What All the Hype’s About

So, what are the rest of us up to while the book is being proofed? Marketing tasks of all sorts! (It’s becoming a theme around here.) Abbey and I met with Sean last week to talk through some of the plans we have for the book’s launch. Sean is in the process of putting together a book tour: he will drive from Oregon to Wisconsin—where he already has a couple of readings lined up—stopping at various venues along the way to share his story. Since Sean is so well-connected, he’s been able to take care of planning most of the details regarding these readings.

Meanwhile, those of us at Ooligan who are handling all things WBW-related are working to support him by doing some research and outreach. We are making lists of bookstores in the cities he plans to read in, as well as compiling a list of media outlets (such as newspapers, radio and news stations) he will be near during his travels. Once this research is done, we will contact bookstores to encourage them to stock a few copies of Sean’s book and send pitches or event announcements to local media sources in order to spread the word about his readings.

The marketing work we are doing now—sending galleys to reviewers, helping Sean with his tour, media outreach, and so on—is all about building momentum toward the book’s official publication. Sometimes the individual tasks seem small (“What effect can reaching out to this one bookstore have?” someone might ask), but each of these efforts are an important part of establishing familiarity and excitement about the book.

Until next week,
Laurel

The Proof is in the Pages

Last week’s post was titled “On the Verge of Great Things.” This week finds us still there, teetering on the edge.

The process of proofing the book has now begun in earnest. Sarah, our Editorial Lead, divvied up the manuscript into three parts, and each section will be edited by a different person. Time is now of the essence; we have just about a week to accomplish this task, so splitting up the work will help us get it done efficiently. Doing it this way also offers another important benefit: it allows each of the editors to focus on the minutiae of the task at hand. Proofing is the very last editorial task before publication, our last opportunity to catch any typos or misplaced bits of punctuation that may have been overlooked at other stages of editing. It also allows them to catch any problems that might have occurred throughout the typecoding and design stages (though of course the goal is always to keep the manuscript error-free).

Those of us who have been working on this book for months are intimately familiar with the ebb and flow of the story. And this is a good thing: this familiarity allows us to speak about it more articulately, to see the book’s incredible potential with more clarity, and to have a better sense of what needs to be done in terms of the big picture to bring the book through to publication. In publishing, there are very few downsides to knowing a text so well. But if one is to be found, it’s that it can make you blind to some of the small details, especially the kind that need to be found during proofing. None of the editors working on the proofing are on the Wax Bullet War project team; though they may be familiar with it, they have a bit more distance from the text so that errors should jump off the page.

While our proofers are doing their thing, the rest of us on the WBW project team are still hard at work too—but you’ll have to come back next week to find out what we’re up to.

Until then,
Laurel

On the Verge of Great Things

In the last seven days, the stack of Wax Bullet War galleys we have sitting in the office went from one hundred to just about half of that. On Monday, we packaged up and mailed copies to each of the reps at Ingram. I have also started fielding requests from booksellers (at Big Name places) who are interested in Sean’s book. It’s encouraging to receive these emails, not only because it’s exciting to see other people get behind a book that I really care about, but also because it confirms that the sales kits we put together months ago are making the rounds and doing their job of building interest in the book.

Paul, who is designing the book’s interior, is wrapping up the design process. Sarah, our fearless Editing Lead, has assembled her team of proofreaders, who are waiting in the wings. Once the design is complete they will go through and do this very last stage of editing.

Meanwhile, Sean is starting to make plans for what is shaping up to be a pretty amazing book tour. He is very well connected in pretty much every sphere that matters with a book like this: military and veterans' communities, educators, artists, writers, and the local literary community. He wrote about some of these plans on his blog. While you’re there, check out the rest of Sean’s blog and website, and be sure to check back right here for another update next week.

Until then,

Laurel

The Book in Physical Form

This Monday morning, all of us at Ooligan Press met for our first executive meeting of the new year. Just before heading our separate ways for the holidays, we had put in an order for print galleys of The Wax Bullet War. They arrived just in time for our meeting, and despite the start of term hubbub and an ill-timed fire alarm, The Wax Bullet War galley really stole the show. We saw the book in print a couple months back when we ordered special one-off galleys from a local printer, but these galleys are on a whole different level. They are a much closer approximation to what the finished product will be like, and they look and feel amazing.

Although we are only seven days into the new year, we are already staring down a long to-do list. We ordered one hundred print galleys (more than we usually order in advance copies) because so many people are already asking about the book, even this many months before publication. Our first order of business will be sending these advance copies to sales reps, reviewers, and other media outlets. Meanwhile, having the galleys finished means that we can forge ahead with finalizing the interior layout for the finished book, as well as begin the e-book creation process.

We have about twelve weeks until our official publication date, and they are sure to be busy ones. Between now and then, we have to finish the print and e-book designs, proof read the final documents, continue with all of our marketing efforts, and plan launch events and readings. While the publishing process might seem linear, there are always a lot of pieces in motion at any given time: design, editing, and marketing are all working simultaneously—sometimes independently, and collaboratively at other times. Such is the life of a book.

Until next week,
Laurel

A New Year Brings Good Tidings for The Wax Bullet War

Happy New Year’s Eve, everyone!

