You are the lucky person, Kate. The most hard thing for you to do was a writing your book, I suppose. The rest is just some people helping in this and that. The easiest thing for me was the wring my book. The rest is the hardiest think to do - and first thing is --to find an agent. And you were the agent. What are the secrets to find an agent who will accept your book, not a book yet, your manuscript? Thank you, Larisa.
I have my own agent actually! I had to send query letters too. I won’t pretend I didn’t have advantages—I knew the agents I was querying and of course I’ve read a million query letters. But I didn’t sell my own book. There aren’t any secrets to finding an agent unfortunately. It’s luck, hard work, and timing.
I do book design for a handful of small publishers and the images I get from authors are almost never in the resolution I need for print prep. Some of them have made me groan: "Can we use this for the cover?" and it would a 640x480 pixels at 72 early iPhone shot. Sometimes I can fix things up -- most of the time -- but sometimes it's impossible.
Another issue I sometimes see is a copyright/licensing one. The author will include an image and I always ask its origin. "Oh, I grabbed it off the web." Nope. Not unless you want the publisher to get into trouble. I traced one image to a replica statuary place in Italy. I thought they'd be pleased and wouldn't charge much, but they absolutely refused to allow its use.
Can I share that using Google Books to create MLA or Chicago citations is a game changer? Go to books.Google, put the title (or author), then when you click on the publication, midway down the screen is "CITE, and you can select your style guide. (And save titles to your library for when you're doing research and want to come back!)
Thanks, Kate, for your honesty, humor, and heartfelt empathy for/with writers in all your posts but in this one especially. I am nearing the moment of sending "final revision" to my 2 excellent critique partners who are standing by. I will be reading the ms. again while they are and I know I will regret not making more changes before sending. Such is the process!
I love, love, love how forthcoming you are, Kate! And it got me to open THE ELEMENTS OF STYLE, and the first thing that catches my eye is don't break sentences in two! Guilty as charged! Oops!
When I finished my first (unpublished) book I thought I was done. But every time I opened the wordprocessor or publishing program something had to be fine tuned or edited. It's like a never ending process hahaha
You are the lucky person, Kate. The most hard thing for you to do was a writing your book, I suppose. The rest is just some people helping in this and that. The easiest thing for me was the wring my book. The rest is the hardiest think to do - and first thing is --to find an agent. And you were the agent. What are the secrets to find an agent who will accept your book, not a book yet, your manuscript? Thank you, Larisa.
I have my own agent actually! I had to send query letters too. I won’t pretend I didn’t have advantages—I knew the agents I was querying and of course I’ve read a million query letters. But I didn’t sell my own book. There aren’t any secrets to finding an agent unfortunately. It’s luck, hard work, and timing.
Blessings on the heads of copyeditors everywhere.
You're hardly alone.
I do book design for a handful of small publishers and the images I get from authors are almost never in the resolution I need for print prep. Some of them have made me groan: "Can we use this for the cover?" and it would a 640x480 pixels at 72 early iPhone shot. Sometimes I can fix things up -- most of the time -- but sometimes it's impossible.
Another issue I sometimes see is a copyright/licensing one. The author will include an image and I always ask its origin. "Oh, I grabbed it off the web." Nope. Not unless you want the publisher to get into trouble. I traced one image to a replica statuary place in Italy. I thought they'd be pleased and wouldn't charge much, but they absolutely refused to allow its use.
Hooray for everyone making mistakes! 😂
Can I share that using Google Books to create MLA or Chicago citations is a game changer? Go to books.Google, put the title (or author), then when you click on the publication, midway down the screen is "CITE, and you can select your style guide. (And save titles to your library for when you're doing research and want to come back!)
That's amazing!! THank you!
Google Scholar does the same for scholarly work (journal articles, textbooks, etc.)
You also checked the copyright status of those images pulled from the web, right? 😛
We did!
Thanks for sharing, bookmarking this for when I move toward "done" with my book.
Most brilliant substack lede I've read to date. I'm also in the process of being done with my novel.
I’m all for the jokes and asides. 😁
Your opener: being done with the things that needed to be done before you started on the next things…etc. stunning and exact
Thanks, Kate, for your honesty, humor, and heartfelt empathy for/with writers in all your posts but in this one especially. I am nearing the moment of sending "final revision" to my 2 excellent critique partners who are standing by. I will be reading the ms. again while they are and I know I will regret not making more changes before sending. Such is the process!
The bizarre part of writing is you have to be a know it all. Then throw the whole thing into reverse and let an editor have at it : )
Publishing a really good book is such a slow process. But worth it!
I love, love, love how forthcoming you are, Kate! And it got me to open THE ELEMENTS OF STYLE, and the first thing that catches my eye is don't break sentences in two! Guilty as charged! Oops!
Love your comments! Yes, writing a book's a pain! But,someway,we writers just keep on doing the job. Good Luck,always - Jane
When I finished my first (unpublished) book I thought I was done. But every time I opened the wordprocessor or publishing program something had to be fine tuned or edited. It's like a never ending process hahaha