My book runneth over...
Mar. 23rd, 2014 10:15 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
blatherskiteSo I'm working on this book designed to teach puppy scientists (as well as the old dogs who are still willing to learn new tricks) how to write papers for journals. I've been doing this work for 25 years, so I know a thing or two about the subject. Since I want this to be a big hit with the final audience, I created the best outline I could create on my own, then went through half a dozen of the main books that already exist in this field to see whether I'd missed anything important, but more importantly to see what they had missed. I want to go them one better.
Then I sat down and wrote the sucker, which was a joy. I enjoy fiction, but I've been doing nonfiction for so long that it just comes more easily and it has more immediate payback both economically and in terms of knowing the books are being used and making a difference in someone's life. Peer review (very favorable; insert purring noise here) was recently completed, and I've got the Word files safely into InDesign and ready for final edits and layout.
The good news? The untweaked first draft (minus TOC, figures, and index) comes in at 450 pages in 7" by 9" trade paperback format. That's about twice the size of most competing books, and only some of that is the result of my natural tendency towards verbosity. (I call my chatty style a virtue. My many readers have, for the most part, kindly declined to disillusion me on this point.) So the book will be, for a first edition, comprehensive.
The bad news? The untweaked first draft comes in at 450 pages. This will take some significant time to edit and index. I could get it done before we leave for vacation in 3 weeks, but I'd have to give up a bunch of paying work to find the time. Nonetheless, I may try to do that, since the book will be more fun, and may eventually pay better if it finds an audience.
Still... I need to learn to write fewer words. Good thing I'm not paying myself by the hour for the editing and indexing.
Then I sat down and wrote the sucker, which was a joy. I enjoy fiction, but I've been doing nonfiction for so long that it just comes more easily and it has more immediate payback both economically and in terms of knowing the books are being used and making a difference in someone's life. Peer review (very favorable; insert purring noise here) was recently completed, and I've got the Word files safely into InDesign and ready for final edits and layout.
The good news? The untweaked first draft (minus TOC, figures, and index) comes in at 450 pages in 7" by 9" trade paperback format. That's about twice the size of most competing books, and only some of that is the result of my natural tendency towards verbosity. (I call my chatty style a virtue. My many readers have, for the most part, kindly declined to disillusion me on this point.) So the book will be, for a first edition, comprehensive.
The bad news? The untweaked first draft comes in at 450 pages. This will take some significant time to edit and index. I could get it done before we leave for vacation in 3 weeks, but I'd have to give up a bunch of paying work to find the time. Nonetheless, I may try to do that, since the book will be more fun, and may eventually pay better if it finds an audience.
Still... I need to learn to write fewer words. Good thing I'm not paying myself by the hour for the editing and indexing.
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Date: 2014-03-30 07:10 pm (UTC)Brent Buckner, posting as Anonymous