Operation box

[pbray]

This past weekend I spent some time organizing my writing room, and in particular going through all of the materials related to THE FIRST BETRAYAL, and deciding what I needed to keep and what I could toss.

Had a couple of thousand pieces of paper for the recycle bin this week. The original draft chapters with my critique partner's notes: tossed. The almost final drafts that I printed to look for final tweaks and typos: tossed. The hardcopy of the version I'd sent my agent: tossed. The duplicate copy of what I'd sent in to Bantam: tossed. Various scribbled notes on what I wanted to do during the revisions for book one tossed, along with a half-dozen out of date versions of the style sheet.

When finished, I then assembled the manuscript box. The bottom layer consists of the original proposal, along with my agent's feedback. Next layer is the revised proposal with my editor's comments, and finally the accepted version. On top of that is the manuscript I submitted to Bantam in June (with my editor's scribbled comments) and the revision letter. On top of that is the revised manuscript. Later I'll add in a photocopy of the copyedits and then a copy of the galleys. When I'm done, I label the box and place it on the storage shelves. If I ever need to refer back to it, I have the complete history of the project all in one place.

I thought that every writer organized themselves in this way, but when I told her what I'd been up to this weekend, jennifer_dunne merely blinked in surprise.

In writing news, thanks to booksquare for pointing out the Yale School of Management study that concludes negative reader reviews posted on Amazon.com and BN.com do influence sales. So those 1-star reviews written by trolls who couldn't be bothered to actually read your book aren't just annoying, they are potentially harmful. Fortunately internet sales are still a small share of the market, but it's a growing share.

ETA: Not all 1 star reviews are invalid--there are some books I've rated poorly. If it's an honest opinion that's fine. But I know several authors whose books have been trashed by completely bogus reviews, where it's obvious to everyone (except a potential buyer) that the reviewer hasn't read the book in question. Getting these reviews removed from Amazon.com is often an exercise in frustration for the author involved.

Comments

[mizkit.livejournal.com]

Wow. I admire and envy your setup. I may need to steal that...

[pbray.livejournal.com]

I'm planning on being famous and want to make things easier for my future biographers :-)

Seriously, though, I wanted to hang on to these things, and organizing it so 1 book = 1 box made a lot of sense. The boxes that I buy blank paper in are just the right size for this, so when I'm done I just slap a few giant stickers on the box labeling the contents and I'm good to go.

[jennifer-dunne.livejournal.com]

*blink* *blink*
Still mystified.
You're done with it. Why keep it? Save a copy of the printed book, and any reference material you might use in a sequel.

[kateelliott.livejournal.com]

omigod. I can't decide whether you're a genius, or insane.





Actually, that's a very cool thing to do. I never ever thought of it. My stuff is in a library, though, with more boxes trickling in at intervals (I have no storage space here at home). That's what librarians are for: to do the cataloging and organizing. Or at least, so I thought.

[kateelliott.livejournal.com]

But if I were a grad student studying your work, I would really want your scribbled notes on what you're going to do in the revision. Have you considered keeping them for future projects? There's a lot to be learned, I think, in comparing the scribbled notes, and changes in scribbled notes, with the actual finished revision.

[pbray.livejournal.com]

Good point. I'll have to think about how to keep the revision notes--although my handwriting is truly atrocious, and I'd need a way to keep the notes in some kind of order so they could see the evolution. Many of the big picture notes are in an wordprocessor file called "Revision Notes" but little notes like add lizards to garden? or prince vs peasant, show L's hatred of invader are the things that got tossed after I was done.

[kateelliott.livejournal.com]

I think those little notes are kind of interesting. If you printed out the Revision Notes file, and kept the little notes, it would make a pretty complete package.

I think what interests most people is the revision process, how it got from idea to the finished draft.

[fancythat2.livejournal.com]

Yeah!
I'd like to see those little revision notes too. (Just curious).

I too dumped copies of my original story in an empty paper box a couple of weeks ago to free up a binder and shelf space in the small bookcase. The manuscript bits fit perfectly into the box and it's oh so tidy.

I'm keeping that junked ms because I want to track the changes to the story and in my writing skills. (Until I get famous, then, I'll burn the evidence). :-)