Lishka Update: Designing & Editing
The months have flown by, and here we are at the end of November! The new year is just around the corner.
I have made some lovely (albeit slow), LISHKA progress.
Editing
After a few more rounds of edits and back and forth discussion with my fabulous editor, we officially wrapped up the content! The editing process took longer than expected (I say this every editing phase, to be fair), but was so much fun. I love having a partner to play with words and talk things through. At the end, I think we both did not want to let it go and so found a few more edits to make. It’s hard to be done. But I’m so happy with the story and the quality of writing, something I thought I’d never say after 15+ years of picking at it.
Design
Another milestone: I finally got the rights to use the cover photo I fell in love with. After a few follow-ups, the photographer emailed me back very excited to be able to sell the non-exclusive rights (I didn’t bother asking for exclusive, it’s too beautiful a photo for me to hoard for myself). The image on LISHKA's cover will be that of the Hoh rainforest, a gorgeous lush misty forest that grows thickly on the Olympic Peninsula.
With the cover finalized, we’ve moved into the interior layout design. The designer sent me back a few interior concepts of the title page, chapter art, and font/size for layout. I received this while on vacation with my husband and his family in NYC, and so my first review of the art was peering at the concepts on my small phone in one of the animal exhibits of the Natural History Museum.
When I receive concepts, I usually have a strong initial reaction that I will sit with it for a few days. After a bit (longer in this case, as I was travelling and away from my laptop), I finally got to sit down and examine each concept more thoroughly, making notes on what I do/don’t like. I just sent my feedback off today, and am excited to see what the designer comes back with in the next phase.
The nitty-gritty administration
I also (finally) registered LISHKA with the Library of Congress, which turned out to be a lot easier than I thought. This will make it easier for libraries to find and order my book. I learned about doing this via research on YouTube, where a self-publisher had said she needed to print her physical address on her book with the Library of Congress number. After worrying about this, I decided to open a P.O. box (my address is a rental and who wants their address so public anyways?), but before doing so, figured I’d check out the application form myself. While I did have to provide my address for my account, nowhere did it say I needed to print this in my actual book. I was simply provided a small line to include with the registered book number, and told I need to include the city and country of publish. I hope. As this is what I am doing.
Next Steps
Now, I just need to get the design finalized. Once I have final design files, I will upload these to Ingram Sparks and Amazon to generate some print proofs for review. A YouTuber stated I should plan on 4 months for this process, which puts me well past my target of January at this point. A constant in this process has been everything takes so much longer than anticipated. I’m not in any real rush at this point, other than wanting to hold the book. I also need to decide if I want to wait for the copyright certificate, or just file for it and publish without (legally, the book is copyrighted already as I wrote it, but it’s good to register it for additional protection in a court of law).
I know I should do more marketing, but this is the least enjoyable part for me. I had planned to allow a pre-order, but as this is my first time around, I may just get everything perfect and publish it and skip the pre-order.
So little by little, I am inching toward that publish date!
