COPYEDITS BEGIN
Just about a week ago I received copyedits from Tor for the book. It’s rather nifty to see some of the work the copyeditor did in getting the file ready for the next step in the printing process. Many of the changes were not things I need to concern myself with.
A lot of the pages have “delete” on them. Delete this space, this line. Delete these two hyphens and replace with an em dash. Actual comments from the copyeditor are there, too, including questions about repeated words, logistics, and the like. Also, formating instructions for first line indents, or italics (changing my underlines), small caps.
Then there are small changes related to style guides, capitalization and punctuation rules, etc. For example, “Patty Melt” should be “patty melt.” I see suggestions to change things, too, such as changing “breathy” to “raspy” to avoid the echo of “breath” earlier in the same sentence. Also, although the thumbnail for this post shows red pen and paper, I chose electronic proofs, so everything’s done with MS Word’s track changes and commenting.
It’s also the last time I get to make any changes of note. After this, when the page proofs come, I’m rereading simply to look for obvious typos and mistakes.
I’ve been told by other writers they often get one or two weeks to turn around copyedits, but it does depend on pub date and other considerations….such as the fact that it’s the holiday season. So mine are due January 6th.
Luckily I’m off from school for two weeks, so I should be able to get ’em done no problem. And, while I’m at it: Happy Holidays everyone. I suspect my next post won’t show up here until after New Year’s.
