bookpublishing

I was recently made aware by this post that Blogged.com’s coveted “excellent” ranking is only held by 9 blogs in the jobs/career category, and one of them is mine! Blogged.com is a great source for good blogs. Each blog that is registered gets reviewed by the Blogged editors. The editors evaluate blogs based on the following criteria:

• frequency of updates
• relevance of content
• site design
• writing style

This is a pretty neat feature for any blog owner. You can then show off your ranking with a personalized widget (seen on my blog’s sidebar). If you have a blog, start my submitting your blog here.

Who else has blogs in the “excellent” category under jobs/careers category?

• The Monster Blog
• Human Resources
• Blog Indeed
• About Workers’ Edge
• Your HR Guy
• The Chad
• Six Degrees From Dave
• Job Search and Career Services

What is your favorite blogging service? I’m always on the hunt for other sites like this.

A previously unpublished J. R. Tolkien novel, titled The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrún, as been acquired by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt according to Publishers Weekly:

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt has acquired a previously unpublished work by J.R.R. Tolkien, written while Tolkien was a professor at Oxford during the 1920s and ’30s, before he wrote The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. The house will publish The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrún in the U.S. and worldwide on May 5. The publication will mark the first extensive retelling in English narrative verse of the epic Norse tales of Sigúrd the Völsung and The Fall of the Niflungs. The book will include an introduction by Tolkien, drawn from one of his lectures on Norse literature, with commentary, notes on the poems by Christopher Tolkien. Ken Carpenter acquired U.S. hard and soft rights for HMH from HarperCollins UK.

Jackpot! I bet this book will do really well… There are a heck of a lot of Tolkien fans out there! I’m not really a big fan myself, but this story sounds even more interesting than Lord of the Rings! I’ll definitely be curious to see how it goes. Who knows, maybe there will be a movie to follow?

It’s a very important part of the book process: making initial contact with the author. As a project manager, I get in touch with an author after I’ve seen her book and read 3-5 chapters to get a general feel for what its about and her style of writing. The author has already worked with the acquisitions editor (or several) so occasionally the author wonders what I’m doing in this whole process. But she quickly figures it out. If all the materials is in and the manuscript is the right length, we’re off to a good start. If it doesn’t fill her contractual obligations, that’s a fun little situation I prefer to deal with after it’s been copyedited, if possible. Authors need a chance to understand the process and they should be aware that they must answer queries after copyediting. Many times they have a payment coming to them when it’s successfully completed, so it’s helpful to have that incentive.

Here is an example of an introductory email to an author:

Hi Jane,*

My name is Jess Haberman and I’ll be the project editor for your book, The Best Book You’ll Ever Read.* I’m very excited about your book and after reviewing it, I’m confident that this will be a very enjoyable project.

Your manuscript is currently with a copyeditor and I expect to be able to send it to you to respond to queries within 2 weeks. You’ll have about a week to respond to those queries.

Please let me know if you any questions or concerns arise as we work together on this book. You can reach me via email or by phone (see contact information below). If you know of vacation time or time you will be unavailable, I’d appreciate it if you could let me know so I can plan around it.

Thanks and I look forward to working with you!
Jess

* Names and titles above other than my own are completely fictional.

If the book is already back from the copyeditor, I will include instructions for how to answer queries, usually in MS Word using the Track Changes feature.

Then I typically get a return email. Sometimes it is difficult to tell right away what kind of author I’m dealing with. Usually the truth comes out after the book has been copyedited. However, there are some red flags that typically appear early in the process that make it clear I might be dealing with a difficult author: immediate disagreements about the book process or expectations; no response; when the author feels personally affronted by the copyeditor’s change; missed deadlines; excuses for late work or few responses.

Here’s an example of an email from an author that indicated to me right off the bat that she’ll be a pleasure to work with (and so far, so good!). In this case, she received the copyedited text with my introductory email.

Hi Jess,

Wow! I’m amazed to have this so quickly, and with so few queries to answer! Maybe I was exceptionally sloppy with my previous book, but there was a lot more flagged in it during the copyediting stage.

After quickly looking through the ms, I have a couple of questions before I get to work.
1. If I disagree with a change that the copyeditor has made, should I simply change it again, or mark it for you? I noticed two words that he consistently changed, but they’re actually correct the other way.
2. For the recipes, your recipe style sheet said to number the steps, though I prefer them without the numbers for the sake of consistency, since the yogurt recipe was tricky to number. Is it okay to omit the numbers on all of them?
3. Corrections from my tech reviewer arrived over the weekend, and I’d like to incorporate them. Most are simply a phrase here and there, but a couple will require the addition of a paragraph. Is there any problem with making those changes at this stage?

Thanks so much for getting this back to me so quickly. I’m delighted to be working with you, and I can’t wait for the next round, with all the lovely photos incorporated!

Best,
Marsha

Here’s an author who is certainly not as easy to work with. She writes while reviewing the copyedited manuscript (copyedited by Jason). Can you count the red flags?

I’m a little confused about who does what in this book revision process. What is your job, and what is Jason’s?

