Everybody’s always doing these “The Future of Publishing!”
blog posts and articles, usually focusing on the end product: e-books vs. print books, Big 6 Publishing
vs. self-publishing, things like that.
Pretty much everything that could be said has been, and by better people
than me.
So, that’s not what I’m gonna talk about! What I want to talk about today is how
publishing has changed in just the two years I’ve been a part of it, from the
author’s perspective. They’re small
changes to be sure, mostly focusing around the editing process, but I still
find it interesting how quickly things have moved.
When I was waiting for my copy edits on A Devil in the Details back in 2009/2010, I was all prepared to buy stock in red pencils and
scribble all over huge reams of paper, brush up on my editing marks, all that
stuff that other authors said I’d need to do.
Imagine my surprise when the copy edits came to me in a Word file
instead, with track changes turned on.
The Editor told me they were trying to go paperless, so they were going
to try and do it this way.
Hey, whatever you say!
And after I did it that way once, I was sold. I love doing my edits with
track changes now. In fact, when I beta
for other people, I ask them if I can make my notes on their manuscript that
way, ‘cause it’s easier for me to jot things down as I go, than to try and
remember everything I wanted to say at the end.
When it came time to do my page proofs on Devil, I got a
packet in the mail, all pages laid out nice and neat like in a real book. I went through those, carefully reading every
page and marking up the ones that needed changes with a nice pen. My greatest fear through this whole process
was that I would drop the stack of papers, and spend hours sorting them out
again. Didn’t happen, and I got them
returned without incident. Shortly
thereafter, I got another package in the mail, holding ARCs of my brand new
book! (ARCs are Advance Reader Copies,
also called galleys) Yay! It’s a book!
The next year, 2010-11, I got my copy edits on A Shot in the Dark in my email as expected, whipped those puppies into shape, emailed them
back. But when it came time for page
proofs, instead of getting a packet in the mail, I got another email with a PDF
file. “Here, just print off the pages
you want changed, and scan/email them back.”
Um… ok, sure! Saving paper! Go environment. It was a new process, but I’m cool, I can
roll with the times like that.
Still got my ARCs on Shot, nice little paper book in my
hands.
And then we roll around to this year, 2011-12, working on A Wolf at the Door. Emailed copy
edits. Emailed page proofs. And last night, I found out that we’re doing
e-ARCs! Yup, no more print ARCs for this
girl, they’ll be making review e-books available for professional reviewers
through NetGalley**.
Okay, I fully admit that a teeny part of me is
disappointed. I liked having that ARC in
my hands, and it would have rounded out the set to have all three books in some
physical form. But on the other hand,
think about how much money they’re saving by not printing out what is
essentially a “rough draft”. That’s
money that can go to publishing a new author (or keeping an old one). Also (and keep in mind I’m not a reviewer, I
don’t have a lot of access to the awesomeness that is NetGalley), I think that
having an online database of ARC/galleys has the potential to reach so many
more audiences that having a limited number of printed books.
I find it fascinating how processes have changed, just in
two years. I’ve seen a lot of people
talking about how publishing is an antiquated system, and needs to catch up to
the times, but I think they already are.
As we go more and more into a digital/technological world, there are so
many cost-effective alternatives available.
You would think that printing off/mailing an entire manuscript wouldn’t
be so bad. Figure…maybe $30, and that’s
if I had to do it myself, without any kind of corporate discount. However, if you multiply that by ALL the
manuscripts a publishing house is working on at any given time, it comes up to
a pretty chunk of change real fast! And
that’s not even counting printing out the ARCs to send to reviewers, most of
which will probably be destroyed at some point later (or sold on e-bay, despite
the fact that they’re not to be sold at all).
I think I’m lucky to be part of publishing in this
particular era, when every day it seems like something new and amazing pops
up. I’m anxious to see what the next two
years bring, excited to see where we go from here.
**Note to Reviewers:
I poked around on NetGalley last night for the first time (just what the
public can see, of course) and first off, you guys are so freakin’ lucky!! I’d lose my mind trying to decide what to
read first. Second, I didn’t see Wolf up
there yet, but it’s coming, so if you want to review it, make sure you keep
checking so you can request it when it’s available.
