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Bound for Publication 6/7/2010 5:29:14 AM
I wanted to do a blog on publication. Now your immediate response to that should be, “Hey, what do you know about publication? Your first book doesn’t even come out until January.” Heck, it was mine. Well, I can tell you this much: The anticipation of publication makes me feel like an expectant elephant. It’s only rivaled by the gestational period required for a novel to transition from manuscript to bookstore shelf. But that’s the way it works, and that’s the first thing you learn. BEAUTIFUL DISASTER sold on October 29, 2009. (Also the same day the stock market crashed in 1929, which I try not to think about) The second thing you learn is that along with contracts and negotiations and advances—things as necessary and perplexing as a surgeon’s instruments—comes a wide learning curve. Seriously, you could wrap it around the fat lady at the circus and still have room for the all the clowns in the car. When I asked for the publishing handbook—you know, the official novice’s guide to the process—I found that they were fresh out. There are resources, the most spot-on info coming by way of your editor or agent. I am wary, however, of the nuisance factor, never wanting to be perceived as something sticky that you can’t get off your hands. A perennial favorite resource is Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird. This combination writer’s manual and reflections on life is brilliant, insightful, and full of good humor. I’m not sure if I ever really believed page 185 would apply to me. But as we inch toward BEAUTIFUL DISASTER’s debut, it’s become a grounding point: “Publication is not going to change your life or solve your problems. Publication will not make you more confident or more beautiful, and it will probably not make you any richer.” Amen, Anne Lamott.
Still, I’m finding that there are terrific milestones in publication, and while I’ve yet to experience many, I do have the first few under my belt: the shopping, the sale, the contract, the edits—that’s a scary one. If you’re a hand wringer, like me, you find yourself convinced that on this pass said editor will read your book through an entirely new set of eyes. With a knotted brow, laborious sighs will follow like the Grim Reaper from chapter to chapter, reaching the end where she murmurs, “What the heck was I thinking?” Fortunately, that didn’t happen. In fact, it was quite the opposite as she called to tell me exactly how much she loved my book all over again.
The biggest thrill, by far, has been the cover. My editor asked for input, what I envisioned. Having spent five years with this novel and these characters you’d think I’d have an answer, if not a portfolio of camera ready images. I honestly didn’t have a clue. What I see so clearly in my mind can never be expressed via a book cover. To do that you’d have to drill a deep and narrow passage to the most imaginative part of my left side brain—or maybe you could just read the book. Anyway, I did have some thoughts on what I didn’t want. I couldn’t envision a cover with real people, the artistic photography that is the current trend in women’s fiction. It makes for captivating covers, but it wasn’t for me. Here’s what else I’ve learned about publishing: the author and book cover are an arranged marriage. You could wake up to find yourself irrevocably linked to man who smells of salami and has all the appeal of a jar of fire ants. As it happened, I came across my cover by accident. The artist contracted to create it had posted the artwork on his website, along with the title of his project, Beautiful Disaster. While there was no text on the cover art, I knew immediately that this was for my book. Somehow a total stranger, based on a few pages of manuscript, managed to drill right through to my left side brain. It’s perfect—take a look, if you haven’t already. Days later all was confirmed when the cover art arrived complete with text. I was silly excited about it. My kids had the jpeg enlarged and framed for Mother’s Day. It leaves me thinking that, so far, publication is a pretty cool thing.
