I’m in the midst of getting a book ready for press, and I thought readers might be interested in a behind-the-scenes look at the other steps an author goes through — the steps beyond merely writing the book. (Although in full disclosure, writing the book is the hardest part).

About a month before the book is due, an author has to turn in an Art Fact Sheet (AFS), which is what the art department uses to make the cover. In addition, it’s what is used to sell the book to foreign markets. The author has to include a synopsis of the story, describe the hero and heroine, and describe a few key scenes.

One of my favorite parts of the AFS is character page. There’s a character theme listbox, and you have to decide what is the *one* word that describes my hero or heroine. Some of the choices are: Abducted, Academic, Aloof, Astute, Former Bad Boy, and my favorite, Murderer. I love browsing through the tags, because it’s actually a great way to get your brain working on the next story and you can see the hundreds of different character types that will show up in a Harlequin novel. Nationality/Ethnicity choice is another one that I chuckle over, and I can see some other author saying, “Well, he doesn’t fit into any of the boxes. He’s half New Zealander, half European.” And yes, now that’s one of the choices. There’s British/Cuban or another good one, Fictional Nationality – Very Italian. If that doesn’t work, there’s Welsh/Italian. I always want to seek out those books and read them, because Welsh/Italian sounds fascinating.
Under occupation, there’s the usual listing of romance hero and heroine occupations, but we also have “vampire”. That always cracks me up.
“What do you do?” “I’m a vampire.” “Oh. I wanted to study that in college, but my parents talked me out of it. How do you like it?” “Sometimes good. Sometimes not so good. Buffy did very well for the profession. We’re seeing more and more graduates studying the vampire field.” Okay, you get the point now. I’ll shut up.
After the AFS is put to bed, an author gets revisions to work on. Sometimes they’re tooth-pulling painful, and sometimes they’re easy. I’ve learned that if I do my really painful stuff up front before the book is turned into my editor, then revisions go much better. There’s always hard work in writing. As an author, you have to decide just where you want your pain. Up front or at the end.

At some point, your editor will ask for the Dear Reader letter and the dedication or acknowledgments. Those are pretty straight-forward. And the last part of the process if the AA’s. This is an author’s last chance to change the words. For the AA’s, I always sit down like I’m about to read a book (except I use a red pen to write all over it) and work through the story from beginning to end.

According to Amazon, my August Blaze is now shipping, and the cover on that one makes me smile. The heroine in the book is described thusly: “Her hair was dark, nearly black, and she had soft brown eyes, and a nose that was too big to be called pert.” The heroine on the cover has long, curly red hair, and okay, her nose is right, and the clothes were spot on. Now, don’t get me wrong. Since the hero has dark hair, as well, I’m thinking the art department got it right.

So what are your favorite sort of covers? Drop a comment, and to one lucky commenter, I’m giving away a copy of Hot Under Pressure, plus an extra surprise book that I brought back from RWA National.

This entry was posted on Friday, July 24th, 2009 at 5:00 am and is filed under Kathleen O'Reilly. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.