As my capstone project for my editing minor I was able to take a novel all the way through the publication process. This was a great experience to be able to demonstrate the skills I had been learning in class.
To complete this project, my class worked with Future House Publishing. We read through their slush pile and selected four books to edit. My group of four chose Nightmare Detective.
The first thing we was create our production schedule to get the edits complete before the end of the semester. We divided the book into four batches so that the author could be working on one batch while we were still editing another batch. This system is what allowed us to finish on time. Because we had four editors and four batches, each of us took primary responsibility for one batch. Then we each did a secondary review on a different batch.
Our production schedule:
Development edits
9/29: Batch 1, Ch 1-6
9/22: Batch 2, Ch 7-13
9/24: Batch 3, Ch 14-21
9/26: Batch 4 Ch 22-30
Substantive edits
10/5: Batch 1
10/10: Batch 2
10/16: Batch 3
10/22: Batch 4
Copy edits
10/30: Batch 1
11/7: Batch 2
11/16: Batch 3
11/29: Batch 4
Back cover copy 12/01
Typesetting 12/06
Cover design 12/06
Proofreading 12/08
Submit finished book 12/15
