Don't get him started on the T-shirts again.

It's all fun and "why don't we set the whole thing in Lucida Bold!!" until an author gets cranky. Generally speaking, it's safer to ask the author for an opinion, and get none, than not to ask and get lots.

I have a ton of edits to do, and everything is feeling unweildy, I'm getting confused between versions. I think I need to break it up into individual essays again or I'll have a meltdown.

How do you all keep your manuscripts organized?

I do the layout and send the author a galley proof so s/he can see what it looks like. If he complains, I might fix it. Generally, he doesn't.

I have an intricate organization system understandable only to me. It involves color-coded folders.

I do the layout and send the author a galley proof so s/he can see what it looks like. If he complains, I might fix it. Generally, he doesn't.

Yup. Now, granted -- we publish textbooks and pharmacy journals, not fiction or widely read non-fiction. So the authors don't really tend to have an issue with us using Palatino instead of Times, or whatever.

And we do also send galleys to the authors with any corrections/questions/etc. written out in full sentences, because we know that authors are a cranky and curmudgeonly lot who go online and post on message boards about how we send them galleys with scary and arcane markings.

hugs agent

This is the first time I've ever even attempted to write a book, so I'm learning as I go. I do need a system to organize. I'm in this weird funk/despair because it feels like I'm standing in a corner with stacks of newspapers and fast food containers like a packrat, and I have no idea where to start. I'm terrified of tossing anything, and it seems so daunting.

Color coded folders sounds like a plan.

Filenaming conventions are good too. Like, title_part_date (vampslobby_ch01_022606.doc), etc. You can always tell what increment you're working with; and you can always tell what version of that increment you're dealing with. Also, it sits nicely in order in a computer directory, so you can see at a glance what files you have.

I usually also create a generic "old" folder, so that when I'm really sure a version is out of date, I can move it out of the way, but don't have to worry about deleting it.

File organization is all about not seeing what you don't need to see, but knowing that it's there if you really need it.

File organization is all about not seeing what you don't need to see, but knowing that it's there if you really need it.

wrod.

No really. This is probably the truest thing you will read all day.

Gods, yes. Totally make sure your revs are version-separated or dated. Other thing is, in Word at least, I can look at the date column in the folder; the most recent date is the most recent version.

Generally speaking, it's safer to ask the author for an opinion, and get none, than not to ask and get lots.

Alas, that wasn't what I was getting, and I don't get a vote anyway. The author vote for a novel comes with the first pass-pages. I can put a nice big arrow pointing to the song lyric chapter lead in and write a corresponding note that says "type size way too small, italic too fancy, his is unreadable, please fix", and they'll generally do it. What I will not get is "please use Gothic 11-point, take line spacing to 1.5". Too specific. Most layout people seem to be major league tree-pissers.

And to be serious about it? Sending me 64 individual pages of the ms, with 68 queries, should only happen if every one of those queries are within my jurisdiction. The Matty Groves thing was a clusterfuck of epic proportions, because there were two or three questions that had to do with a usage or spelling - legitimately up to me, and needing my input. The rest were all "not within the author's purview". But because this jinglebrained anal-retentive ninnyhammer had put every class of question he or she had into, I had to go through every single note and respond to it.

It took me the better part of a day, and that's time I had to spend dealing with something that was neither my job nor my right. Less formally? "Dude, what the fucking FUCK do I know or care about the indent consistency in Verdana 10? What the hell have you been smoking and who do I bill for the time I just spent on this?"

edit: it also added to the time pressure. This idiot sending me printouts and asking questions meant for the layout guy in the next cube added days to the turnaround time. It's ridiculous.