The best laid plans of mice and men and editors.

OK. In my last post I gave you the production schedule for my book which was great for me because it fit into my schedule.  Well someone forgot to tell the copy editor because she did not send me the book yet and the printer is going to contact her.
I have been waiting for it by catching up on my blogs and finances.  The problem is the deadline was June 30, which is the date I leave for the church conference and I thought I could go work free.  Now I don't know what will happen.  Oh well.

This is another learning experience in writing a book.  Hurry up and wait.

Writing the book was another experience.  I had to get permission to publish from all the living women.  I sent them what I wrote and they rewrote it so most of the living women wrote their autobiographies in my book, which is great.  I also took some of the oral histories of the living women which will be archived in the Chemical Heritage Foundation.  They had to approve the transcript of the oral history before I could use it.  So even though I had the oral history on my computer I could not use the information from it until it was approved.  I got into trouble with one woman because of that.  I wrote her story from the publication which was available to me.  When I sent it to her she said that it was all wrong and the published book was wrong!  How was I to know that!  She had the transcript of her oral history but she did not take the time to read it.  So after three months of having this in her possession she decided not to be in the book because I was on deadline.  I was so mad because she is a Spelman professor and the cover of the book shows Spelman women.  I will not give her name because she apologized to me and we are still friends.  I have only one Spelman woman in the book.
Two other women dropped out at the last minute because they did not want to review what I wrote.  I was upset about that, but there was nothing I could do about it.

Another woman I had scheduled a telephone oral history.  I wanted to visit her in person but I had a hard time getting in touch with her to schedule the visit.  So I was ready to take the oral history and when I called she said she was busy and could she write something and send it to me.  Oh well.  What she wrote I already had from a published book so I just used it.

Those were the trials and tribulations of writing a book about living people.  The dead ones are easier unless I hear from their relatives.  I did speak to the widower of one of my women about his wife.  I got a lot of background information from him.

I intend to write another book, now that I know how to do it.  I have a list of women that I will have to find by genealogical studies, but that will be fun.

Jeannette Brown
Sisterchemists LLC

Good News about the Book Progress

Sorry I stopped posting.  I finished the book in March and submitted it after it was edited by my housemate (the English major).  Then I went on vacation and to attend the American Chemical Society meeting.  I just got tired of writing, but I will write about my experience as a new writer.

What I want to talk about now is the production schedule.  I got an e-mail from my production editor and the printer about the schedule.  Tomorrow June 16 I should receive the copy edited copy of the book.  I have until June 30 to accept or correct the book according to what the copy editor wants.  This will be the only time I can make major changes to the book.  I have alerted all the women who wrote their own stories that I might be calling upon them to accept or make changes.  We have to keep to the schedule as it is very tight.

Next the book will be typeset for printing and I will receive the galley proofs on or about July 23.  I can only look at the galleys for major spelling errors but I can't make major changes then.  I also will have to write the index of the book.  I could not do this before because I did not have the pages. I hope that part will go well since I have never done this before, but that is like a lot of things about book writing that are new to me.  I have until August 23 to get this done.

From then on the book gets printed by October 16 and publication date is December 15.  Which means you will have books to give out as Christmas gifts!  I will give books to all the women and or their relatives in the book.  If they want more I will sell them to them at my author's price.

I am very excited about this but I have a lot of work to do between now and the end of the summer, so  vacation is over.

Jeannette Brown
Sisterchemists LLC