I've just finished the fourth and final round of edits for my first Ellora's Cave story, In Appreciation of their Cox. My head is spinning. New publisher = new house style, new vocabulary, new grammar. For a start, I'm going to have to learn to write in American. And curb my semicolon fetish. And banish hyphens. Though luckily for me, this first time, my lovely editor did the job of working through 10K of story and altering all the single quotes to double quotes!
In Appreciation of their Cox is e-published on October 14th.
To say that Ellora's Cave have exacting standards would be to understate matters. Every sentence comes under scrutiny. I have been given a slew of files to assimilate into my life, including the mighty tome of House Style Rules (93 pages!!) which covers everything from the correct dirty words ("cunt" but not "hole" - unless it's anal - and never use "squirt"), to collective nouns, to lists of registered trademarks, to which character names are overused in romance and should be avoided. It's awesome. I am bowled over by such attention to detail and accuracy, and their concern for the perfecting the final product.
And Oh. My. God. I've been asked, for the first time in my career, to fill in an official form suggesting what the cover illustration of my story should look like. My editor has sent the art department videos of competition rowing so that they get the detail right. And she has asked them for an interior line drawing to make it all look even better.
I may be about to cry.
Yup - now you're into -ize instead of -ise, different conventions on the use of quotation marks, and vocab that refers to hoods and trunks rather than bonnets and boots.
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand the US market is, what, about 6 times larger than the UK? 10 times? Much larger, anyway...
I confess I've been writing in 'American' for a while because some of my science fiction (published under my real name) goes there. I'm sure you'll get used to it quickly even if you haven't done it before.
The US market is easily 100 times larger, Fulani! Well worth the dropped semicolons (Though I mourn each one individually).
ReplyDeleteYep, writing American is going to have to become second nature for me. It'll probably relieve my poor editors at Cleis anyway.
:-)
BTW, did you know that Ellora's Cave publishes a lot of SF erotica/erotic romance? Might be worth a look Fulani, if you're into crossing the genres.
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ReplyDeleteWelcome to U.S. English! We're very honored to have your caresses on our flavors and buses and realizations.
ReplyDeleteOh, and I can give your unused semicolons a good home.
Heh heh Jeremy - I believe you and Craig are both fond of homeless semicolons!
ReplyDeleteOh ... do you say "car" or "automobile" on your side of the pond? I'm searching my memories of CSI and am coming up vague.
We say "car" most commonly. Automobile (or auto) tends to come up in slightly more formal contexts, such as a discussion of "pollution produced by automobiles" or "trends within the auto industry" (one doesn't hear "the car industry").
ReplyDeleteThank you!
ReplyDeletexxx
My pleasure! I love questions like that. Feel free to write to me whenever you have one.
ReplyDeletethat is so awsome..thhe coverwork question...i might cry along:-)
ReplyDeleteoh..and auto you can say when you are here in germany:-)
Wow. Is all this daunting? 93 pages!
ReplyDeleteThe translation of vocab depresses me a bit. I mean, when I read American, I just read it... I get it, you know? Sigh. Ah well.
Still, lovely to see you so excited by it all :)
So what names are overused?
ReplyDeleteRaven, presumably (although I suppose a *single* use of Raven counts as overuse), but what else?
You are dead right about Raven, Chris. Also Lucian, Cash, Grey ...
ReplyDeleteThank you my international team of translators! I love it!
ReplyDeleteSo happy for you, Janine! Lovely to hear you've found somewhere that works for you. I'll also be open to waifs and stray semi-colons if you want them looked after here!
ReplyDeleteGah! Your blog hasn't been showing up on the thing it usually shows up on, and so like a fool I thought you'd stopped posting for a bit. Rather than, you know, just coming here to check.
ReplyDeleteHave just seen your cover up, at EC! It looks amazing. And I had almost the exact same experience as you, re: the 96 pages and all the different editing and the like. I kind of find it a relief, tho- to have a publisher (and another publisher. TEB do the same things) who is so involved in getting a quality product out there, and goes over everything thoroughly. Nice to have cover requests, too!