It started over two years ago. Towards the end of the school year Dr. Terry asked me if I was interested in helping him revise the book we had used in class. I jumped at the chance. I laugh now at taking the book on my trip to Taiwan and Thailand in order to get a jumpstart on editing because I had no clue how long it would take and what was required. Here is a short summary of the process:
- Preliminary work: Revision Plan Prospectus, Marketing Questionnaire, Author Bio
* As it turns out, for academic writing my bio is painfully short
- First round revisions: Editing old content, revising content, adding new content, reorganizing content, redrawing graphics, reworking old example problems
* The book concludes in a history matching problem that used to require coding in Fortran of all things. My job was to turn in into excel, a format that any student could use. I was able to start with work I had done while a student. It really took be about 20 hours for this 'final project'. As I started working on it, I realized that while I had gotten full credit on the final for my work... that it wasn't correct. I spent another 15 hours on it after that to work out the 5 errors that it still had it in.
- Cover Design: This was actually the most fun. I combed a lot of pictures and book covers to end up with what we finally had. The problem is that its really hard to take a picture of an assortment of rocks thousands of feet underground. And if you succeed, no one wants to look at it anyway.
- Technical Review: We had two technical reviews go over the book and point out errors, comments etc. This took nearly a 9 months.
- Final Edits: We compiled all of the edits from the technical review, and ran through it again and again checking final details, tweaking language etc.
- Review Process: We reviewed all of the revised figures first, then the text after it was transferred to a format suitable for printing. We review page proofs a first and a second time before we let it out the door.
It was a long process that has spanned over two years of work on nights and weekends. The worst was telling JaLeen over and over again, 'I have to work on the book tonight'. I was relieved to finally get the following e-mail:
Today I completed my review of the revised proofs. Everything looks good. Elizabeth will send the final files to the printer this week as scheduled. Congratulations in advance on the publication of your book. We hope to have the opportunity to work with you again.
Thanks and best regards,
John Fuller
Managing Editor
Pearson Technology Group
JaLeen said we had to celebrate. So we went boating at Lake Conroe yesterday. I tried the kneeboard. I am still sore in my abs, forearms and biceps but at least I can walk. JaLeen and Kelsey did the tube and didn't fare as well - walking is a challenge.
