Blogger: Mary Keeley
Time Is of the Essence
Several commenters on my May 4, 2012 blog, “How Your Manuscript Is Transformed into a Book,” requested an in-depth view of various stages in the book production process. So let’s take a trip through the editorial stages and see how, if there’s one ripple in production waters, the whole process could be affected…because “time is of the essence,” a phrase used in many publishing contracts to indicate that, if the production stalls at any point, revenue might well be lost.
If you are a multi-published novelist or nonfiction author, editors are already familiar with your voice, your brand, and your audience. By comparison, editors have to acquaint themselves with a newly-contracted author’s voice—the unique rhythm and beat, descriptive choices in similes and metaphors, even word choices. Part of the editor’s job is to preserve this individual quality because, frankly, it may have been the tipping point in favor of contracting your project over another. This phase takes extra time and is one reason most publishers require a complete manuscript with a proposal from an unpublished novelist or the first three chapters and a detailed chapter description for every chapter of a nonfiction manuscript.
At the same time, the editor must maintain editorial quality. Initially, he or she may request several phone conversations to gain your understanding about her efforts to strike a balance. Your job as the author is to make yourself available promptly. Recognize the editor is the expert who is striving for a publisher-author partnership success. He or she is the liaison between you and the publisher’s editorial standard. Your attitude of cooperation and willingness to learn will endear you to your editor.
That said, a situation might arise in which you strongly disagree with your editor’s judgment. Don’t waste precious time vacillating about whether you should let your agent know. Alert her to problems right away. She may help you to understand the editor’s perspective, or she may see the need to intervene. Let your agent take care of this negotiation. Not only will it safeguard your editor relationship, but your agent will also expedite an agreement or compromise, thus saving time to maintain the editorial schedule. We agents are well aware of the ripple effect of a missed deadline.
Time is of the essence because a missed due date for the edited manuscript to the design department will affect the designer’s schedule. A designer has cover and interior designs to create simultaneously for multiple books. Just imagine how a delay in one project can have a ripple effect in his schedule. The loss of time in the beginning of the design process will have to be made up somehow. Of course, the designer wants to create a killer cover design for every book assigned to him; his reputation is on the line. But he doesn’t have much cushion in his schedule, and he can’t allow a delay in your project to affect the other books he’s designing. The result will be he’ll have less creative time to come up with that perfect cover for your book.
The same scenario is true for the other stages in the production process. Here is the ripple effect:
- The designer misses his deadline to get his interior design direction back to editorial because much of its design is determined by the cover design.
- The editor now has to incorporate the designer’s interior design coding into the manuscript document. There are no shortcuts to be taken here. A delay at this stage will cause the editor to miss the deadline to get the manuscript document with inserted coding to typesetting for galleys, then first pages.
- Final margins for your book’s interior are set and appear on first pages. If your book will be published in print, the print buyer has been waiting for these first pages to know the final page count. A delay at this stage could mean the buyer misses the opportunity to include the paper for your book in a bulk price discount, resulting in an increased cost of goods over the original estimate, thereby negatively affecting its potential profitability.
You don’t want these things to happen. You want to be professional and present yourself as a cooperative business partner with the publisher. Good tip: be organized . . . very organized. Wendy’s May 29, blog post, “The Organized Writer,” may suggest ways you can adapt her time-saving tips to help you with time availability and responsiveness.
This information relates to the business side of getting your book to the market. These realities sometimes aren’t upfront to a writer’s creative brain. What hadn’t you thought about before? Did you have an aha moment as you think back to a previous publishing experience?
Jeanne T
Mary, thank you for sharing the intricacies and importance of keeping deadlines. I knew some of this, but reading your description of how intricately the process is woven together helps me better understand why a writer must stick to deadlines.
Question: What if a writer has something big happen in his/her life that forces them to miss a deadline?
