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Jeff's Life
Archive
Jeff Stimpson, 39, has been a working journalist for 15 years. He lives in New York with his wife Jill and sons Alex, 3, and Edwin, four months. He maintains a site of essays, Jeff's Life, at:
JEFF'S LIFE
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Monthly Column... |
The Pig-Headed Author
by
Jeff Stimpson
Over a family brunch, the subject of the book comes up. Aunt Julie, as anybody in their right mind likes to do, takes a poke at her younger sibling. "Why is Jill's picture in the book?" she asks me. "It's your book!"
"Because I'm Alex's mother," replies Jill, weeks later, "and I happen to be married to the pig-headed author." She may have come up with the lightning bolt of putting Alex's first footprints on the book's cover, but Jill might re-think her position as Author Stimpson's imagist.
She is pissy over the shorthand abbreviation of Pulse Oximeter, which I have apparently mangled in a book-length manuscript to "pulseox." Jill thinks this looks illiterate, and that it needs to be separated into "pulse ox."
I do some research and e-mail her what I think is a warm yet professional note spelling out my case for "pulseox." "I have been unable to track down a concrete spelling of the slang for 'pulse oximeter,'" I write. "Closest I've come is here-" I insert the URL of a site I think handles medical-transcription software. "This site says 'pulseox' as freely as it says 'neb,' among other terms we are all too familiar with. Again, the main point: There is, as of yet, no fixed spelling of the slang of pulse oximeter, nor is the term trademarked, which is often the reason common trade names are capitalized at all. I feel the hyphen is unnecessary, and capitalization an unneeded bow to the corporations that build these devices. 'Pulseox' as it is used in the book is conversational and familiar. I feel the presentation helps convey just how common these machines were in our lives."
"You know that site you sent me?" Jill counters that evening. "It says that that is the accepted spelling of pulse ox after first reference."
My point precisely, I tell her.
She pauses. "I want you to change it to, 'I happen to be married to the authorgraphically-challenged, pig-headed author.'"
Okay, though I can't find a spelling fixed or otherwise for "authographically." This is just part of the fun of proofing nearly 300 pages of your own writing.
The publisher e-mailed me a PDF last week of Alex, which allows me to get a jump on proofing the real galleys that should arrive in the next day or so. Proofreading the book is proving much harder than writing it, though, in the case of Alex, not harder than living it. How in hell did I manage to spell "x-ray" three different ways? Couldn't I make up my mind about "T-shirt?" The whole book has a breathless and shallow tone to it anyway, written by somebody who was in too much of a hurry to impress readers to get the story right and make it as rich as it deserved. Jill says she has "a good feeling" about the book. I guess it will do okay - but not unless I do something about all this botched-up introduction of family members, the clunky definitions of medical terms, and the misused commas.
When I get sick of proofreading, which takes about 15 seconds, I do productive things like Google the title of my book to see where it pops up. So far, it's stalled at about 35 entries, but they do include bookselling sites in Japan, France, Germany, and the U.K. Fuckers on Amazon have it discounted by a third. And don't get me started on free public libraries!
Publishing a book is a beginning, not an end: a beginning of pounding the bricks and keyboard in a way that the stereotype big-time author wouldn't deign to do. Luckily, this does provide me with a lot of things to do to avoid proofreading:
-Made a running "marketing list" of stuff to do, in a Word file Jill dubbed "Publicity for Jeff." Among the notes: "Hospital gift shops"; "Have input on press release"; "What about postcards and bookmarks?"; "Bookstore signings - Call them six to eight weeks in advance." (Note to New Writers: Working on this list is a lot more fun than proofing or writing, or for that matter even reading, your own book.)
- Using a dandy book on marketing books, which Jill steered me toward, I've found a Web site of every daily newspaper in the United States. State by state, I'm clicked to the papers' sites and cut-and-pasted some 300 names of book critics, feature writers, and medical editors from Washington Post to the Anchorage Whatever. I followed this up with about 50 names from weekly newspapers. Publicity is more important than advertising! According to the marketing book, I need a stunt. Something not too dangerous. No heights or spiders.
- I combed my card files and my memory to find anybody who won't throw the book information away, and passed on some 45 names and stuff to the publishers. They don't say it and neither do I, but many of our mutual hopes are pinned on an old family friend of Jill's who writes for The New York Times.
(Note for Publicity List: Go back to this essay and edit out "Anchorage Whatever" should book hit it big in Alaska.)
-I remembered to keep posting on my Web site. I like to think I will continue to dance with the one that brung me.
- I answered scrumptious e-mails: "Wow. The book sounds compelling. We do have a book page. Any chance the publisher can send us a review copy?" "Have your publicist send a press kit to me, and I'll see if I can find someone here to toss it to. I'm sure the books editor, Frank Wilson, is already on their press list. But it couldn't hurt to push it along myself. It might be worthwhile for me to propose it to our medical desk." "That's great!" "We'd be happy to help!"
And today, from the first person I know of to receive the galley (even before I did), a lovely lady from Indiana who was there from Alex's beginnings:
"OH MY GOD! THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU for having the publisher send me an advance copy of the book! I have CHILLS! IT'S BEAUTIFUL. I just this minute opened it, so I've not read a word except for the letters that came with it and the cover. It's stunning and I'm sure the inside is just as good. I LOVE the footprints and I LOVE the design. I'm crying. I am so happy that this book has been born! I will read, I know, from cover to cover tonight. I love you!"
I love you, too. Now help me look up "authorgraphically."
Copyright 2004 Jeff Stimpson, all rights reserved
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