Fiction author Robin Brande talks about writing, reading, and other vital matters

Can I just talk for a moment about the new book? Mine, I mean? I haven’t wanted to because the publishing date seems so far off, but a few days ago I finally finished the last few copy edits, and now the whole thing is off to the design department to make it look pretty.

And then in about six weeks I’ll get back the galley proofs, and that means I’ll want to go page by page through the book one last time to make sure none of us missed any misspellings or absent words–don’t you hate it when you find a mistake in a book? I’m super paranoid about that (as is everyone on the publisher’s end, believe me), so we all try to put our eyeballs on every word, even if we’ve read that same manuscript a bajillion times by then. Which we have.

And then come the advance copies, and because those are as expensive to produce as the actual final books, there aren’t too many of them printed up, which means I might get only one or two. I end up circulating one as sort of my own library book, so that friends and family can check out the final product before it is the final product. Why else would you be related to an author if you couldn’t get a sneak peek? (By the way, I almost wrote “sneak peak” there, which would have been wrong, and which I would have hoped the copy editor or my editor or I would have caught before it went to print, but maybe not, which is why we’re all paranoid. See?)

Anyway, very soon I hope to post the decadently beautiful cover of my new novel, even though the book won’t be out until later this year. Grrrr. It’s hard to wait, but once you see all that goes in to turning a manuscript into an actual book, you start to understand why it really does take a year or more to get a story onto the shelf. And in some ways I hesitate to tell you too much, because it’s like someone calling you the day after they get pregnant to tell you the news, and then you have to wait the whole long nine months. In some ways I’d rather hear about it a week or two before, you know? Otherwise I’m all, “Didn’t you have that baby yet? Sheesh, get on with it.”

So this is how much I’m going to tell you now so you don’t get too irritated with the waiting. As soon as I’m allowed to post the cover, you’ll see that and the title. And maybe that will hold us all for a while!

And can I just say, for the millionth time, that I LOVE THAT THIS GETS TO BE MY JOB?! Seriously, it makes me giddy every time I take another step forward. It’s just so . . . real. Love it!

Technorati Tags: Publishing, Writing, Young Adult Fiction, Young Adult Novels

Posted on Saturday, January 10th, 2009 at 4:31 pm under Writing . Subscribe to responses: RSS 2.0 Comment Feed. Tagged: Publishing, Writing, Young Adult Fiction, Young Adult Novels. Comment, or trackback.