Publishing Process & Credits
February 4, 2005. I rejuvenate my blog, Brooklyn Arden, at chavelaque.blogspot.com. At first it’s written strictly for my own interest and pleasure, but as writers begin to discover it, I begin to offer more commentary on writing, publishing, my books, and the editorial process.
October 22, 2005. I launch my website by putting up a couple of talks. In the next month, I register for www.cherylklein.com and add more talks. By 2008, people begin to ask when I’ll publish a book on writing.
May 2009. At a summer picnic in Prospect Park, I chat with an artist named Matt, who tells me about a new website called Kickstarter.com that he and some friends used to raise money for the printing of an artists’ book via Blurb.com. This inspires me to think about self-publishing my own compilation of blog posts and talks.
July 1, 2009. This post on my blog goes live, explaining the project (then called Leaf and Tree) and requesting donations to my Kickstarter page for it. My goal is to raise $2000 by September 1 to cover the printing of 500 copies of the book.
July 9, 2009. Thanks to the community and goodwill I’ve built up over four years of blogging and the website, my project is fully funded in just nine days.
September 1, 2009. Fundraising closes with a grand total of $3,261 from 89 backers — much more than I ever anticipated, and for which I’m very grateful.
September 2009-July 2010. I assemble the various pieces of the book and revise each talk so it reads properly as prose, not speech form. I also begin to research printers and book fulfillment houses, basically by Googling “book printers” and “fulfillment.”
July 14, 2010. As I begin to see a light at the end of the tunnel in terms of text revisions, I start to work on the back-cover copy, which proves much more difficult to write than practically all of the interior. Thus I sponsor a flap-copy-writing contest here, won by the fine ladies listed here.
July 26, 2010. The book text goes to my designer, Whitney Lyle, then freelancing at Scholastic. The first designed pass comes in at nearly 400 pages, so I quickly cut some talks and essays to get it down to a more affordable 320. (Literally paying for every page of your book is a great way to make yourself ruthless with your own writing.)
August 2010-January 2011. Whitney and I go through three revision and proofing stages on the interior text and begin working on the cover. By this time, I’ve decided to change the title to Second Sight, and at first I insist that I want to use this image for the cover. This idea proves unworkable from a design perspective, so I toss out four more concepts in a blog post here. Eventually Whitney and I begin developing the stacked-books image that appears on the final jacket. My friends Jill Santopolo and Rachel Griffiths, brilliant editors both, help me polish the copy. I settle on a printer and fulfillment house.
February 5, 2011. Six years and a day after I launched my blog, the files for the book go to the printer. I unveil the cover on my blog and Facebook.
March 11, 2011. Lord willing and the creek don’t rise, Second Sight will be available for delivery.
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Second Sight: An Editor’s Talks on Writing, Revising, and Publishing Books for Children and Young Adults
Author, Editor, & Managing Editor: Cheryl B. Klein
Additional Proofreading: Grace Kendall
Designer: Whitney Lyle
Printer: McNaughton & Gunn
Fulfillment: Mybookorders.com
Sponsors: The good backers of the Kickstarter project, and Philip Sadler and Becky Klein