Well, I submitted the Arcs, and like I thought, a few of the things I asked for were turned down. Basic mistakes like punctuation and spelling were all a no-brainers and fixed (I hope).
Wait — OMIGOSH! I just looked at my countdown button and there are only 21 days left until I am officially published! Holy freaking cow!
**Ahem** Sorry… Shaking off the freak out. Back to business…
Okay… those final edits… Here’s what happened.
The Chapter Headers, which I wanted in Edwardian Font, were changed to an awkward Arial Bold that just made me cringe… So if you read it on kindle, imagine that being beautiful scrolling letters that make you feel like you are outside. Funny thing is, The PDF version looks fine, so it might be different depending on the E-reader.
I also was turned down on the Ellipses. I knew they would say no, because I am reading another one of J.Taylor Publishing’s novels now, and I found exactly the same problem in that novel.
In a closing ellipsis, JTP’s standard format is a space before and after… no-matter where it falls on the page. This means that if you have the sentence, “I tried to do it but …” the “…” could very well drop to the next line, and appear all by itself. To me, that completely ruins the mood of what you might be trying to do, but that is the publisher’s choice. They want all their novels in the same format. I need to understand and live with that.
One section of the book had part of the scene removed in editing, and I had to “bridge the gap” because it was obvious there was something missing. It was easy… just added a scenery sentence, but in doing so I accidentally repeated the word “eased” in two back to back sentences. They asked me what I wanted to do and I changed one “eased” to “settled”. Good catch JTP. Thanks!
Finally: A single word came in to play again. The editor had changed one word in a scene that I really liked. I tried to get my original word back, but they declined. The word that they choose just didn’t work for me, but after asking around for suggestions, I found another word that we could both agree upon and BAMO! Yay! We are finally done.
So, I guess they weren’t completely unending. They just felt that way for a little while.
The Arcs are now complete, and the next time I will see Last Winter Red it will be published as part of the Make Believe Anthology.
Ahhhh. Published. Sounds good, doesn’t it?
Related articles
- Styles take the frustration out of formatting [Shelley Fishel] (ecademy.com)
- On Writing (gointothestory.blcklst.com)
- New Digital-First Publisher Now Accepting Mini Novel Submissions From New And Emerging Authors (prweb.com)
Jennifer M Eaton 
Yay! 🙂
Dear Jennifer,
I am very excited for you. Thanks for explaining how you spoke up for yourself in the editing process and how you were sometimes able to compromise.
Celebrate You
Never Give Up
Joan Y. Edwards
Thanks Joan !
I’m reading a book now where there is a space before and after the ellipsis and I don’t like it. It did as you mentioned and dropped to the next line by itself. My editor hasn’t changed any of mine–no spaces. Once I argued with a publisher, back and forth for two weeks on a title. They always win. I got to keep one word in it at least, which is the series name, doh! The next twenty one days will fly by. Go ahead and freak… (no space)
Ha! Long live the no space rebellion!
Well done for getting through the final edits. Published. Such a great word. 🙂
“Published” sounds fantabulous! Congratulations. 🙂
I know! Yay!
It’s been fun keeping you company on your road to publication. Thanks for sharing it with us.
Awe! Thanks for making sure I’m not lonely!
It does seem never ending! I’m going through another boring round now. I’d much rather be writing the next novel . . . but I know I have to make this first one shine:-) My editor and I are both rather snarky, so sometimes that makes it a little bit more lively, LOL
A good and fun editor is a huge asset, I’m sure.
Looking forward to seeing the published book!
Me too! Thanks!
Those next 21 days will fly by! Enjoy the moment and congratulations!
Congrats! Thanks for giving me a glimpse into the give and take of publishing. 🙂
Awesome and exciting. There’s a made-up combo word somewhere in that. Something like awesomiting. Well, you get the idea.
Totally. Thanks!
the one word thing – I understand –
The one word thing? Sometimes I wonder … why!
Seriously, I know. But I guess I need to consider why that one word would be so important to me as well.
Very excited. Congrats on making it to this point.