Richard Phillips Rho Agenda Blog

The Developmental Edit etc. May 30, 2012

Since it has been a while since my last post, I thought I’d try to bring you all up to speed on what I and the 47 North Author team have been doing.  I also want to focus part of today’s post on The Developmental Edit and why it is an important part of the publication process, a part that almost nobody that self-publishes has the luxury of being able to afford.  That’s not to say that there isn’t a lot of really good self-published stuff out there.  But, given the right help, it could be better.

When 47 North purchased the publishing rights to all three Rho Agenda novels, they got the right to pull all the previously self-published versions of the first two novels from the eBook or print bookshelves.  As part of that process, they assigned an outstanding developmental editor, Jeff VanderMeer, an award-winning sci-fi author and editor, to work with me on the final product for all three novels.  He has been fabulous to work with.  As of Tuesday, 29 May, I finished my final cut for Wormhole, and sent it back to Jeff for his final review, a one day process, then I’ll get it for final approval and then forward it on to the 47 North Author team.  That means I’m now done with the edit for all three novels.  As you probably know, the developmental edit is very similar to the director’s cut in the movie business, with the exception that I, as the author, get to approve or disapprove any final changes.  As opposed to a copy or line edit, where they look for wrongly spelled words or bad punctuation, this is all about story flow and trying to optimize it.  It’s the expensive type of edit that only the big publishing houses can afford to provide.  Sometimes that means we authors lose a couple of chapters, sometimes it means adding some, as well as moving bits here and there.  Jeff and I did a little bit of all of the above in each of the three novels and I believe it will enhance the experience for future readers.

Meanwhile, the 47 North Author Team has been creating three covers for each of the novels based upon my input.  I’ll pick my favorite for each book and then we’ll go final with the back and inside cover text.  After that the books will go to print and 47 North will begin work with Brilliance Audio to select the audio book actor(s) and to finalize the audiobook release schedule.

The English language version of the novels will be released in order, The Second Ship on October 3rd, Immune on October 30th, and Wormhole on November 20th.  In the meantime, 47 North will be negotiating with foreign publishers for the foreign language rights and when those deals are finalized, the foreign publishers will do the translations into their respective languages.

All of this takes longer than doing my own edit and posting the contents directly to Amazon’s Digital Publishing Platform, but allows me to get my novels distributed to a much wider audience and will give future readers an enhanced experience.  By the way, I believe that Amazon Prime members will be able to access my novels for free.

I hope this provides you some assurance that we aren’t just sitting on our hands, but are working very hard to get The Rho Agenda out the door. Best, Richard