Covers, Edits and Pre-orders

Just when I think this crazy publishing journey can’t get any stranger, something else appears!



My book now has a sparkly cover! I saw it for the first time a couple of weeks ago and it just took my breath away… The oddest thing about it wasn’t just that my name was there on it but that it looked like a proper book cover. I know this might sound like a daft thing to say, but up until now Kowalski’s and then Fairytale of New York have just been rather large Word files on my laptop; seeing the actual book cover that my story is going to wear on the shelves made the whole thing seem even more real. Despite all the work I’m doing, the situation still feels very unreal and I think I’m half-expecting to wake up any minute. So things like seeing my book cover make me realise this is actually happening…

(And, yes, I have printed the design off and wrapped it round a book to see what it will look like!!)

My line edits arrived at last so it’s full steam ahead for the next couple of weeks. Despite my initial fears about them (let’s face it, they sound scary!) they actually haven’t been that bad. I think the most daunting aspect is the thoroughness of these edits – going through the entire novel, quite literally line by line. Whereas in the structural edits I was looking at the story, plot and characters in quite general terms, with the line edits I’m focusing on more intricate details of my novel, such as paragraphs or sentences that perhaps repeat themselves or slow the pace, finalising details about the novel’s setting and really making sure the characters are as vivid and well-rounded as possible.

I can see how it would be easy to become overprotective of your prose during this stage – and there has been a small part of me that wants to protect ‘my baby’ at all costs – but I think my experience of working as a copywriter is coming in useful here. In my day job you learn very quickly that the first thing you write probably won’t make the finished article, so I’ve learned to be open to change in my writing. To be honest, until I started this process I didn’t realise how important this would be. I think if I jealously guarded every word I would either (a) go crazy; or (b) give myself a nervous breakdown, (or, quite possibly, both) – but, most importantly, I wouldn’t grow as a writer. The bottom line for me is that I want what ends up on the shelves on 12th November to be the absolute best writing I can produce.

Talking of books on shelves, the oddest thing to have happened to me so far this year was a couple of weeks ago, when I started to get excited messages from friends telling me that my book was available as a pre-order title! It started with Tesco.com, then quickly Amazon, Waterstones, WHSmith and Borders followed suit… I have to say that Bob has actually now banned me from looking at the Waterstones site because they have a little ‘Days to Publication’ counter on the Fairytale page and I was getting a little freaked out watching it go down!
They say you can’t judge a book by its cover, yet quite a lot of friends have already pre-ordered my book, which seems crazy seeing as I’m still editing it! I suppose that’s just another aspect of the publishing world that I’m learning about. There’s no sign of that steep learning curve levelling out much, yet, but I’ll let you know if it does!

Right, I’ve put it off for long enough today. Back to the editing, Dickinson!