Manuscripts: Saving Time and Money, 1
Saturday, April 18th, 2009The other day I was asked to make a short presentation for the Arizona Book Publishers Association. I chose to address a few issues that authors can do to simplify their own lives and ours when preparing manuscripts.
This was pretty easy to do, since we had been wrestling with a particularly difficult book compiled by a group of authors for publication through a print-on-demand house. The book was to be used adjunct to their business, and so it was to their advantage to self-publish rather than to go through a traditional press. Just as well: no one who wasn’t being paid to publish the thing would have accepted it.
The copy epitomized six major traits of amateurishly prepared material. It was filled with authorly misdeeds that create unnecessary headaches for editors and layout artists. These matters ultimately cost the authors a great deal more money than anyone needs to pay for production of a book: many of our sixty-dollar hours were consumed needlessly in untangling messes the authors could have and should have done right from the outset.
So, let us discuss. Let us discuss serially, starting today with Installment 1.
1. When working with a coauthor…
Please work together with your coauthor!
Apparently these authors rarely spoke to each other. After I’d plodded through the first few chapters, I opened chapter 4 to find three introductory paragraphs identical, word for word, with the first few paragraphs of chapter 2. As it that weren’t enough, the same thing happened in two other chapters. Hello? Is anyone there?
Use the same style manual!
A “style manual” is a publication guide that codifies such things as the way citation and documentation should be done, whether numbers should be spelled out or set as numerals, how tables are set up, and the like. Here are some examples:
The University of Chicago Press. The Chicago Manual of Style. 15th edition. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003.
Joseph Gibaldi. MLA Style Manual and Guide to Scholarly Publishing. 3rd edition. New York: Modern Language Association of America, 2008.
Joseph Gibaldi. MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers. 7th edition. New York: Modern Language Association of America, forthcoming in 2009.
Norm Goldstein. The Associated Press Stylebook. 43rd edition. New York: Basic Books, 2009.
American Psychological Association. Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association. 5th edition. Washington, D.C.: American Psychological Association, 2001.
Council of Science Editors. Scientific Style and Format: The CSE Manual for Authors, Editors, and Publishers. 7th edition. Reston, Va.: Council of Science Editors and Rockefeller University Press, 2006.
American Medical Association: The American Medical Association Manual of Style. 9th edition. Baltimore: Wilkins & Wilkins, 1998.
The Chicago Manual is the standard of the book publishing industry. If you want to write books, you should own a copy. There are some other, more specialized style manuals. Consult with your publisher for advice on which one to use. Whichever is selected, please read it and follow it closely! When coauthors are working together, each author must follow the agreed-upon manual’s style. Otherwise, a confusing jumble results.
If you’re self-publishing, please let your editor know which manual you think you’re using.
Please use the same style sheet.
A style sheet is an informal list of the individual quirks in a manuscript. It ensures regularity in such matters as unusual spelling or hyphenation, use of numbers vs. numerals, and the way you type your heads and subheads.
Coauthors should agree an how heads and subheads will look (boldface caps and lower-case flush left? boldface italic caps and lower-case centered? italic caps and lower-case run-in?). Subheadings come in several levels: level A, level B, level C, and so on.
The level-A heading is usually a chapter title, like this:
9. The Key to the Pacific Coast Order of Flying Ground Squirrels
Your level-B heading then would be a subhead:
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Mauris dapibus. Phasellus facilisis neque quis eros. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit.
This Is a Level-B Subhead
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The next level of subhead should be typographically distinct from the higher level of subheads. Think levels in a topic outline: the sub-subhead would be a subtopic if you outlined your manuscript.
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Mauris dapibus. Phasellus facilisis neque quis eros. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit.
This Is a Level-C Subhead
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It’s best to avoid complicated sub-sub-subheads, but if you need to use them, the next level should look different from either of the higher levels.
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Mauris dapibus. Phasellus facilisis neque quis eros. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit.
This Is a Level-D Subhead. Donec semper nunc a nisl. Vivamus porta pulvinar felis. Cras lacus. Vivamus tincidunt egestas ipsum. Vivamus erat nisl, condimentum eget, gravida a, pulvinar at, tellus.
The choice of fonts and faces is not cast in stone. However, they must be consistent. An editor can’t read your mind, and a layout artist won’t even try to read your mind. When you’re working with one or more coauthors, you should be sure everyone on the writing team knows and will use the desired format for heads and subheads.
Avoid redundancy. Please don’t repeat each other!
One member of the authorial team should accept the job of reading all the copy, from beginning to end. With the agreed-upon style sheet in hand, this person should be sure
a. that everything the team intended to say in the book is included;
b. that the format for everything is consistent (heads and subheads, documentation and citation, tables, figures, paragraphing style, spelling, numbers & numerals, etc.); and
c. that no passages or concepts have been repeated.
Attention to these few simple matters can save a great deal of time when you reach a stage where time is money. That stage begins the minute a manuscript is handed over to an editor or a graphic artist.