A Crash Course in Genealogy

Earlier this week I submitted the manuscript of my new book A Crash Course in Genealogy to my series editor at Libraries Unlimited. She is reading it now. The "Crash Course" series is aimed at providing a kind of basic training for library workers who need to get up to speed quickly in an unfamiliar area of library services. If any of you have been through the book publishing process, you know that it is much different than publishing a blog. This is my fourth venture with this publisher over the last decade. Therefore, we are beginning to learn to expect from each other; but every experience is different.


First of all negotiating the contract can be challenging. I'll leave the details of that for a later post. Then writing 60,000 words requires time and perseverance. Perhaps as challenging is the securing of permissions for the use of any of the work of others one wishes to include. When my series editor finishes with the manuscript, she projects, "I think it will take a week or so to do things like the plagiarism check, get marketing in the loop and then out to the LU copy editor. That person may take a month, so maybe by the end of February you will have the first draft back."


Then I will have to read the edited copy and negotiate any changes with the copy editor. After we  agree on those, then come "page proofs" from which I will create the index. Finally, the book goes into physical production. I wonder how many blog posts down the road all of this will take? I think it is safe to predict it will be a 2011 imprint.


Happy New Year