Things have been quiet the past couple of weeks as we’ve all headed separate directions for the holidays. I do have some exciting news to share, though. In my last update, I mentioned that we received some great feedback from our reps at Ingram after their big sales conference. Well, the good news keeps on coming! We recently found out that The Wax Bullet War was chosen by the reps as a “reps pick” to be featured at the American Booksellers Association’s Winter Institute.

Winter Institute is an annual conference held in January, and it’s a great opportunity for independent booksellers from across the country to come and learn more about bookselling and exciting upcoming titles. At the conference, Sean’s book will be presented to hundreds of booksellers, which means we’ll get some pretty amazing publicity. All of us at Ooligan are really excited about the release of The Wax Bullet War, and we’re hoping that this opportunity will give Sean’s story an even greater chance of landing in the hands of the people who need it most.

I hope that everyone has been enjoying this holiday season!

Until next year,
Laurel

Of National Interest

As a student-run press, the ebb and flow of work at Ooligan is never free from the influence of the academic calendar. As the term is winding down, tying up loose ends on the projects we’ve been working on on over past few weeks has been top priority. Of course, there will still be some things that will demand our attention over the holidays, but we are trying our best to set ourselves up for success come January. So, in short, that means that there aren’t any major updates.

Aside from our normal work, though, there are still a couple of news items to share:

Last Monday, Sean stopped by our Wax Bullet War team meeting. He told us about some of the exciting things he’s working on: art shows, an opera, teaching classes, and lining up readings around the country. He told us some stories, and we talked shop, too, trading ideas about ways to share his story leading up to the book’s release and after publication.

At the end of October, I wrote that we were assembling and mailing sales kits to all of our reps at Ingram (our distributor) prior to their spring sales conference. In mid-November, they had their conference, which is when the reps present new titles to the rest of the sales team. Last week, we received great feedback: while a lot of Ooligan’s titles have primarily regional interest, Sean’s book was pitched as one with national potential, and everyone is getting really excited about this book.

Until next time,
Laurel

Quiet Weeks Are Not Idle Weeks

The last handful of weeks have been full of big news: we completed the last major round of manuscript editing, Sean’s story slowly started to make its way into the world via reviewers, sales kits were sent out, and the first galley was printed. This week, on the other hand, has been relatively quiet. But if one thing is true of publishing, it’s that even the quiet weeks are full of activity.

Most of what we’ve been working on consists of the same projects we’ve had going on for a few weeks. We are wrapping up the typecoding and are still diligently working away at the interior design, most notably. We are also putting together a list of review media contacts so that we can send out galleys as soon as they’ve been printed. We’re continuing to contact people who we hope will write blurbs for the book. And, last but not least, we are are starting to research bloggers to contact to see if they would be interested in having Sean write a guest post as part of a blog tour.

As you can see, a quiet week isn’t an idle week!

Until next time,
Laurel

An Appropriately Timed Milestone

One of the most exciting moments in the life of any book is the first time it exists as a printed, bound book. Suddenly, ideas that have existed in the author’s mind, on computers, and as part of the publisher’s production plans are tangible; they have a weight and physical presence. This week, I ordered the first print galley of The Wax Bullet War. I only got to hold on to it for a matter of minutes (this was a special one-off that we’re sending to a major reviewer), but they were an exciting few minutes. It seemed only appropriate that this milestone occurred on the same weekend as Veterans Day. 

Proof! It exists as a book!

In honor of the holiday, I’m going to hit pause on the weekly updates. Instead, I’d like to direct your attention to a couple of pieces Sean completed for Veterans Day this year. First, read this great piece he wrote for Nailed Magazine, “American Drug: To Serve and to Serve.” He also recorded an interview for Story Corps (you can learn more about Story Corps here). It’s 30 minutes long, but it’s worth your while to listen to the whole thing.

Until next week,
Laurel

Adding the Technical and Personal Touches

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

Sales Kit Mania

We’re in the throes of a big project this week, so I’m going to keep this post to the point. As I mentioned last week, the time has come to send out sales kits. A month ago, I only had a vague sense of what that meant, but I’ve been enlightened now (in a “trial-by-fire” sort of way).

These kits are sent to the sales reps at Ingram (our distributor) and contain all of the documents they need to help promote and sell our title to booksellers, including the tipsheet, marketing plan, and a short info sheet on Ooligan Press. Since we are eager to start sharing Sean’s story, we are also including a chapbook with three sample chapters plucked from one of the meatiest parts of the story. 

One of the fun aspects of planning for sales kits is getting to play around with presentation. Ultimately, the goal is to start turning reps and book buyers into Wax Bullet War enthusiasts, so we want the whole package to work together toward that goal. After a bit of brainstorming, my team and I decided to give these industry documents a bit of military flair: we’re packaging everything up in manilla folders dressed up to look like military personnel files.

This all sounds easy in theory, until you start adding everything up: sixty sales kits means sixty tip sheets, sixty marketing plans, sixty chapbooks . . . Needless to say, the printing alone took a fair bit of time. Then there’s assembling all of these items to worry about. Of course, there was some front end design work done on the chapbooks and the folders, too.

We’re about half way through the process now. Fortunately, it has been a team effort and we’re on target to drop the finished kits in the mail before the week is through. And, lucky us, this week is ushering in the end of daylight savings time. (When I announced that in our workroom yesterday there were several cheers from the tired masses. Don’t forget to set your clocks back and enjoy that extra hour!)

Until next week,
Laurel