Mary Keeley
Good question, Jeanne. Life happens and the best thing a writer can do is contact the editor as soon as possible to alert her to the situation. With a little advance warning, it’s possible some tweak can be made in all the schedules. The little bitty secret is that publishers build in a small (very small) amount of cushion to the schedules because after all, the editor or designer or typesetter could have a life interruption too. Only a major life issue should interfere with your due dates, however. Not a spur-of-the-moment time-share opening on the beach in Florida. Remember, you want the publisher to want to work with you again.
In a rare life or family crisis situation when you cannot meet deadlines, the publisher might have to move your book’s release date to the next selling season. It’s likely it won’t be the optimum season for sales potential.
Jeanne T
Thanks for answering my question. I tend to work well within deadlines, but I’ve had “life happen” sometimes, and no, I don’t mean the unexpected time share in Florida. So I wondered. 🙂
Thinking about the optimum selling season is another thing I hadn’t considered. Thanks for sharing your wisdom!
Beth MacKinney
It’s business and nothing personal. Unless it’s life or death, you have to meet the deadlines.
I remember working with a talented designer whom we discovered, much to our concern, was virtually unable to meet a deadline. Talented or not, we quit using him.
Kathleen W
Coming from a corporate background, meeting deadlines is pretty much ingrained in me. That and having homework of different types over the year as a teacher.
Jeanne T poses an interesting question and I’ll add others: What’s a big issue that warrants getting an extension and what is simply putting our heads down and getting it done by deadline when it is tough?. Any examples you could provide?
Mary Keeley
Kathleen, tough times provide the opportunity for an author to demonstrate your professionalism and commitment to your contractual partnership with your publisher by, as you so aptly put it, “putting our heads down and getting it done by deadline when it’s tough.” Examples of a big issue would be the sudden death of someone in your immediate family, if you are seriously injured in a car accident, or your home was destroyed by a tornado. Flipping sides, you wouldn’t want the publisher to delay work on your book’s publication for a lesser reason either.
Michelle Lim
Mary, thank you for the detailed look at the process that makes deadlines so crucial.I’ve always known deadlines to be critical to maintain a strong relationship between author and editor. I hadn’t thought much about the cost, but it makes total sense.
To me, meeting deadlines is also about keeping your word and not breaking trust. In a professional relationship trust is key to the success of team work. Meeting a deadline shows that you can be trusted and that you keep your word. That kind of writer is more likely to have a career in writing instead of a hobby.
Mary Keeley
Exactly right, Michelle. Thank you for stating it so well.
Lindsay Harrel
Great description of the process, Mary.
Actually, as an editor myself, I’ve experienced the frustration when a project is delayed at an earlier stage. I edit university curriculum, so when a subject matter expert doesn’t get something back to the curriculum developer, it will be delayed getting to me, which delays the updating of the course online, etc. etc. I usually try to pick up the slack, since the hard deadline is when a course starts. 😛
Mary Keeley
Lindsay, thanks for sharing your hands-on experience and your get-it-done-whatever-it-takes approach. In general editors, designers, typesetters–everyone on the publisher side–try to “pick up the slack” and they hope to see that the author has the same professional approach.
Jennifer Major
Back when we chipped out our high school yearbook on marble slabs, I worked on layouts. Sweet jam on toast! Why is a one month notice so hard to figure out?? Ahem.
I write for a newspaper and I share a column with several other people. If one of us is late on deadline, all three writers lose their spot on the page. And then they have every right to be angry, because we all know the drill. Topic on Thursday, article due Monday 9am, only hospital visits may serve as excuses.
At least 2 limbs had to be involved. And pictures. Or a mug shot. Hopefully not both. But there was this one time…
Like any profession, there are layers and layers of involvement in publishing a book. Even the guy who keeps the ink filled in the printer or the intern who makes sure the cover designers have enough coffee/sugar/tea/Diet Coke to produce the cover of my Rita Award winning book.
😉
Mary Keeley
Great way to lay out the nitty gritty facts, Jennifer.
