As I mentioned in my last post, I was up to my eyeballs in sales kits last week. While I was working away on those (with an assist from a couple of the Wax Bullet War team members), the rest of the team was divvied up between two other projects.

The first was working on all of our blurb request letters. For this task, we start out with a general sense of what our pitch or “ask” will be. From there, we need to personalize each letter so that we can address why we’re writing to each of the individuals on our list. For Sean’s book, we are requesting blurbs from writers of other war memoirs, academics, PTSD experts, artists and art therapists, documentary filmmakers, key players in veteran-focused non-profit organizations, and military experts. It’s certainly a diverse list, but we think that each of these people will be able to speak to the importance and relevance of Sean’s story.

The second major task for the week was typecoding the entire manuscript. I mentioned before that we’re through the editing process, and that’s true—sort of. Typecoding is technically an editorial task, and it’s done right before the book goes to the interior designer. It involves marking up the manuscript with tags that call out every stylized element: italics, chapter headings, captions, and so on. It’s technical (and sometimes a bit tedious), but it’s an important step we take in order to ensure that everything is styled and designed the way it should be. Working with a typecoded manuscript can be a chore for the designer, too, but ultimately typecoding is meant to make the designer’s job easier. Marco, one of our experienced editors, has been heading up the typecoding efforts and coaching a small, dedicated group through the process.

While sales kits are finished and typecoding will be completed this week, blurb requests (and, indeed, all of our marketing efforts) will be ongoing for the foreseeable future, as will the design process. Stay tuned for another update next week.

- Laurel Boruck