Amazon the very moment I get some money in my little hands. It's coming, they tell me. It's coming....

M

[jpsorrow.livejournal.com]

Ooo! Orders are always nice. I admit I'm addicted to watching the rankings on amazon, even though I've been told repeatedly that they're meaningless and have seen enough evidence of this to know that it's true. *sigh* I'm such a putz.

I have two months to wreak havoc on the book now, with only one weekend for Confluence off. Of course, I also have to paint the apartment during this time so . . . I just need to get busier on the writing earlier in the day, push myself to up the word count per day, that kind of thing.

Congrats on your excellent progress. Keep up the good work!

[rugor.livejournal.com]

So does this mean I'm going to be able to buy a copy of Cracked Throne soon?

Sorry to hear about your storage, I hope it only soaked things of a non-printed nature.

Keep going with Vacant Throne too-- yes I'm being demanding :) I like your stuff and your support. On the plus side I do intend to keep voting for you with my wallet.

[jpsorrow.livejournal.com]

If by soon you mean November. Once the page proofs are in, there's the ARCs and galleys stage, and then the printing of the actual book stage, and then shipping so that it hits the bookstore. Still a ways to go. But closer. Much closer.

I'll update on the storage problem. Once the water has receeded.

Voting with the wallet is good. *grin* I'll get a significant portion of Vacant Throne done over the next 8 weeks or so. If I'm not done, I'll finish it while teaching. I'm not that concerned (yet). Thanks for the moral support . . . and wallet support.

[jimhines.livejournal.com]

Sounds like you're having a better time of it than I've been. I'm finished my first pass, and I've got corrections on about 2/3 of the pages. My copy editor declared war on my commas, including a lot that really needed to remain...

Good luck! And aren't cover flaps pretty? :-)

[jpsorrow.livejournal.com]

Hmm . . . generally it's Sheila that does the first run through . . . although I can't say that for sure on this one. Debra may have done it. I've found some things that are what I had originally written, but just don't like now, and then some things that changed. It's really weird to be reading your own stuff and then run across a passage that you just KNOW you haven't written yourself. Sometimes there's a typo in it that suggests it wasn't you, since my stuff tends to be fairly typo free, but often it's just a phrase or word that you know you wouldn't have used there. I've hit a few of those (verified by checking my own copy). Some of these I leave because it isn't worth fighting over. But others . . .

And cover flaps are very pretty. ARCs are also pretty. But cover flaps make you feel like things are going to happen after all.

[jimhines.livejournal.com]

Debra told me who my copy editor is. When I send the pages back, I'm probably going to e-mail a polite note explaining what I found and why I had so many corrections. I feel bad, because I'm sure copy editing is pretty thankless. If you fix things, it's pretty much invisible, but if you screw up, everyone knows it.

But a lot of these changes violate some pretty basic rules of punctuation, and never should have happened.

I'm not sure how different my experience is, since they're fast-tracking Quest to get it out by November.

And mm...ARCs....