Manuscript Wrangling, Again

[dr_pretentious]

The cool part is that we got from an "I can't sell that" response to a "Please send me the manuscript" response in a single conversation, about a single manuscript.

The hard work part is, we realized when we got back that the editors' introductions we'd written were still for the I-can't-sell-that version of the manuscript, and we'd have to totally redo them as a unified intro for the please-send-it version. Oh, and we hadn't updated the intros in light of the couple of stories we lost from the lineup, either. None of the stories need to change, at least not at this time, thank goodness. Still, we had hoped to have the book on its way by now. Instead, we have to think about how to do this well, and then email drafts back and forth between us for a day or two more until we're both sure it works.

It's amazing that any books make it into print, ever.

Comments

[oneminutemonkey.livejournal.com]

Wow, nice job. I'd love to know just how you pulled off that sort of conversion.
Sounds like the bits you have to change should be relatively do-able.

[laradionne.livejournal.com]

Three cheers for successfully turning things around in a single conversation! Hope the intro unification goes quickly and smoothly.

[dr-pretentious.livejournal.com]

It helped that we had anticipated that some things our old publisher found charming about the project would not be as good a fit for other publishers. We'd already made a list of things we'd be willing to change, so when one of them came up in the opening moves of the conversation, we didn't miss a beat.

Anyhow, it remains to be seen whether our manuscript will be to his taste. Fingers crossed.