Manuscript Revisions

After the years of struggling to find an agent, never mind a publisher, I still feel amazed disbelief that it has actually happened.

It’s a very exciting time for me but also surprisingly scary and not always quite how I’d thought it would be.

I’d imagined that a publisher would want me to make a few revisions to my finished manuscript but I’d also heard that, in these times of reduced publishing budgets, this was less likely to happen since editors expected a manuscript ready for publication. This doesn’t appear to be the case.

Lucy Icke

My editor, Lucy, is tremendously supportive and positive; she loves The Apothecary’s Daughter and has read it many times as we work on it together. Kindly, she says she will never become bored with reading it! Still, I have been reworking the manuscript on and off since last July; removing a sub plot that involved almost every page, strengthening characters, adding to descriptions and changing format to comply with Piatkus’s house rules. I believe it’s a better novel for this process.

I submitted my last revisions, most of them simply formatting changes or typos, just before Christmas and await Lucy’s comments. The manuscript will then be sent to a copy editor. After that I will receive the proofs to check before it is sent to print.

It’s been hard to keep going with all the revisions at times, especially as I have a very busy and absorbing day job and this often means I’m writing late into the night. The whole business has been a great deal more laborious than I had imagined but it’s immensely reassuring that the novel that I put my heart and soul into has received such experienced help and advice to make it as good as it can be.

I hope to see the artwork for proposed cover very soon. Can’t wait!

2 thoughts on “Manuscript Revisions”

  1. How exciting for you Charlotte, and well deserved success.

    I remember reading this on the Youwriteon site many months ago and I loved it then.

    Good luck with progressing your novel and all your writing.

    Glad to have found your blog.

    warm wishes
    Debbie

    Reply
    • I’m so pleased to receive a comment from another fan of YouWriteOn! it’s hard to be a writer sometimes, hours and hours of hard graft to write your masterpiece and you need all the positive criticism and support you can get. Very good luck with your own writing, Debbie.

      Reply

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