I have written a book ,wooden boatbuilding and design

[peter radclyffe]

is anyone here an editor, typesetter or proof reader, thank you

[Dick Wynne]

I could be interested or at least helpful Peter, you can reach me directly through the contact page at lodestarbooks.com

[Ian McColgin]

And now the real work begins. It took me years to get over being defensive and fancying that every word was inked with blood. And some writers . . . I recall learning what being Tristan Jones' editor towards the end was like.

Some editors are great at spotting problems but not especially directive at how to solve them. Personally, I find that sort both more demanding and more rewarding. I dislike the sort who try to tell the author what to write. Fortunately, most who edit that way are not actually editors. They are usually people further up the food chain who feel they have to show that they did something.

When I have worked as an editor, I was generally of the raise problems sort but now and then the editor must work in another way. Twice - once for a crime novel and once for a musical about Johnny Appleseed, neither of which actually made it to publication - where my job in editing was to get rid of stuff. Each needed to lose over half the sheer volume the authors had produced.

It was a fascinating process because all the stuff was of merit. There is such a thing as the very long detective story, but not of Tolstoyan length. However, for the market that book was aimed at, a paperback of 350 pages would have been the cap. That was before word processors so I was working from triple spaced typed pages, boxes and boxes of typed pages and just the physical sorting was a challenge.

The musical was in some ways worse as the author was a lover's father and every time I got rid of some strangely musical digression into Sweedenborgian insights into apples and the spirit of capitalism, it got replace with something longer.

Fortunately, your topic should lend itself to more manageable length and clarity. The main problem will be correctly identifying your target readership and actually writing for them.

G'luck

[lupussonic]

Typesetter?

[johnw]

I'm afraid there are no typesetters anymore, unless you're the sort of anachonist who wants his book printed monotype. It's all electronics. I haven't been an editor in about 25 years, and that was in newspapers and magazines. One of my customers was a book editor, if she stops in I'll try and put you in touch.

[Paul Pless]

Where's Donn when you really need him?

and then the murders began. . .

Of course you could always call or email Scott Bell; besides being our most erudite and accommodating forum admin, his official title is Book Publisher at WoodenBoat Books.

[CWSmith]

I'm not familiar with the process, but there are people self-publishing and selling on Amazon. They arrange with a printing house to print copies on demand. I'd still recommend a professional copy editor, but I suspect the author remains the boss.

[Larks]

Not something that I can help with Peter, but I’m very pleased to hear that you have written a book on the subject that you know so well. I look forward to seeing it published and wish you all the very best in going through the process and success with the outcome.

[RFNK]

Not an editor or typesetter but I'd be happy to help with proofreading and a, sort of, layman's perspective.

Rick

[brucemoffatt]

FWIW I've self published one book, so I sort of know the process. If I can help I'd be happy to do that. Proofreader, possibly low level editor skills. Happy to share info about publish on demand if you're interested in going that route.

My book is Drift, written as Frankk Fatt, published by Createspace which is now owned by Amazon. Published as a Kindle book by Amazon.

Sent from my super secure secret squirrel device

[SchoonerRat]

I'm afraid there are no typesetters anymore, unless you're the sort of anachonist who wants his book printed monotype. It's all electronics. I haven't been an editor in about 25 years, and that was in newspapers and magazines. One of my customers was a book editor, if she stops in I'll try and put you in touch.

While nobody actually sets type anymore, it's still called typesetting. I started working for a commercial printer at the dawn of the "electronic age". When I started, there were still people called typesetters, who did their work on computers. Eventually, the work of typesetting was taken over by people with titles like, graphic artist, graphic designer and pre-press technician.

Typesetters are gone, buy type setting is not.

[peter radclyffe]

thanks Dick

[peter radclyffe]

you are all most helpful, thank you

[peter radclyffe]

I could be interested or at least helpful Peter, you can reach me directly through the contact page at lodestarbooks.com

I waited months to ask Julia Jones to help me write it, and when I did finally ask her she said she was too busy, what a drag, but that was the trigger , so I wrote 1,000 words a day at breaktimes for 8 weeks, and now I am editing it, 50 years on wooden boats

[johnw]

While nobody actually sets type anymore, it's still called typesetting. I started working for a commercial printer at the dawn of the "electronic age". When I started, there were still people called typesetters, who did their work on computers. Eventually, the work of typesetting was taken over by people with titles like, graphic artist, graphic designer and pre-press technician.

