October 26, 2008

Being the sixth in a series of posts about a book proposal, from concept to print.

Since the plan was to not include any projects in Easy Appliqué Blocks, Martingale returned my sample quilt. Now I needed to stitch up those eight blocks independently to complete the stack of 50. I also started working on my writing sample and Table of Contents. They had sent me the set of Author Guidelines, which included information on how the manuscript was to be coded. I actually loved coding the manuscript! It’s a way of indicating what’s a heading, what’s a subheading, what’s a caption, what’s a box, where the photos and illustrations go, etc. Fun! (If you’re a little nerdy like me.)

During this time I sent a couple questions.. The first was, did we name specific products? The answer was no, they preferred not to name specific products or fabrics. Not a problem, just needed to know.

Second, per their author guidelines, did they really want me to send just printouts of all of my patterns and illustrations? Surely they would want me to send them my computer files…??

The answer came back no. Just send printouts, and their illustrators would take it from there. I was puzzled. That was going to be a lot of work for them, and actually I was a little apprehensive that the patterns would lose some little essence of “me” when re-rendered. But, I knew going into this that I would not have control, so I rolled with it.

teddybear.gifBefore my December 7 deadline, I sent in the eight blocks, the writing sample, printouts of the illustrations that corresponded, and the Table of Contents. I also had to send my date of birth for the Library of Congress. ( How exciting! Well, I already have an authority record actually, but it’s pretty cool to think about.) Plus a copy of my schedule. I pulled together all of the show dates for the next year when I would be busy with my booth, plus one measly vacation (that never happened) and Shop Hop, etc. I thought it mighty considerate of the company to ask for my schedule so that they could work around it.

The next step would be to receive feedback from Karen about the sample chapter and my coding skills. Stay tuned!

Kay
Quilt Puppy Publications & Designs

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