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Health & Fitness

Delivering a Finished Manuscript to a Publisher

The manuscript for the new, expanded edition of my book The Parents' Guide to Hip Dysplasia is done and delivered to Hunter House.

It's been some time since I updated my blog. I was on hiatis over the summer because I was working on the manuscript for a new, expanded edition of my book The Parents' Guide to Hip Dysplasia. My publisher Hunter House needed the finished manuscript by August 31 because they will be publishing it in spring 2013. I'm very happy with how the manuscript turned out, but it was a fast deadline, so I had to take a break from optional writing tasks like blogging so that I could stay on track.

For those of you who are curious about how this process works for nonfiction books (the process is different for fiction), here's how things went for me. I don't have an agent. I work directly with Hunter House. They had already published my book The Parents' Guide to Clubfoot, and had told me they would be interested in similar books.

I self-published the current edition of The Parents' Guide to Hip Dysplasia in 2008, and wanted to update and expand it. So I sent a book proposal to Hunter House. A book proposal includes sample chapters, a table of contents, and some information about potential readers and similar books. It is common for nonfiction authors to send book proposals to publishers before the book is finished. This allows the author to schedule time to work on the book with the knowledge that it will get published.

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Hunter House said yes to the proposal, and asked if I could quickly update the current edition. I said yes, and got to work. I do a lot of correspondence for my nonfiction books. I like to connect with parents to find out which issues are most important to them. I also include a lot of images, and needed to get permission for some new art that I was adding to the book. I really enjoy the correspondence part, which is why I am a volunteer moderator for an online hip dysplasia facebook group.

The only problem in this case was that people were sending me comments and suggestions and really good medical information until the last minute. It was exciting, but also challenging. In the end I was able to deliver my manuscript and all of its images (each image file is separate, not pasted into the manuscript) on time. I'm very grateful to everyone in the online hip dysplasia community who shared their knowledge and experiences with me.

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The next stop for my manuscript on its journey to become a book is the Hunter House editorial department. When all editorial changes are done, then it will go to  desktop publishing, where a book designer will format it and position all the images. Next, it will go to an indexer, and when all of the parts are completed, it will be sent to a printing company so it can be printed. I'll blog about some of these milestones as they happen, but for now I'm glad to have a little down time.

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