Jason has made some comments that I take issue with. He wants to omit the Rainforest Restaurant, which is in the Mall of America, his reason being that it isn’t Minnesota specific. That’s bogus and picky.

He also questioned whether outdoor stores should be included with the other businesses listed at the end of the chapters, commenting that they might not be in business any longer. That also is bogus. Seems his comment would also apply to restaurants and motels. Any business can quit operating or change management at any time. I spent much time last winter and spring checking all these phone numbers and updating them. All our revisions were due June 1. We can’t possibly check them again in the short window before you want our corrections returned to you, never mind the holiday thrown into next week. And never mind that our book has been out of date since it was published in 2002. None of it makes sense to us.

Jason also made fun of our description of the falls in the Minnehaha Falls section. If he takes issue with our writing, he should write his own book. I don’t think much of him as an editor.

Just thought you’d like to know. And by the way, what will the revised edition be called? And with the photos, there were a few that were mine.

Betty Ann

She’s just a gem, isn’t she?

There are, of course, the authors who sit somewhere in the middle of the spectrum and typically I’m just fine with that! For some reason, I tend to find that I work very well with male authors and I have very few problems with them. Female authors can go either way. First-time authors are almost always easy to work with. Authors who have published many books with us tend to be the most demanding and have the hardest times adjusting to changes in our process. This is overgeneralizing in all cases, and every editor has a different experience. I can tell you one thing for sure: It doesn’t get boring no matter who your authors are.

Well, this is, after all, a career blog and I think getting an HR professional’s advice about how to renegotiate a raise in this economic climate could be very useful. Publishers are struggling with terrible sales numbers and many are forced to layoff workers. HarperCollins, for instance, reported a 25% decrease in sales last quarter and from the sound of things from my Twitter friends, they are laying workers off today. Best of luck to everyone–I wish nobody had to get that kind of news.

There are some publishers, however, that are maintaining sales and some are adjusting as well as can be expected in these hard times. For those people whose jobs are more-or-less secure whose companies haven’t begun a salary freeze, you might be wondering what you can do to get the best salary increase possible. Terry Haberman, also a Today.com blogger at CareerMysteries.today.com, wrote a great article with some very useful advice. Terry has been a human resources director for more than 25 years with corporations large and small, including ExxonMobil and Black & Decker. She also happens to be my mom!

You can find her article over at Suite101. Check it out, and I hope it helps you find some financial stability in your career.

So the uber-cool peeps at HarperStudio have a great blog and an enjoyable Twitter stream (@harperstudio). I definitely encourage you to check them out. Today they posted a really cute version of the “25 Random Things” survey you may have seen your friends publish on Facebook. Their version makes me want my company to write one… yet I’m not sure it’ll be as clever or as interesting at HS’s. I think that’s the whole point–to enjoy the “random things” about others. You can go straight to their blog post or check out an excerpt below.

1. We spent an enormous amount of our first few weeks as a group buying and then rejecting a series of coffee machines.

2. Our copier breaks down an average of ten times a day.

3. Our working title for a book with Heifer International, suggested by Julia, was “For the Love of a Cow.”

4. We are trying to eat more healthfully, but Katie’s mother keeps sending us See’s Candies from California, which we polish off within seconds of arrival.

5. Debbie always has her laptop in front of her, even during meetings. She is capable of sending as many as fifty e-mails during a half-hour conversation.

6. Despite allegedly representing futuristic publishing, Bob has others post his blogs and only recently learned how to cut and paste.

7. Sarah Burningham could give Martha Stewart a run for her money

8. We prefer yelling down the hall to meetings.

9. Katie Salisbury speaks Chinese.

10. After working on Green Porno with Julia our intern Yitz said “I’ve never had to write the word penis so many times in my life.”

11. Ezra Miller has been known to call Julia “J-Rod”

12. Debbie’s office is unofficially called “the clubhouse”

13. At HS Twitter is a noun, a verb, and a way of life.

For twelve more random things about HarperStudio, check out their blog. My favorite one is:

15. We eat most lunches in the office (aka “the clubhouse.” See #12) — but try to invite one new interesting person up every day to dine with us. For many months we ordered the same thing from the same place: ‘Wichcraft. We’ve just started to venture beyond the ‘Wich.

Because how cool would it be to be able to stop in at Tom Collichio’s restaurant for lunch? It makes me want to work in New York. Almost.

Regarding what shall henceforth be named The Involuntary Redesign:

Today.com decided they wanted a different kind of blog theme; and, no surprise, it includes a lot more ads. I’m hoping that it’s not too distracting. Believe me, I wouldn’t be throwing more ads in your face if I wasn’t being forced to. So I certainly encourage your feedback about my current design as I tweak it. I’m looking into a custom header and custom colors. If you have any clever ideas, please share!

I’m also excited to have Vera Marie Badertscher, fellow book maven and blogger, as a guest blogger coming soon in March. Keep an eye out for her wise words about books and travel! If anyone else out there is interesting in being a guest blogger on my site, please leave a comment or email me at jess.haberman@gmail.com. It’s a great opportunity to share info, links, and book love!