Nat's Notes:
Adventures in Publishing

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Readers Room.com is excited to announce this new feature which will follow an author through the process of New York publishing, from a book sale to the book release. Many people wonder what happens after a book is sold to a large publisher. Natalie is wondering, too. Read along on the 15th of every month, as she explains the process--or at least gives it her best shot.

By Natalie R. Collins

OF GALLEYS AND ARCS AND SUCH---It seems that things are coming down to the wire, as least as far as publication of Wives and Sisters. That might seem strange, considering that the book is not due out until October 1. However, this week I received notification that galleys are in, and are ready to go out to different publications for review. In addition, I received what St. Martin's refers to as a "first pass," or first correction of the typeset pages.

Now, I know I make some errors in a completed manuscript, and compared to a lot of authors, my work is pretty clean. But still, I'm always appalled by the things your eye seems to train itself to skip over that always slip through. My "first pass" revealed at least two errors that I considered major enough I almost had heart failure. After the paramedics arrived and resuscitated me, I said some Hail Marys (there's something oddly soothing about it, even though I'm not Catholic) and fixed the problems, grateful for the opportunity to do so.

Some of the other errors were the typesetter's, such as a "grossing" which should have been "guessing" and a prominent "noise" on someone's face, which, of course, should have been a nose, but overall the pages were fairly clean.

However, after doing the corrections and returning them to my publisher, I realized that this is the copy that most reviewers will get. And immediately, nervous angst set in, which, when you consider it, is really stupid. After all, I review books for ReadersRoom.com. I get ARCs all the time. ARCs, for those of you who don't know, are Advanced Review Copies, also known as Advanced Readers Copies, and sometimes known as galleys. Right on the front of many an ARC it says "Uncorrected Proof." There are always a few typos to be found in those. It's never once affected my review of a book. Time for me to stop worrying, right? We won't go there.

But not all ARCs say uncorrected proof.

So, this led me to wonder--is there a difference between an ARC and a galley? I researched, and discovered that an ARC is what I mentioned before: an Advanced Reading or Review Copy. And a galley? A galley is a bound edition of a work for review and publicity purposes. It used to mean the first copy of the typeset pages, which my publisher refers to as the "first pass." As far as I can tell, the terms ARC and galley are now fairly interchangeable. Anyone knowing differently please feel free to email and correct me.

So what have we learned here? That Natalie is horribly confused? This could be true, but I also found out--after chatting with friends published with other houses--that the terms change depending on the house you are with. There is not one set standard within the publishing industry. Which explains a lot of things. It explains why some publishers will offer you an ARC for review, and others a galley. It explains why one publisher will reject your manuscript as "too mainstream," and the next reject the same manuscript for being "too category." Okay, it doesn't really explain that, but the point is, the definitions change depending on the publishing house.

And now that I've cleared up all the confusion, I've decided that next month's Nat's Notes will be written by Andy Rooney. I'll be too busy obsessively checking my book's listing on Amazon (yep, it's available for preorder there) despite the fact that everyone says Amazon rankings don't matter.

Do you have questions or comments about Natalie's adventure in publishing? She'd love to hear from you. Contact her at: ReadersRoom2@aol.com

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