Typesetters are gone, buy type setting is not.

The typesetters I worked with were setting type on computers, printing out galleys, and the graphic artists were pasting up the galleys. They had to know about specialized typesetting equipment for photolithography. The typesetting equipment used film for the typefaces and printed the the galleys out on what amounted to photographic paper. That was about 25 years ago, and my publisher wasn't exactly on the cutting edge. More like the trailing edge.

Now, it's all computers, and it prints out without the intervention of typesetters. Graphic artists can deal with the stuff without anyone setting type or printing galleys, just drop it into the layout on the computer. That was starting when I left the business. It's interesting that they still call it setting type, even though there are no typesetters.

[Ian McColgin]

Back to your book.

Will it be a design and engineering sort of book examining how the material affects shapes in, for example, the evolutions of peapods versus dories?

Will it be examining issues such as shapes for hull efficiency through water versus shapes for time and material efficiency in construction?

Will it be for the builder or designer or user and at what level? What will it tell us that Bud McIntosh and many others did not cover? Or that needs covering again from a fresh point of view?

Will it have a distinct point of view, like LFH's books, or might it be a guide to many different ways of thinking, like Dave Gerr's work, or might it go off in some sort of Bolgeresque pragmatism?

I write these questions as if they were open, as if the book did not exist, because as you get to working with an editor you may find that you were not sure for whom the book's best, you may find that having a clear audience in mind helps with editorial decisions - especially if some point can be either simplified or demands a real technical plunge.

In any event, knowing your intention will help your editor.

[SchoonerRat]

The typesetters I worked with were setting type on computers, printing out galleys, and the graphic artists were pasting up the galleys. They had to know about specialized typesetting equipment for photolithography. The typesetting equipment used film for the typefaces and printed the the galleys out on what amounted to photographic paper. That was about 25 years ago, and my publisher wasn't exactly on the cutting edge. More like the trailing edge.

Now, it's all computers, and it prints out without the intervention of typesetters. Graphic artists can deal with the stuff without anyone setting type or printing galleys, just drop it into the layout on the computer. That was starting when I left the business. It's interesting that they still call it setting type, even though there are no typesetters.

On the other hand, stripper and stripping are both terms that have left the publishing vernacular. When I started in printing, we had 3 shifts of strippers. I can remember a dozen strippers working graveyard shift. Within a handful of years, we had a woman working as a CSR who used to be a stripper. She took up the cause when needed.

[MN Dave]

Where's Donn when you really need him?

and then the murders began. . .

Of course you could always call or email Scott Bell; besides being our most erudite and accommodating forum admin, his official title is Book Publisher at WoodenBoat Books.

+1 I talked to Scott once about getting a book edited and published. (He was selling it at the Wooden Boat Show.)

[peter radclyffe]

its unlikely WB will publish it, years ago I sent Wooden Boat an article about framing a 450 ton new wooden ship the Jeanie Johnston which we built in Ireland, they returned it, they were not interested in it, they only wanted my article about Lulworth.

[peter radclyffe]

you couldn't make it up, lol

[Lugalong]

On the other hand, stripper and stripping are both terms that have left the publishing vernacular. When I started in printing, we had 3 shifts of strippers. I can remember a dozen strippers working graveyard shift. Within a handful of years, we had a woman working as a CSR who used to be a stripper. She took up the cause when needed.

This all reminds me of the trade, when as an apprentice we still had to go through being "inked up" (which involved being stood in shoeboxes full of black printing ink, and then being coated in the same ink from head to toe,after which we were decorated with tufts of cotton wool and sprinkled with metal filings off the letterpress compositors floor, before being wheeled through the town on a trolley.

