Designed Pages--the lingo

 

As you work for different publishers, you find they all have their own terms.

Some of them are the same or similar, others quite different.

That's why it took me a while to remember the terms at Bethany House.

So today I thought I'd talk about my current understanding of what Bethany House calls...

DESIGNED PAGES.

I just  finished the DESIGNED PAGES for book #3 of the Brothers in Arms series.

Book #1 came out in March

Book #2 A Man with a Past coming in July. And that's all finished.

Now we're doing the last polishing on #3 Love on the Range.

Bethany House, and I think this is normal, has three stages of editing.

The first I think of a revisions. Bethany House editors read the book I send in and make large suggestions.

They talk about big gaps in logic, threads that are dropped (example...you never really said who shot Wyatt) problems with (--My favorite...we think after chapter six, Callie (heroine) she stop threatening to shoot Seth (hero).

And they say if a character does things that make them lack appeal.  (Win and Kevin had six weeks to talk with Molly and never did, that's not what a good friend would do)

So that's the first round and the biggest round. I call that Revisions.

Next is GALLEY Edits. The book is now mostly finished except for typos and a few additional edits that haven't been noticed. For some reason in...which book was it? I used the word 'women' when I meant 'woman'. I just did it a dozen times. It was WEIRD. Why did I do that?

Anyway, I try and catch all of that in revisions so the Bethany House editors only have to fix about a THOUSAND mistakes. I've got a huge tendency to write ...he'd...when I mean...he's. Just little stuff like that. The ever popular...you're your...mixup.

Anyway, this has got to be tedious for editors and I usually accept their corrections with a lot of APOLOGIES.

And that brings me to the third and final round. DESIGNED PAGES.

What that means is, the book is finished and laid out as it will look in print.

At this point I can fix only small things. It's never come up but I think in my contract, I agree if I--at this point--make MAJOR changes--so major I make them redesign the pages--I have to pay for it. I don't know this because I've never done such a thing. But I think I promised not to.

At this point there's not a lot of changes to be made. 

But I did find one substantive revision that somehow got through all my re-reads and all the editor's re-read. 

At one point I have a woman come galloping into the ranch yard and slamming into the house right before the noon meal.

Then later I talk about how she snuck in after dark and no one knows she's there but the family. She's never stepped outside, not once. 

Sigh

By some amazing wonder I caught it and fixed it, but in the designed pages edits, I cut and pasted a three paragraph stretch, then retype it with the corrections to make sure I don't go over the same word count (and word length) don't add a line.

So that's DESIGNED PAGES. Do you have any terms from other publishers that you're more familiar with?

And, because this most recent book, for the first time EVER, I was given a code for an audio book, which I have permission to give away as a prize.

Today tell me if you ever listen to audio books. Or tell me what you've heard publishers call these stages of edits.

Or tell me what you did for Easter. We got two of our kids, a son-in-law, and two grandbabies with us at CHURCH. It was really a blessing.

Remember that yesterday was the day we celebrated the beginning of salvation.