{"id":3640,"date":"2018-06-19T22:14:53","date_gmt":"2018-06-20T02:14:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.levraphael.com\/blog\/?p=3640"},"modified":"2020-01-18T16:00:46","modified_gmt":"2020-01-18T21:00:46","slug":"publishing-can-sometimes-work-your-last-nerve","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.levraphael.com\/blog\/publishing-can-sometimes-work-your-last-nerve\/","title":{"rendered":"Publishing Can Sometimes Work Your Last Nerve"},"content":{"rendered":"

Back when I was trying to get my first book published, a novelist friend warned me: “The only thing worse than not being published is being<\/em> published.”<\/p>\n

He wasn’t joking, and it sounded like something wise and mysterious Yoda might say if he taught a writing workshop. I wasn’t sure what it meant. But I soon discovered.<\/p>\n

Bringing a book out is filled with hazards and opens you up to a whole new set of disappointments and frustrations.\u00a0 You might hate the book cover the publisher comes up with.\u00a0 There’s the possibility of bad reviews.\u00a0 Really bad reviews.\u00a0 The kind that lodge like a splinter in your brain.<\/p>\n

You could be plagued by miserable turnout at readings and signings.\u00a0 Someone else could publish a similar book that gets way more press attention than yours.\u00a0 And of course, there’s the quicksand of weak sales.<\/p>\n

But before the book even gets published, you enter the strange world of production.\u00a0 When the book comes back to you from a copy editor, it’s been transformed into something very different, almost alien.\u00a0 Your labor of love is now just a product.\u00a0 As you work through the corrections and suggestions page by page, the book feels very much less than the sum of its parts.<\/p>\n

Your baby is reduced to markups relating to spacing and capitalization, and what can seem like an endless series of queries.\u00a0 Sometimes the copy editor isn’t tuned in to your material.\u00a0 In one book I mentioned the Temple in Jerusalem.\u00a0 The query was: “What’s the name of that temple?”<\/p>\n

I resisted the temptation to get snarky, but when I had one copy editor completely rewrite the style of my first person memoir, I said No way<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Of course, a good copy editor will catch repetition, a mistaken quote, imprecise or awkward phrasing, and other problems that would embarrass you when the book came out.\u00a0 But whether you agree or disagree with suggested changes, seeing it marked up with countless notes, you can feel like Gulliver tied down by the Lilliputians.\u00a0 And you can’t tell anymore if the book is what you wanted it to be or not.<\/p>\n

Next you get the page proofs, by which point the book you thought you loved can feel like an albatross and you just want to be rid of it.\u00a0 Especially if you’ve moved on to writing or researching something else.<\/p>\n

Obviously, it’s better to have these problems than not have them, but if you haven’t been published yet, be prepared….<\/p>\n

Lev Raphael is the author of Writer’s Block is Bunk<\/a> and 24 other books in genres from memoir to mystery.\u00a0 He teaches creative writing online at www.writewithoutborders.com<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Back when I was trying to get my first book published, a novelist friend warned me: “The only thing worse than not being published is being published.” He wasn’t joking, and it sounded like something wise and mysterious Yoda might say if he taught a writing workshop. I wasn’t sure what it meant. But I … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41,3],"tags":[298,497,948,5,466,1382,95,321,165,166,496,290,214,380,495],"class_list":["post-3640","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-advice-for-writers","category-publishing","tag-advice-for-writers","tag-authors","tag-book-publishing","tag-books","tag-copyediting","tag-copyeditors","tag-creative-writing-2","tag-fiction","tag-inspiration","tag-motivation","tag-publishing","tag-the-writers-life","tag-the-writing-life","tag-writers","tag-writing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.levraphael.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3640","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.levraphael.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.levraphael.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.levraphael.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.levraphael.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3640"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/www.levraphael.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3640\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5538,"href":"https:\/\/www.levraphael.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3640\/revisions\/5538"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.levraphael.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3640"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.levraphael.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3640"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.levraphael.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3640"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}