The Quill: Adventures in Publishing Part One

So, it’s been a really exciting few months, with all the preparations for my debut novel, Midwinter Folk, in full flow. The most exhilarating thing is seeing my vision come to life and every step of pre-production is, in its own way, fascinating. One of the most important aspects of a book is the cover. This has to be, to coin a phrase, “practically perfect”, because it is the door through which your reader enters. If the door is dull, unattractive or badly constructed, then they simply won’t bother. They’ll flee back up the garden path.

I was very lucky to find an illustrator, Amanda Clark, whose work I loved and who was available for the project.  I had purchased some of her prints and cards online, but it was some time after beginning my search for the right artist that her name popped into my mind. I was looking for someone who specialised in mystical or fairy tale style artwork. Midwinter Folk is essentially a fairy tale (incorporating all the magical, dark and uncanny elements you would expect to find in such a genre.) Amanda’s style is wonderfully suited to this. She produces beautifully evocative and numinous paintings, based on mythic representations of nature. Her illustrations are peopled with animals, trees and nature spirits, set in magical landscapes. I was so delighted with the artwork she produced for me. She had managed to encapsulate the essence of my novel. 

So, next I had to get to work on the finished manuscript. This was sent off to the copy editor and when it came back I had to okay all the changes. This is a fairly lengthy process, as, obviously, one can’t start altering things once the MS has gone for typesetting. My new best friend was New Hart’s Rules (which explains vital things such as the difference between the hyphen and the dash.) And with that the MS was sent for type styling. This is all to do with the look of the text on the page: the book block, the font style and size, the number of lines per page and the space between them etc. It’s rather wonderful to see one’s Courier New word manuscript transformed into a professional looking piece of text. Once the style was decided it went for typesetting. At present my editor and I, are checking the final proofs.

I am really looking forward to the next stage of the process