Another Reason to Love Dream Press

So, for those of you who are embarking on that first book project, here's a bit of information you may or may not know. Even if your publication process goes incredibly smoothly, you will "finish" your manuscript several times**:

1. An approved and filed dissertation
2. A fully revised book MS to send off for review to press(es)
3. Once under contract, another version, revised according to the press readers' reports
4. A version that you correct after the press' copy editors have had a go at it
5. A final version where you make any (very few!) last-minute changes to the galley proofs
6. A book

My "I'm finished" statement of 6 weeks ago referred to stage 3. As you can see from the above list, there is actually quite a ways to go. But a few days ago, one of the editorial assistants at Dream Press contacted me, and informed me that I should be expecting my copy-edited MS sometime next week, and that if I turned it around within a month, I should have galley proofs by January.

As many of my fellow bloggers and commenters know (from both good experiences and bad ones), this is blazingly, unexpectedly, lightning-fast. Best yet, it could mean an actual book on the Dream Press table at Kalamazoo this year.

Lucky, lucky me.


**It perhaps goes without saying, but you should celebrate each and every one of these milestones, with cake and/or the beverage of your choice.