Acknowledgments, proofreading, cover design and endorsements

The book begins to take shape

Photo by Suzanne D. Williams on Unsplash

Publishing is a funny business: you spend years waiting for a publisher to throw you a bone, then even after you’ve signed a contract, the process moves in slow motion – until it doesn’t. I last spoke to you about the progress of my debut novel, All You Took From Me, in early December. Back then, I was working through what felt like never-ending copy edits. Fast forward two months, and I’m much closer to holding the finished novel in my hands. And I’m learning so much about the steps that go into creating a book.

Here’s what happens after the copy edit:

1. Dedication and Acknowledgements: After completing the copy edit to my publisher’s satisfaction, I was asked to provide the dedication that goes near the front of the book and the longer acknowledgements section for the back (bear in mind this happens many months before the publication date). I had less than a week to get these done.

   Here are my tips and takeaways after completing this part of the process:

   a) Start an acknowledgements file on your computer while you’re writing the book, and add to it when anyone helps you in any way (research, beta readers, writing teachers, moral support, etc.). Otherwise you’re bound to forget someone.

   b) If you’re not certain they’ll be okay with it, ask these people whether they’re happy to be mentioned in your acknowledgements as soon as you know the book is going to be published (especially people like police officers, who may not want to be named). Otherwise you might be chasing them at the last minute like I was.

   c) Ask the publisher for the names of everyone who has worked on your book (or will work on it in the coming weeks and months). A lot goes on behind the scenes, and you don’t want to miss anyone out.

   d) Go wide rather than mention every writer friend by name, or else you probably will miss someone out. Can you tell I’m still paranoid I’ve missed someone out?

2. Typesetting: About a week before Christmas, once the dedication and acknowledgements were completed, the manuscript went to the typesetter. Typesetters take care of all the internal design elements of a book, turning the Word file into a beautiful document that’s laid out like an e-book. In discussion with the publisher, they choose font style and size, layout on the page, how to format text messages and other unusual elements, cover page font (which generally mirrors that of the cover design), positioning of the author bio and headshot, etc. When the manuscript came back to me in early January, it looked something like this:

   

   There might have been a few tears shed. Then I got back to work.

3. Proofreading: Although other eyes will proofread the typeset version of the manuscript, the author knows the story best and has the most to lose if errors creep into the final version. So I printed a copy of the typeset version and read the entire book aloud with a blank piece of paper blocking out all but the line of text I was reading. Then I read it again on a tablet, and once more after the changes I picked up on the first two rounds had been made. A straw poll of author friends told me that different publishers have different approaches to proofreading: some ask for annotations on a printed manuscript, others require authors to use software to annotate the pdf, while mine simply asked for a list of pages, line numbers and changes to be made. After each round of changes, I was asked to recheck the document. Despite my best efforts, I’m certain I will have missed something.

4. Cover Design: Around the same time as the acknowledgements were being finalised, the publisher asked whether I had an ideas or preferences about cover design. For those who don’t know, when a book is traditionally published, the author does not have the final say on the cover design. In some publishing houses the author has very little say, although they will generally be asked to okay the publisher’s preferred choice, so I was delighted to be included in the process. I sent off a few examples of covers I like and design elements I thought might work for my book, then the publisher briefed the designer, Peter Lo. In early January, I was presented with a selection of designs known as cover roughs, and among them was THE ONE. My publisher and I both agreed it captured the mood of my book perfectly, and I can’t wait to share it with you in a future newsletter.

5. Endorsements: The next piece of the puzzle is asking well-known authors to provide endorsements for the cover – also known as puff quotes. It’s a big ask, to email or DM a favourite author and ask them to not only read your book, but also hopefully provide a killer quote for the cover. Bear in mind that endorsements are not paid and big names get asked to do a lot of them. Some publishers organise these on the author’s behalf, but many authors must reach out themselves. This is when all that networking you’ve hopefully done in the lead-up to signing your publishing deal comes in handy. It’s excruciatingly awkward, but there’s nothing like the feeling of sending an advance copy of the precious novel you’ve been labouring over for years to your favourite authors.

And now, I wait – for endorsements to come back and for the cover design to be finalised so I can show it to you. Hopefully I’ll have more exciting news to share in my next update in a month’s time.

Before then, in just a couple of weeks, I’ll bring you another batch of brilliant Debut Crew 2024 releases. And I suppose I should also get cracking on book two…