Publication a diary
As I go through the process of preparing this, my first novel published in the UK, I'll post bits and bobs here as they happen.
1 March 2012
And here it is. Publication day. It's something that could be a bit anti-climactic, but I am blessed with the most wonderful family. My lovely husband and wonderful older son Matt, have taken the day off work to take me out for breakfast and spoil me (I got flowers and all!). Best moment of all was going into WH Smith's in Brent Cross, and there it was!
14 February 2012
Bit of a red-letter day! I went into the Quercus offices to pick up the first finished copy of the book, and suddenly things seemed very real indeed. It's just over a fortnight till Babies in Waiting is in the shops, and I can tell you, the finished article looks AMAZING! The jacket looks really super, and when you open the book, there are all these words... I can't quite believe I wrote them all! its very exciting. Also, the fabulous blog NorthLondonMums was good enough to ask me to write a piece on writing and getting published, and it's here. Check out their website, it's a fantastic resource if you're a parent in this neck of the woods.
31 January 2012
I've been very bad at updating this, mainly because I've been very busy, firstly with getting BiW ready for publication and publicising it like a proud mum, and also because I'm some distance into writing my new book, tentatively called Now and Then. But I was thrilled to see that today the brilliant Chicklitclub voted Babies in Waiting one of their hotly anticipated debuts of 2012. Well, I know I'm anticipating the hell out of it, glad other people are too!
9 October 2011
It's all go now.... Publication date is set for 1 March 2012, just in time for Mother's Day! The publication deal has been announced in The Bookseller, The book is featured on the Quercus website, and now it's listed on Amazon! It's going to be 432 pages long apparently, all very exciting!
13 September 2011
Two-year-old Ted and I visited the new Quercus offices to return the marked-up manuscript. Quercus used to be housed in a wonderful Dickensian building on Bloomsbury Square… steep staircases, piles of books everywhere, a view of the park. Now they’re in an immensely smart building on Baker Street. Walked through the airy atrium to reach a reception desk that seemed about a mile long, and was ushered upstairs. I was, of course, wearing jeans, pushing a pushchair and festooned with bags and toddler-related paraphernalia. Classy, me.
The offices are stunning and there is a roof terrace with the most astonishing views of London. If you crack the nod for drinks at the Quercus offices, say yes! It was fab to see Charlotte again meet some of the other masterminds who will be making Babies in Waiting the best book it can be.
Ted took the whole thing in his stride and behaved with casual style, singing “Bob the Builder” at the top of his voice, rolling on the floor a bit and insisting Nicola, Charlotte’s assistant, read his animal book with him. Everyone was exceptionally nice to him and me, and for that we are grateful.
Publication date is now confirmed for 1 March 2012, so start putting your pennies in a jar!
2 September
The doorbell rings and a courier hands over a hefty parcel... a copy of the manuscript marked up by copy editor Louisa Watson. 360 pages, multiple notes on every page. I'll be checking each and every one. I may be some time....
31 August 2011
It's all been a bit quiet on the book front over the summer, but things are starting to happen again! Got an email today from Charlotte with some notes from her sister, a doctor, who very kindly read the manuscript to check I hadn't got anything medical too horribly wrong. There were remarkably few errors, considering my reliance on Dr Google for my information, although I am now newly informed on the location of a caesarean scar.
Also today, had my first glimpse of the proposed jacket design... always one of the most exciting moments in the preparation of a book for publication. All still top secret, but I will put something up here as soon as it's finalised!
25 July 2011
I've never been a fan of having my photograph taken, but it had to be done... Quercus has asked me to supply an author pic, so I asked my Corbis colleague Brian David Stevens to help me out. Brian takes astonishing photographs, which you can see on his blog. He's also a wizard retoucher, so I knew he'd be able to gloss over my more glaring flaws,as it were. He was fab, put me at my ease, and when I confessed to hating the process, he breezily said "Everybody does. I hate having my picture taken so much, I did my own wedding photographs." Anyway, the pic is above. I'm thrilled with it.
14 July 2011
Got a one-line email today: it said "Started reading your book and was drawn into it right away." The surprise was in who it was from... my rugged Australian brother-in-law! Feel very heartened that the story is accessible to someone who is not (to use awful marketing speak) in the expected target demographic!
11 July 2011
Feedback from Charlotte: she seems really happy with the changes I have made. She also mentions that over the weekend she saw something on television and wanted to text Toni,one of the characters in the book. Which, as she says, "...makes me insane, but also proves that you’ve made her a character readers want to know and be friends with." I feel that's a win.
Now that we're closer to a finished work, I send the book to my two sisters, one in Australia and one in Johannesburg, our home town. They're both avid readers and I value their opinions very much indeed. Also, there's a difficult, prickly sister relationship in the book, and I'm very interested to hear what they think about it.
4 July 2011
A month ago, I met with my editor, Charlotte van Wijk, and we talked for five straight hours, pretty much without drawing breath. She gave me a copy of the manuscript marked up with her suggested changes. Some of them involve adding a word or two (or a pair of sandwiches in one scene... I had sent two characters out for lunch, but neglected to order them any food!). Some changes were more major, and involved a significant rewrite on the motivation and actions of one of my three main characters. It took a lot of careful work and checking, but I submitted the work today. I've added 5,500 words to the book, and a rather nice chap called Seamus.
