The proof is in the proofing…

I’m proofreading, if the header didn’t give that away. For reasons discussed earlier (production department joined marketing department in having their way with me) this is the first time I’ve seen River of Stars on the page, as opposed to on screen. I know that some readers will never not see it on a screen (or perhaps hear it as an audio book) but it makes a difference for me.

I know I’ve said it before: italics are louder on the page than they are in pixels. I delete many of them as I go through this time. I need to force myself to slow down, too, read for typos, not making last-chance edits. I am very happy two others are proofing (both professionals) and one friend has volunteered to do a read, as well. So far I’ve only caught a handful of punctuation errors and a few bad choices as to stretching or compressing words to make a line-break work.

Another meeting at Penguin here Monday afternoon, as to which I cannot (yet) speak or write. Then two days of meetings in NY at end of week, publishers, marketing/pr team, agents (including foreign rights). I’ll get to a gallery or two as a NY perk.

BTW, I’ve been sent a PDF of the ARC cover (fyi!). It looks terrific. I’ll check with Penguin as to whether I can post it here. Everything of that sort now involves coordination among several people in different locations (and the UK is about to come on board). I’ve always said these Journals are very much about looping readers in to how books get made and marketed and sold, and I have to say that the game is changing very fast. That includes all publishrs trying to organize releases and reveals together. Even in the three years since Under Heaven everything has altered. The online dimension was present then, and increasingly significant. Now it is a huge component of the process, for just about any book.

Back to proofing. Pass the italics excising knife.

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