Confidential to M.A.E.: Congratulations on your promotion!
Exciting news: my galleys came yesterday! Woo hoo!
Now, if you are the reader of this blog who answers to the name Kerri Buckley, you’re going to tell me that they aren’t galleys, because you work for a publisher that has all sorts of complex names for things that have numbers and acronyms for “page proofs” and weird bits of industry-jargon shorthand attached, and that’s fine. The rest of us will say that they are galleys and here’s why:
1. They look like the actual pages of the book, printed within a regular sheet of paper.
2. They are laid out like an actual page of the book.
3. They have the pretty font just like the actual pages of the book.
4. They have my name at the top of every left hand page, just like the actual pages of the book.
5. They have the title at the top of every right hand page, just like the actual pages of the book.
6. They have the page numbers in the upper outside corners, just like the actual pages of the book.
7. They have blank pages, just like the actual pages of the book.
In short, it looks like the actual book, and I’m going to go ahead and call it a galley, becuase it looks and quacks like one.
So, yay, my galleys came today! Woo hoo!
Yes, there were a few tears. Quoth Sailor Boy, “Um is this just hitting you now?” By “this,” he meant “that it was a real book.”
He asked me this because I kept waving the pages in his face, being all teary-eyed, and whispering, “It’s a real book! It’s a real book!”
Quoth Sailor Boy, “You saw the sample. You knew this would be what it looked like.”
Wow, so not the point. It’s a real book. Or it will be soon.
December 22nd, 2005 at 10:15 am
Congrats, Diana! Such an exciting moment for you (and the first of many more exciting moments to come, I’m sure)!!
Happy Holidays!
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December 22nd, 2005 at 10:16 am
Awww! You made me all teary-eyed for you. (See! I get it! Other writers get it! Your SailorBoy and my WaterGuy and all our supporting cast…will never get it the way we do.).
Tell him if he thinks you’re bad about the galleys…just wait until the real thing is on the shelves and you drag him to every bookstore in town crying and waving it in his face.
Shannon
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December 22nd, 2005 at 1:32 pm
Woo Hoo, Diana!!!
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December 22nd, 2005 at 4:42 pm
Sooooooooooooooooooo happy for you! What a wonderful, early Christmas present! = )
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December 22nd, 2005 at 9:04 pm
Congrats! For me getting the galleys is one of the most exciting stages, because it’s the first time you’ve seen anything like a real book. You can hold it in your hands, throw it in the air, flip through the pages. I loves it.
Though I call them ARCs (Advanced Reader’s Copy) because in my earlier life as an academic the initials stood for Australian Research Council to whom I would grovel for funding. It’s nice to be able to recast the acronym.
Does it have a picture of the book on front? Details of all the promotional stuff they’re going to do for the book? Do you feel like a proud parent?
Yay you! Can’t wait to read it!
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December 23rd, 2005 at 7:41 am
ARCs are coming in January, JL. They will be in trade apperbackk format with a pic of the book on the cover. These are “unbound page proofs”… but the pages look like a book.
How are you? Finished with MOM3?
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December 23rd, 2005 at 11:00 am
another step closer…
I’m so excited for you! And I’d be teary-eyed too. *wiggle*
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December 23rd, 2005 at 12:22 pm
So, you’re all excited about the page proofs? Okay, that is a little weird . . .
Though come to think of it I’m not sure I was ever sent the page proofs of MorM. I checked the copyedits on screen and the proofing in the ARC and all subsequent changes I checked in PDFs. Same with Magic Lessons. Damn it! They ripped me off a stage!
Let us not speak of MorM 3.
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December 23rd, 2005 at 12:45 pm
Congrats, Diana. What a great Christmas present for you. Here’s hoping that it’s just the first of many.
Cathy
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December 23rd, 2005 at 2:03 pm
Let us not begrudge me excitement at ANY stage, Miss Justine. I promise I’ll be overwhelmed by page prrofs, and positively uncontrollable when my book arrives. Copyedits on screen and in PDF, huh? Razorbill is quite advanced, I think.
Now, get off the internet and go write.
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December 23rd, 2005 at 2:46 pm
I’m just jealous having discovered you getting a stage in the book process that I didn’t. Pout.
Also I missremembered (on account of having written the comment above in the wee hours). I do indeed get a marked up ms. to go through and scribble STET on many times. As well as the other stages mentioned. It’s really early in the morning here.
So, do you have these proofs to check or just to fondle lovingly?
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December 23rd, 2005 at 2:54 pm
Dost thou not sleep down under?
I have them to check AND fondle lovingly. The fondling has happened. The checking, not so much.
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