It’s kind of like building a house.
A book, I mean.
Publishing a book is like building a house.
When I was writing The Net Present Value of Life, it was a lonely and solitary existence. There was me, and there was my computer screen. And there was no need for anything, or anyone, else.
Publishing a book, though. That’s different.
That takes people—an actual team of people, I suppose.
And now, so contrary to the solitary experience I described earlier, I find myself working with those other people, each one an expert interested in one thing; the production of a completed item, an item called a novel.
Wait a minute, maybe a book’s not like a house at all. Maybe it’s more like a manufacturing process. A process that saw me provide the raw materials, that I then gave to others, who are now providing—you know—other stuff.
There’s publishing, there’s design, there’s promotion, there’s legal—and I guess later on, there will be printing and distribution and sales and… uh, I don’t know what else, actually.
Exotic travel and fancy meals maybe? Hmm, that would be nice…
For now though, I’d like to tell you about one person who has been helping me develop this production object of mine—this unit, this inventory item, this SKU. This thing called my novel.
Her name is Jane and she’s my editor. We’ve been working together for over a month, and, just two days ago, Jane sent me her final edits.
It was a weird feeling, getting those last few chapters. To be honest, while there may have been some excitement, there was a scary feeling there too. I don’t know if it was scary because the book was that much closer to public scrutiny (scary enough of a thought, isn’t it?). Or maybe it was scary because, after almost three years of writing and revising and tinkering and tweaking, it was now time to, as they say, put it to bed.
Whatever.
Want I want to relate, though, is that Jane’s editing (which I was worried about, to be honest) has brought out.. Oh, let me put it this way. If I had a restaurant and Jane were a chef, then the book would be a meal. And what Jane has done is expose hidden flavours and textures, and lingering tastes on the palette.
Good stuff. All of it good stuff.
So, as the book moves along the manufacturing process, it will soon leave Jane’s wonderful care (once I get my butt in gear and comment on Jane’s final edits), and it will move on to someone else.
And, before it does that, all that’s left to say is, thank you Jane, a million times over.
It really couldn’t have been in better hands.
