Book Musings
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Saturday, November 24th, 2007So my galley went on a trip to the UK and friends sent me a photo of my book galley from Oxford… It also went to Scotland (and maybe Wales too? actually I think it skipped Wales) on this trip. (Btw. I used Splashup.com to edit it online. Amazing. It’s Photoshop in your browser)
A book dedication to Ms. Right and the yet-to-be-born
Sunday, November 11th, 2007My friend Shawn and I were IMing about our dedications in our books. I dedicated mine to my parents (“For Mom and Dad, who left their homeland so their children could follow their passions, and for all other moms and dads who have done the same.”) But his, the best I have ever seen, takes […]
Cary Goldstein, book publicist extraordinaire
Friday, November 9th, 2007Cary Goldstein (very patiently) trekked across five cities with me to attend dinners that he and his assistant Carolyn had carefully arranged. As my friend Nicole (who attended two dinners, in Boston and San Francisco) put it, you couldn’t even tell he was a publicist at the dinner. It’s amazing what a good book publicist […]
It’s cold in LA
Friday, November 9th, 2007wtf.
Our copyeditors seem to like it thus far…
Friday, November 9th, 2007My editors have been telling me that the copy editors who have been working on the book, have said nice things about it. (three cheers for copy editors, they catch the most amazing thing). One email forwarded to me by one of the copy editors: I did manage to get it back one day sooner […]
Galley demand
Friday, November 9th, 2007From one of the sales reps …to the publicist after the prepub dinner in Seattle @ House of Hong. Which is in theory, why we do the tour in the first place, so yay. Hi, Jennifer 8 Lee was such a hit in Seattle that my accounts are clambering for more galleys. Can you send […]
I’m going to lose my voice by the end of this week
Wednesday, November 7th, 2007meep.
A mad rush of a pre-pub tour: four dinners in four cities in four days
Monday, November 5th, 2007This week I am on a pre-publication tour, going to different cities and having dinner at (where else?) Chinese restaurants with booksellers and local media. Julie Bosman does a nice job explaining the motivation for pre-pub tours in this piece from The New York Times. As she writes: Unlike the postpublication book tour, which focuses […]
It’s like, he showed up in my apartment and wanted to talk about my couch
Wednesday, October 31st, 2007A few nights ago, I had dinner with my friend Seth, who had a copy of the galley and was reading it. He wasn’t inherently interested in Chinese food a a topic, yet he was drawn in by the book and could see people telling each other to read it (I was trying to figure […]
Enthusiastic, unprovoked word of mouth from our sales reps
Tuesday, October 30th, 2007My editor forwarded me some nice comments from the sales reps, who are now reading the book to gear up to sell to independent bookstores. As it was explained to me, two things move books: national media and word of mouth. Word of mouth works best when the sales reps get excited, pass that enthusiasm […]
Sending out my galleys
Monday, October 29th, 2007This is the view from the conference room while I was stuffing my personal galley mailings (to go with the ones that my editor, Jon Karp, and the publicist, Cary Goldstein, did). I sent out 100 galleys, with handwritten notes. My hand hurt. Over the weekend, my mom sent me an email on behalf of […]
This txtmsg made my day…
Monday, October 22nd, 2007Arrived today at 7:44 p.m. from a friend. “Just saw a guy on the subway reading your galley. He is 70 pages on and loving it. His name is Ian Chin. Works at Hachette.” My friend was so excited that he interrupted Ian even as he was listening to his iPod. And the galleys only […]
The editorial spirit of the NYTimes best sellers’ list is churn and novelty
Monday, October 22nd, 2007Clark Hoyt, the New York Times public editor, takes on the New York Times best seller list this weekend. Basically what is revealed is that the New York Times list is subjective judgment as well as objective sales — it’s not literally the best selling lists in America at any given point. “The editorial spirit […]
My galleys are here!
Sunday, October 14th, 2007Got an email from my editor who said my galleys have arrived as of Friday. He says they look great. Now am in the process of compiling a spreadsheet of journalists, food bloggers, and other people who would take an interest in a book on how Chinese food is All-American. They don’t have to write […]
God is Not Great is a National Book Award finalists (which affects my life just a tiny bit)
Wednesday, October 10th, 2007Christopher Hitchen’s book, God is Not Great (now with its own Wikipedia entry!), is a National Book Award finalist. Which is fantastic. It affects my life only in a little bit in that Cary called e-mailed me this morning to tell me we have to move my pre-pub dinners with booksellers up a week in […]
Page proofs! Only $1.25 per change.
Wednesday, October 3rd, 2007I got my page proofs back from Twelve/Hachette, along with a very stern warning: “This will be your only opportunity to review the typeset pages, so please be sure that all changes you wish to make are included.” It also says, “Each change costs roughly $1.25. However this is not a per line or per […]
Asian American Literary Award Winners Announced
Friday, September 28th, 2007The Asian American Writers Workshop (which is based in New York City interestingly, and not like San Francisco) announced their 2007 Asian American Literary Award Winners yesterday. Poetry Linh Dinh for Borderless Bodies (Factory School, 2006) Nonfiction Amitav Ghosh for Incendiary Circumstances: A Chronicle of the Turmoil of Our Times (Houghton Mifflin, 2006) Fiction Samrat […]
Now more NYT Bestsellers coming near you! (More ways to be above average)
Wednesday, September 26th, 2007Josh Getlin of The Los Angeles Times writes about the expansion of The New York Times bestsellers list to differentiate between trade paperback (the bigger flat books) and mass-market paperbacks (the squatter ones). While the article doesn’t explicitly say this, it’s part of the NYTimes’ desire to value “impact/influence of books” rather than straight up […]
From Child Porn to Chinese Food…
Thursday, September 20th, 2007Today I watched my close friend, Adam, give his closing arguments in his first case as a federal prosecutor. It was a child enticement case where a 49-year-old man showed up in New York City with a condom and a camera expecting to have sex with a 13-year-old girl he met online. Only she as […]
Books or Babies?
Friday, September 14th, 2007Last Sunday I went out for dim sum with my college roommate and her husband and their adorable baby Audrey. Audrey, who is about 9 months old, is normally very picky about food actually loved the rice porridge and the mango pudding. It was very adorable to watch. Random thought that occured to me. Have […]
I’m turning in my manuscript (for real this time)
Wednesday, September 5th, 2007Copyedited, factchecked, read-aloud, parsed, reworked. Yay. Done. I’m getting on the Subway to go to the publisher’s office. It is a paper document) From here it goes to galleys. It has been a three-month birthing process. During Labor Day someone asked me “How was your summer?” My first thought was “Why is he using the […]
I’m hibernating because I’m dealing with the copyedit…
Thursday, August 23rd, 2007Dealing with a book opyedit is sort of a strange process if you have never dealt with it before, though good advice can be found on the Internet. One thing: you need to buy colored pencils, and not of colors already used, to write responses on the manuscript to the copy editors questions. I bought […]
Manuscript is copyedited
Monday, August 20th, 2007So the manuscript is copyedited! I was surprised because I actually get back a physical copy where I have to enter my comments in on the manuscript copy in pencil. And then this hand-edited document gets re-typed in with our comments and changes by a typesetter. I was surprised they don’t just enter the changes […]
Done.
Thursday, July 26th, 2007i’m hungry.
Forget singing. Try reading aloud to yourself in the bathroom.
Thursday, July 19th, 2007So my editor, my agent and my friends have all recommended that I read the manuscript to myself out loud as I do the final fine-tooth line-editing. When you read it out loud, it is like music. If something is off, you can tell immediately. Each paragraph, sentence, word has to justify its existence in […]
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