An Unruly Figures: The Book Update!

🤩 What this step in the publishing process looks like

If you were around last summer, you may remember that I got a book deal with PA Press to turn this humble podcast into a book! Today I finally have a couple of exciting updates to share:

1. PA Press, my book’s publisher, is now an imprint of Chronicle Books, which is pretty cool!

2. I got my book manuscript back! 🎉

I got my manuscript back on Sunday, when I was unfortunately very sick with a virus from hell. I ended up fainting later that night and breaking a rib, so I didn’t really get a good look at my editor’s changes and suggestions until Tuesday.

People have asked me what the non-fiction publishing process looked like, so I am being as open as possible with each step of the process with you all.

To recap:

• Holly, my editor at PA, first approached me about writing a book in November 2021.

• We signed a deal in January 2022.

• I learned a heck of a lot while researching and writing a 50,000-word book in 8 months.

• I turned in my manuscript on August 30, 2022.

So now I have the manuscript back, and I have until February 6th to make the changes Holly suggested.

To be honest, I was very terrified of this step in the process. It took me a while to open the Word document because I was very anxious that her only note would be “This is terrible, start over.”

Reader, that was not in her notes.

What is in her notes is a lot of “Expand on this,” “Define this,” “Not everyone remembers the Taiping Rebellion off the top of their head, Valorie. You can’t make a random reference to that and move on.” Which, yeah, fair.

Right now I’m trying to edit at the pace of about a chapter per day. Some chapters need more work than others, so it’s not an easy pace, but it’s not an impossible one. I think a lot of this is doable by February 6th (or would be if I hadn’t broken a rib the day she gave this manuscript back to me). We’re going to see how I’m progressing and if we have to push the deadline back, well. There we are.

The next step would be for her to review my changes. If she needs to send it back to me for another round of editing, I’m sure that will happen. After that, it’s my understanding that it will go to a copyeditor, who will check grammar, then come back to me for a final read-through. I will keep you all apprised with these exclusive little updates!

Have any questions for me about the publishing process? Drop them in the comments and I’ll answer them in the future!