Monday 11 June 2007

AHEAD OF SCHEDULE!

Argentum, the publishers of the softback edition of DV&S, have brought forward the date the book goes to press to June 25th. The reason for the early delivery date is that DV&S has been chosen as the Book Club's autumn Editor's Choice. So, clearly we are doing something right! Well done, all.

This means even(!) longer days – editing pictures, subbing text, designing the pages, colour managing all the pictures and trying to keep track of all the other 'invisibles' that make a book. Working with just one author is usually complex enough, but with so many authors it's a different story altogether – but great fun. The change of schedule has left little time for anything else, including updating this blog. My apologies to you all and thanks for your patience.

Just to fill you in on the schedule: after the book goes to press, we will receive wet proofs about a month later. These we check for colour accuracy and it's the last chance to look for any mistakes. Correcting things at this stage is an expensive business, so, as with any book, pages are checked and double-checked before they go to press. We have two people proofing the pages and I'll get another couple of people to read it over, who will come to it fresh, in the hope that they pick up any typos, or such-like.

Any corrected pages are sent back to the printers and revised proofs are made. Assuming all is OK, a set of folded and trimmed digital proofs will follow, which show the book in its collated state. In this way we can double-check the running order of the pages. If everything is fine, we sign off the job and wait – anxiously – for the books themselves to arrive. In total it takes about four months to complete the printing: proofing, printing and shipping. It will be worth the wait – the pictures and text you submitted are great.