Jeanne T
Once a VERY long time ago, I worked on yearbook layouts too. Only, we did ours on papyrus. 🙂 Have a great weekend, Jennifer.
Jennifer Major
Papyrus? Oh you had it easy!!You have a great weekend too!
Beth MacKinney
And the whole thing ends up in the lap of the person flowing the book, thank you very much. Not that it isn’t a good feeling to come through for the publisher and do miracles with the amount of time you have, but it’s a little stressful.
Plus, I remember a poster that an editor had in her office when I was in the art dept. It said, “Fast, cheap, good. Pick one.” By meeting deadlines, you will help the whole team produce a quality product, and what writer doesn’t want her book to be produced with excellence?
Mary Keeley
Great point, Beth. Authors, remember this when you’re tempted to take advantage of that one-day-only super sale out at the mall instead of reviewing those galleys that are due back to the editor tomorrow.
Jennifer Major
But. But. But…what if Merrells are on sale?
I know…I know…AFTER the work is done.
😉
Beth MacKinney
Did I mention that printers’ deadlines are much less forgiving since they’re working for a lot of different clients who are all lined up in a queue?
Thus the stress for the production people in front of them.
Mary Keeley
Exactly, Beth. The ripple effect doesn’t end within the walls of the publishing house.
Beth MacKinney
Tip: build in your own buffers if possible, then come through early.
Mary Keeley
Great concept!
Sue Harrison
I earned a reputation of working well with editors during the years my Alaska books were being published, but I wish very much that I’d read your blog post back then, just to put everything into better perspective for me. Thank you so much for this detailed information, Mary!
Mary Keeley
You’re welcome, Sue. It’s personally and professionally rewarding to have your reputation for working well with editors. They’ll want to work with you again.
Stephanie Grace Whitson
I have written through some big life challenges (like the cancer battle and eventual death of my first husband). The understanding of my “bosses” during those days was a real blessing, but I always tried to remember that so many things depended on me delivering as contracted. When I type “the end,” that really is only the beginning for a lot of people who depend on my professionalism. God’s grace has been evident so many times in my publishing life. Praise Him!
Mary Keeley
Amen. Stephanie, thanks for adding that important factor. When it’s tough to make deadlines, pray for God to provide the way.
Martha Ramirez
This is a great reminder and awesome info. Thank you, Mary!
Mary Keeley
You’re welcome, Martha.
Darby Kern
Great information that recent arrivals like me need to know and understand. Every writer wants to think that they’re and artist, and many are, but there are so many aspects of the BUSINESS that artists need to keep in mind. My goal in whatever career the Lord blesses me with is to maintain the highest degree of professionalism that I can (starting with my agent who I feel like I was sort of rude to on the phone recently, and I certainly didn’t mean to be).
Mary Keeley
I’m glad the information helped paint a big-picture view of the business side. Understood, Darby.
sally apokedak
Thanks for this. It’s not like making shoes–this writing stuff, but it seems to me if you’re on deadline, you have to write even if you don’t believe what you’re producing is very good. You just have to write. Whenever I have an article due, I get it done.
I’ve been looking into self-publishing, but there are several drawbacks. One being that I don’t hit self-imposed deadlines the way I hit deadlines put on me by others. I won’t let other people down unless I’m dying. But if I’m the only one who knows about the deadline? I’m a pretty understanding boss. “Feeling a little tired, today? Take the day off. God forbid that you tax yourself, you poor thing.” 🙂
Mary Keeley
Ha, ha. Good point, Sally.
Laurie Evans
Thanks for explaining these steps. As a newbie writer, I learn so much on this blog.
Mary Keeley
Laurie, I’m glad the information is helpful. Thanks for the positive feedback.
Carole Avila
Mary,
I’m not published as of yet but I find this information extremely valuable. Thank you for sharing it! I’m on my way to read about “The Organized Writer.”
Carole Avila
Posse Member