For my friends at ERAuthors, I am going to document the process Ai Press uses to acquire, revise, and publish. My book, Meant For Each Other, which I have dedicated to Ally Blue since she is the first author I reached out to who responded back with encouragement and support...really, she's not only a great author, she's a great person...anyhow, the book is due to release in October, 2010.
I submit to Ai, a new imprint aggressively seeking manuscripts and working to get its name out there, and heard back within 24 hours. The pwner had taken the time ro read my synopsis and my manuscript and even gave me some specifics about what they liked in my writiing and what needed to be altered to make it appropriate for their imprint.
Once you agree to the terms of the contract, you fill out several forms, typical of other imprints. The one step that was different was putting your manuscript into a form program that follows the formatting that Ai Press uses. This was daunting at first glance...reformat my whole manuscript? But lickily, their template is programmed to do all of the work for you. The only things I really needed to do were to use my find-replace function to remove all double spaced bwteeen sentences and replace them with single spaces (30 seconds of work) and to make sure any breask within chapters fit their asterisk format they wanted. I also had to change the chapter headings to make sure they were bol, NOT underlined, and 14 font. Still, the bulk of the work was done by the program, not by my.
The stage I am at right now is waiting for my editor to go over my entire manuscript with editing comments. I will then recevie the manuscript back and will work with the dosument as a whole, returning a fully edited manuscript.
I received a request for cover art a week after I signed my contract. The form is simply, but allowed me to give all of the information I wanted a cover artist to know. Can't wait for the cover art.
A few days later I was given a tentative release date.
Ai Press is moving fast and is working aggressively...which is right up my alley...Oh, up my alley could be something I could use in a book :-)
About Me
- DH Starr
- D. H. Starr is a clean-cut guy with a wickedly naughty mind. He grew up in Boston and loves the city for its history and beauty. Also, having lived in NYC, he enjoys the fast pace and the availability of anything and everything. He first became interested in reading from his mother who always had a stack of books piled next to her bed. Family is important to D. H. and his stories center around the intricate and complex dynamics of relationships and working through problems while maintaining respect and love. His favorite books tend to fall in the genres of science fiction, fantasy, paranormal, and coming of age. To learn more about D. H. Starr and his books, please visit his website at www.dhstarr.com if you are 18+. To view his young adult work and resources, visit www.dhstarrYAbooks.com.
About a week after I received my contract and mailed it back, I was sent a cover request form. The form required that I enter the basics about the book, title, my name, etc, but what really blew me away was the amount of detail they asked for in the descriptions of the characters and in what those characters were all about. I shared how a special place for my main two characters was in a park and the cover reflects everythng I said.
ReplyDeleteI wasn;t perfectly satisfied with the first moch up of the cover, and Sedonia worked with the cover artist to make the requested change. I really appreciated the attention, the speed, and the willingness to work with me to change the cover.
I am now waiting for edits to come back so I can make revisions. Scheduled release date for Meant For Each Other is October 2010.