A Day in the Life

When I tell people that I work in academic publishing, they mostly give a blank stare and respond with, "Oh, that's nice." Conversation over. Mostly because they have no idea what my job entails or what I do. So, I'm going to put you in my shoes at the office.

Today: M-lists and Transmittals.

First of all, my apologies for the horrible quality of the photos. Again, all pictures were taken with my camera phone. Remember that cute little camera I've been coveting? Yeah... still working on that. (New running shoes have been a priority.)

To begin: The Master List, or m-list. The m-list is a printed report of all our current projects. I update this database every two weeks (give or take). It is considered our company bible because every department refers to it multiple times a day. It includes the author's name(s), full title, MCD (manuscript completion date), print run, final available date (when the book is printed), price, ISBN, Library of Congress number, series information, and any additional information. Whew! And yes, this is all important for various reasons.

Transferring the changes from multiple sources on to a single list.

You know the movie and book, The Devil Wears Prada? Yeah, that's my life. Seriously. My boss judges my outfits every day. Her mood is directly dependent on whether or not she has enough water and if the humidifier is on. If I'm on the phone with an author she'll run out of the office waving her hands and passing notes of what I should say. And then there's the little things like how she prefers only large paper clips---the little ones annoy her. The good side of things? She doesn't talk down to me... unless I royally f-up, of course, but then it's deserved. And I honestly like the challenge of it. Demanding, yes, but I hope that it makes me a stronger person. Luckily I have very thick skin.

A more fashionable version of my life.

You know in the movie where Andy perfectly fans out her boss's magazines? I do the same thing with my boss's m-lists. In the stack: LRP m-list, availability list, editor reports.

Next Up: Transmitting a manuscript. When we get a final manuscript in the office we must "transmit" it over to the production department so that they can turn it into a pretty book. This includes going through every page of the manuscript to find any possible problems and edit mistakes.

The manuscript comes in. Incredibly anxious authors often spend an arm and a leg to overnight the package and then immediately e-mail me asking if it has arrived.

Going through the manuscript---all 600 pages of it. I have a system going on here.

I make a copy of the table of contents (ToC) and write all the problems and errors with the manuscript and include a "cast-off."

This manuscript was pretty clean. With new manuscripts and authors, my notes can often run onto another page. It is a second edition of one of our popular textbooks, so the author has got it down by now. A "cast-off" is what we use to determine the number of completed book pages from the manuscript pages. The formula is as follows:

# of manuscript pages x (# of characters x # of lines) / 3000 = # of book pages

If the author doesn't do their part, transmittals can be one of the most frustrating parts of the job. I've often gotten manuscripts where the pages aren't numbered so I have to hand number everything; the chapters are out of order or missing; the manuscript is ridden with typos---spell check, anyone?; they staple the pages with industrial-strength staples that take a crowbar to remove; their contents don't remotely match what's in the manuscript; etc, etc.

So there ya have it. There are just two pieces of my job. As I often tell people, publishing is not like accounting---you can't just take a class and now what to do. It is very much a "guild" business is which you learn by doing it. And, most of all, we aren't just in our reading glasses pouring through books all day. Like any successful business, it is mostly administrative work. I'll keep updating with other aspects of what I do---unless y'all are bored to death and scream at me to stop.

And, just to prove I do other things than work... sometimes... I successfully made a vegetarian rustic pie, including the pie crust, from scratch! Hurrah!

Yummy.