The Publishing Process (What little I know!)

Over my last few months of blogging and inquiring about possible topics, one has come up a lot, mostly courtesy of my good friend and fellow author, Packwolf Lupestripe. My experience with the publishing process.

My knowledge of the publishing process is… infinitesimal. A word that seems like it should mean BIG but actually just means small. (Thank you, Thomas Sanders!)

That being said, I am willing to share the small amount of information I know, as I have experience so far as a writer and an editor.

The closest I have been to the publishing process has been my anthology work. I worked under Cedric G. Bacon as a part of Thurston Howl Publications and was able to serve as the main editor for two anthologies. Happy Howlidays and Night of the Howling Dead.

As far as I know, the first step is coming up with an idea. Since I was reporting to Cedric, he was able to authorize and help me workshop the ideas I had. Basically, I came up with the guidelines and set the theme in stone, Cedric updated the THP website, and I (as the Furry Writer’s Guild Market Chee) spread it around.

Both times I wrote out the full anthology call with an introduction, a short summary of what we were possibly looking for and then used a standard set of rules for things we weren’t looking for.

When the anthology’s closing date arrived (plus any extra time needed for requested extensions,) I went through each story, weighing out whether or not it had to do with the theme. This part of the process was possibly the most fun, as I was able to read great stories by wonderful authors.

Then, came a tougher task. I had to pick which ones fit the best and which ones wouldn’t make it. When picking the stories, I had to read through some of them again. Some of the ones rejected were mostly obvious things, like they didn’t fit in with the overall theme or they stuck to the theme, but the story was a different vibe from the others.

Once I had the pools of stories for the anthologies, I sat down to do a deep read so I can edit. I tried to do about two or three rounds of read-throughs where I send any edits or critiques I have to the writers.

Unfortunately, this is where my experience ends. Because after the authors sent me their final touch-ups, the stories all went up to the head-editor (whether it be Cedric or the fine folks over at Fenris who are working on Night of the Howling Dead) for the formatting of the actual book. I assume this also includes the cover and all that other fun stuff.

I hope this was still helpful! Sorry I didn’t have more information. However, I would suggest (if you’re interested in learning more about publishing and the process behind it) looking into self-publishing. I don’t know a lot about that process either, but I know there are a few furry authors who have found success self-publishing.