At that time, metal letters were placed and space by hand, the job being described as that of a compositor.
Then, when comping was replaced by the stripping process, typesetters came in by printing text on paper or maybe film.
desktop page makeup got rid of all those tasks, along with the multiple opportunities to spot mistakes. So now it is possible to quickly and easily print poorly edited material, as some will probably have noticed when reading what I have posted here.

[Todd Bradshaw]

Once you hand your manuscript in, it ceases to be yours and you lose control over it.

That certainly was not my experience. My book was edited by Peter Spectre and published by WB. The first thing Peter told me was that I needed to look out for my own interests, because the publisher would be busy looking out for their own. There was no way in hell that I was going to lose control over the project, and I never did. There were many occasions where I butted heads with various copy editors, layout people and administrators (but really never with Peter) to the point where I was threatening to pull the plug on the whole project. I'm sure that I was not popular, and was considered a royal pain in the ass at WB, but I wasn't entering a popularity contest. Copy editors are great for folks like me who spell poorly and have "creative" punctuation, but they sometimes go overboard, mostly because they don't know the subject matter well enough to be changing wording or making wholesale changes. Sometimes a word or two here and there can dramatically change the meaning (as well as make you, the author, look like an idiot). If you don't keep a very close eye on these things and stand your ground to either leave it alone or work out a better solution, nobody will, and the quality of your product will suffer.

I wrote the text and did nearly 200 illustrations for my book in about six months. It took more than two tedious and sometimes frustrating years to finally get it on the market. In the end though, I can say that there is absolutely nothing in there that I'm not happy with. Had I yielded control over the project, the result would have been filled with "if onlys". In my book, that's not good enough - literally!

[Peerie Maa]

Once you hand your manuscript in, it ceases to be yours and you lose control over it.

Not my experience either. But then I had completed the text to a level that no editing seemed to be necessary. All the publisher had to do was decide where the illustrations should appear and ensure that the page numbers in the index referred to the actual page in the volume.

[Breakaway]

Words and grammar and clarity are just the tip of the editing iceberg. Another aspect is organizing the information. Another aspect is formatting the book--between technical journal and coffee table, there are myriad ways of melding words and art ( images, drawings, charts, etc.). I am a magazine editor, and have also authored two books, but I count a book editor ( and author of several successful maritime titles) as one of my friends. He is retired now, but does still work on select projects. I will ask him if he is interested, if you like, Peter, but know that it would be proposed as a for-profit collaboration.

Kevin

[Robbie 2]

I have written two fictional stories in Play format, not intended to be novels.
I really would like them to be rewritten in screenplay format by someone who knows how and what to do to achieve this.
The ultimate for me would be for them to be taken up and made into a film.
Both are still here on my computer and I really don't know even who to ask/see to get any progress.

[Lugalong]

Words and grammar and clarity are just the tip of the editing iceberg. Another aspect is organizing the information. Another aspect is formatting the book--between technical journal and coffee table, there are myriad ways of melding words and art ( images, drawings, charts, etc.). I am a magazine editor, and have also authored two books, but I count a book editor ( and author of several successful maritime titles) as one of my friends. He is retired now, but does still work on select projects. I will ask him if he is interested, if you like, Peter, but know that it would be proposed as a for-profit collaboration.

Kevin

Having worked in printing through it’s stages from hot metal through stripping and photomechanics, including the graphic art side of things, up to the point where pre-press proofing of books were produced for approval, then left the industry when computers kicked in, the suggestion by breakawayKevin, prompts the following –
When working under costs imposed by traditional printing, it of course pays to employ experienced people.

When a compositor (in moveable metal blocks( has learned how to lay out pages with copy and graphic images, the choices made on font selection, spacing, type ranging, format and collation, are worth paying for when traditional printing costs are taken into account.
Likewise, when material is to be processed through photo make up on film and then burned or etched onto metal plate before run on the press.
But with desktop copying publishing, it is both feasible and affordable for anyone who thinks he can do so, to create his/her own publication.

I have a friend who printed a short run of his own books on his dining room table with the aid of a laptop and a printer.

Again, it could be worth the cost to have a professional or ex professional being paid to edit such an effort, if it were to be mass produced in full colour on glossy paper.
Although, steps in this direction are best taken by first of all cobbling up some sort of first proof using the laptop and a home printer.

