Going it Mostly Alone: the Publishing Path of A Perfect Blindness

Each iUniverse STAR title gets a personal agent: the iUniverse STAR Program’s Rights Consultant, a veteran of the book publishing industry. This person presents the book to traditional publishing houses, international publishers, audiobook publishers and book clubs for their consideration. But unlike in the old model of peddling mere manuscripts, when this first gatekeeper, the agent, had to have been approached by a writer, who had convinced the agent that not only did a manuscript have potential, and that there was a market for said manuscript, and that the author was someone the agent, and by extension the publisher, could work with to get that manuscript into the best shape possible, and then would continue to work with the publisher to sell the book after publication. Read More

Going it Mostly Alone: the Publishing Path of A Perfect Blindness

With the Star designation, iUniverse commits further resources to the book, effectively completing an entirely new, author-controlled onramp to the Traditional Publishing Path.

First, the cover gets reassessed. Not only has this book met industry standards in writing quality and shown a market exists for it, but the book has reached the market and demonstrated an actual demand exists for it. The book has proven it can sell. To make sure the book looks like the seller it is, the cover gets a second Cover Copy Polish. This would include, if necessary a professional editing of the back cover copy and author bio, possibly adding blurbs from reviews it might have gotten, as well as another turn through design, including, at the very least, a new ISBN and a new colophon:

The logo changes color, again dependent upon the book’s actual cover, and transforms into a star; the swoop up remains; the matching color dot returns atop the i, and as the book and its author are no longer merely rising, the single word Star appears below iUniverse.  Read More

Going it Mostly Alone: the Publishing Path of A Perfect Blindness

Sure, the cover looked great. The designers followed my instructions and did a bang up job: Only with the wrong central image.

The problem was that for months I’d been using cover1 to mean a particular image. It was labeled cover1 on FaceBook, labeled cover1 on my desktop. I’d gotten used to cover1 meaning my favorite cover. Period.

But the designers changed my favorite cover’s name to coveralt1 and using cover1 for a different image, so when I directed them to use cover 1 (what had been my and most other people’s favorite), I had inadvertently directed them to use the wrong cover image.

ACK! Read More

Going it Mostly Alone: the Publishing Path of A Perfect Blindness

One of the things mentioned by the person delivering the Quality Edit was that after the book was typeset, I should have it proofread in its final form: things can happen when the conversion is made from MS Word to the typesetting software, and further things might simply come across differently when typeset.

Yeah. (Note the slight frown caught in the corners of the mouth.) Read More

Going it Mostly Alone: the Publishing Path of A Perfect Blindness A Perfect Blindness is drenched in music: not only do two musician friends end one band and start another, they go to clubs and dance, and listen to music on the radio, on vinyl and CDs as well; very many other songs find their way into […]

Going it Mostly Alone: the Publishing Path of A Perfect Blindness

When I first submitted my manuscript, I had no idea this would take so long, nor be so involved. This is hard work, and not for the doubtful, nor the impatient. It’s begun to feel like dragging a slab of stone across a field, and the closer I get to the finish line, the heavier it grows until it’s infinitely heavy. Read More

These are the same question large buyers—bookstores and book clubs—ask when considering a book.