1 March 2012
And here it is. Publication day. It's something that could be a bit anti-climactic, but I am blessed with the most wonderful family. My lovely husband and wonderful older son Matt, have taken the day off work to take me out for breakfast and spoil me (I got flowers and all!). Best moment of all was going into WH Smith's in Brent Cross, and there it was!
14 February 2012
Bit of a red-letter day! I went into the Quercus offices to pick up the first finished copy of the book, and suddenly things seemed very real indeed. It's just over a fortnight till Babies in Waiting is in the shops, and I can tell you, the finished article looks AMAZING! The jacket looks really super, and when you open the book, there are all these words... I can't quite believe I wrote them all! its very exciting. Also, the fabulous blog NorthLondonMums was good enough to ask me to write a piece on writing and getting published, and it's here. Check out their website, it's a fantastic resource if you're a parent in this neck of the woods.
31 January 2012
I've been very bad at updating this, mainly because I've been very busy, firstly with getting BiW ready for publication and publicising it like a proud mum, and also because I'm some distance into writing my new book, tentatively called Now and Then. But I was thrilled to see that today the brilliant Chicklitclub voted Babies in Waiting one of their hotly anticipated debuts of 2012. Well, I know I'm anticipating the hell out of it, glad other people are too!
9 October 2011
It's all go now.... Publication date is set for 1 March 2012, just in time for Mother's Day! The publication deal has been announced in The Bookseller, The book is featured on the Quercus website, and now it's listed on Amazon! It's going to be 432 pages long apparently, all very exciting!
13 September 2011
Two-year-old Ted and I visited the new Quercus offices to return the marked-up manuscript. Quercus used to be housed in a wonderful Dickensian building on Bloomsbury Square… steep staircases, piles of books everywhere, a view of the park. Now they’re in an immensely smart building on Baker Street. Walked through the airy atrium to reach a reception desk that seemed about a mile long, and was ushered upstairs. I was, of course, wearing jeans, pushing a pushchair and festooned with bags and toddler-related paraphernalia. Classy, me.
The offices are stunning and there is a roof terrace with the most astonishing views of London. If you crack the nod for drinks at the Quercus offices, say yes! It was fab to see Charlotte again meet some of the other masterminds who will be making Babies in Waiting the best book it can be.
Ted took the whole thing in his stride and behaved with casual style, singing “Bob the Builder” at the top of his voice, rolling on the floor a bit and insisting Nicola, Charlotte’s assistant, read his animal book with him. Everyone was exceptionally nice to him and me, and for that we are grateful.
Publication date is now confirmed for 1 March 2012, so start putting your pennies in a jar!
2 September
The doorbell rings and a courier hands over a hefty parcel... a copy of the manuscript marked up by copy editor Louisa Watson. 360 pages, multiple notes on every page. I'll be checking each and every one. I may be some time....
31 August 2011
It's all been a bit quiet on the book front over the summer, but things are starting to happen again! Got an email today from Charlotte with some notes from her sister, a doctor, who very kindly read the manuscript to check I hadn't got anything medical too horribly wrong. There were remarkably few errors, considering my reliance on Dr Google for my information, although I am now newly informed on the location of a caesarean scar.
Also today, had my first glimpse of the proposed jacket design... always one of the most exciting moments in the preparation of a book for publication. All still top secret, but I will put something up here as soon as it's finalised!
25 July 2011
I've never been a fan of having my photograph taken, but it had to be done... Quercus has asked me to supply an author pic, so I asked my Corbis colleague Brian David Stevens to help me out. Brian takes astonishing photographs, which you can see on his blog. He's also a wizard retoucher, so I knew he'd be able to gloss over my more glaring flaws,as it were. He was fab, put me at my ease, and when I confessed to hating the process, he breezily said "Everybody does. I hate having my picture taken so much, I did my own wedding photographs." Anyway, the pic is above. I'm thrilled with it.
14 July 2011
Got a one-line email today: it said "Started reading your book and was drawn into it right away." The surprise was in who it was from... my rugged Australian brother-in-law! Feel very heartened that the story is accessible to someone who is not (to use awful marketing speak) in the expected target demographic!
11 July 2011
Feedback from Charlotte: she seems really happy with the changes I have made. She also mentions that over the weekend she saw something on television and wanted to text Toni,one of the characters in the book. Which, as she says, "...makes me insane, but also proves that you’ve made her a character readers want to know and be friends with." I feel that's a win.
Now that we're closer to a finished work, I send the book to my two sisters, one in Australia and one in Johannesburg, our home town. They're both avid readers and I value their opinions very much indeed. Also, there's a difficult, prickly sister relationship in the book, and I'm very interested to hear what they think about it.
4 July 2011
A month ago, I met with my editor, Charlotte van Wijk, and we talked for five straight hours, pretty much without drawing breath. She gave me a copy of the manuscript marked up with her suggested changes. Some of them involve adding a word or two (or a pair of sandwiches in one scene... I had sent two characters out for lunch, but neglected to order them any food!). Some changes were more major, and involved a significant rewrite on the motivation and actions of one of my three main characters. It took a lot of careful work and checking, but I submitted the work today. I've added 5,500 words to the book, and a rather nice chap called Seamus.