[skaraborgcraft]

Take out every extraneous word and phrase. Say what you need to say in the simplest terms. Get rid of cliches, flourishes, and flaccid pablum, no matter how cute you think the phrase might be. The reader doesn't care about your ability as a wordsmith, they just want the gist of the sentence. Don't be redundant, say it once and be done.

My first 3000 word article that got published had only two words changed , Seagull outboard got replaced by Iron topsail; an unnecessary change i thought, but i guess the copy editor needed to prove his worth. Apparently it was my simple, to the point explanations and writing style that got further work published.

[peter radclyffe]

no thanks Breakaway

[peter radclyffe]

I had been workingunder the arches at Kew Bridge building loudspeaker cabinets for rock bands. I made the routing jigs too for all the guys to use andwe made the cabinets of birch and gaboon plywood. I layed theconcrete floor in the workshop, I had learnt to do this makingswimming pools in Norfolk.


When I got involvedwith a lovely Frenchwoman I wanted to stay with her, so I thought Ibetter get a long term job. I'd heard about the Brentford yard so Iwent along to ask for a job as a labourer. It didn't occur to me tobe a shipwright or yacht joiner; when I asked the boss for a job hejokingly said to me you can replace our shipwright, a south coasttrained guy who had just left. I thought he was joking but six monthslater I was a shipwright. The boss said I'd become aboat builder overnight and a year later I was the shipwright foreman.
Ihad studied hundreds of boats andlived on them most of my life so I knew how they went together. I'dstudied every book I could find: I knew how to rig them and when Istarted work at that yard in Brentford it all came together. I found something I was very good at and it became mycareer. What a surprise, I worked with my girlfriend.
Brentford is where Ilearned the main shipwright techniques. I made spile boards,patterns, jigs, planks ,frames ,floorboards ,panels, roofs, decks,shearing, bulkheads ,linings. The boats were usually elm orsteel bottoms 3" x 7' x 6” to 30” wide bottom planks,fastened across the boat to steel or wrought iron knees which werealso fastened to the first strake, the chine. The first strake wasslightly angled. The rest of the oak side hull planks were slabsided until the top strake, which was angled in. The forwardand aft planks were mostly steamed in a steambox that was.fed by afire made of old planks and anything else, sometimes started withparaffin. These oak planks were very difficult to steam into place asthere was any amount of junk either side of every boat or on thedockside over the water. Tanks, boards, panels, plywood, cupboards taken out of the boat to get to the hulls to repair them,fridges, cookers, a car or van, trolleys, baskets, oil drums, watercontainers. You could barely find a way through the yardsometimes. Bicycles and motorbikes, stacks of oak, elm, pine,mahogany. If you can steam 2 inch thick by 10 inch wideoak 25 foot long planks round the bow of a narrowboat you canprobably steam them around most boats because the bows of narrowboatshave sharp shoulders. And the smell of fresh steamed oak soaked inlinseed oil in the sunshine is great along with tobacco ,red lead andcreosote. It smells great though dangerous.
We replaced cratchbeams, foredecks, stern decks, cabins, beams, gunnel caps, andcounter blocks. The whole world of narrowboats is very particular. Apart from us repairing them there didn't seem to be manypeople who repaired them on the canals in southern England. The otheryards mostly did interior work.


Someof these narrowboat owners go to oddlengthstobuy replica tollgate tickets from 100 years ago. Some of themdress up like people from 100 years ago. One guy walkedinto the yard and asked if we had a narrowboat. He had bought an oldclappedout engine , maybe 60years old a Bolinder, the holy grail for these boat owners. With afaraway look in his eye andhis hand on his wallet we could tell he was serious.

[Jay Greer]

You might do well to chat with Lynn Pardey. She has published all of their books.
Jay

[peter radclyffe]

its published now

[DGentry]

- Congrats!! Where can we find it?

[David G]

See my reply to your Facebook message.

[RFNK]

Great Peter! Where can we get it?

Rick

[peter radclyffe]

on amazon, thank you