Every book has passed through several hands and sets of eyes, sometimes across multiple agencies or publishing houses, before ending up on shelves. The publishing process can be complicated, but the editors at the University of Iowa Press are working to help writers navigate its constant unpredictability.
“My book rose out of the MFA program I did in Creative Writing,” UI visiting assistant professor Thomas Mira y Lopez said. “I went for creative nonfiction, which was a relatively new, undiscovered genre for me.”
His book, “The Book of Resting Places,” is an essay collection that explores grief processing and literal and metaphorical resting places. Throughout the entire book, he also threads together a personal narrative.
After completing the book for his thesis project at the University of Arizona, Mira y Lopez eventually signed with an agent and published through Counterpoint Press in 2017.
One of the first decisions authors make is which publishing house to submit their proposal to, if they decide to go the route of traditional publishing at all. In the modern publishing landscape, many authors may choose to self-publish, hybrid publish, or find some other way to get their writing out into the world
Every form of publishing has its strengths and weaknesses, as does every publishing house.
The University of Iowa Press, the only university press in the state, publishes scholarly research as well as “trade” fiction – pieces written for a more general audience – and poetry.
Many authors who submit to the press do so by submitting a proposal in accordance with the submission guidelines posted on the press’ website.
“We consider [submissions], but we also receive many proposals and manuscripts through literary agents. Then we work with them until the point of contract, and then we work with the author,” Meredith Wadkins-Stabel, acquisitions editor for the UI Press, said.
She and the press team also scan through newspapers, journals, and popular media searching for people doing exciting work that aligns with what they are currently publishing.
“For works of scholarship, we’re looking to see if the subject matter fits our area of expertise,” Wadkins-Stabel said. “We look for whether that scholarship is contributing something new to the field and if we think it will pass peer review. For trade books, we’re looking for really amazing writing styles. Is it an engaging voice, and is it a story people will connect with?”
Wadkins-Stabel said the press’ expertise includes specialities within the humanities, such as theater, literary criticism, and regional topics.
Wadkins-Stabel is one of the earliest people at the press to get her hands on a new manuscript. Once she reviews a new acquisition, the next steps depend on whether the book is a scholarly or trade work.
If scholarly, the writing is sent out to two peer reviewers. If trade, either the in-house acquisitions editor will do developmental edits on it, or it will be sent to outside readers for their expertise.
Wadkins-Stabel said one of the most difficult aspects of the publishing process for authors is revision. It can be particularly challenging for a piece of work that writers have poured a lot of their life and passion into.
“Sometimes it’s hard for authors to let go,” Wadkins-Stabel said. “Sometimes they just want it to be done. They’ve been writing it and moving things around for years, and sometimes it never feels like the finishing touches are quite finished.”
Wadkins-Stabel tries to understand and respect the author’s wishes for their work while also considering what the best possible book would be for the outside world.
“We work with the author to make sure the nuts and bolts are tied up, like citations and permissions, before passing the manuscript over to the managing editor,” Wadkins-Stabel said.
At this point, the managing editor will double-check copyright permissions and identify any outstanding items to address.
“For every point in the process, a manuscript is scrutinized over and over again, just with a different set of intentions,” Susan Hill Newton, the UI Press’ managing editor, said.
If she wants to move certain passages around or change something within the structure, Hill Newton checks in with the acquisitions editor again to gain approval. In some cases, she even reaches back out to the author to clarify her questions.
For Mira y Lopez, the concept of his book at its core remained similar throughout the editing process.
“When I first started the book, I was more interested in taking the title literally, and having it be a tour of different cemeteries,” Mira y Lopez said. “As I went on, I took the phrase a lot more loosely.”
At the end of his MFA program, Mira y Lopez had developed a manuscript close to the version he eventually published. While he said the book did not undergo major structural changes, edits included altered titles and rewrites.
Along with his personal work as an author, Mira y Lopez is a fiction editor at DIAGRAM and also works as a translator and strives to strike a balance between translating another author’s work faithfully and making it flow in the language he is translating into.
Once presses hear about authors they like, they’ll commission a reader’s report, Mira y Lopez said. In a report, translators read the book in its original language and then write a report of whether or not it would work as a book in translation.
Mira y Lopez provided a piece of advice for anyone who wants to work in publishing or become an author, is to read “widely and weirdly” and to develop a good taste for good work.
“Be open to liking things you might not like right now,” Mira y Lopez said.
To Hill Newton, establishing trust with an author during the editing process can be one of the most worthwhile aspects of publishing.
“If they’re repeat authors, they’re most likely used to being edited, but new authors can be really resistant,” she said. “I think it’s coming from a place of fear, or lack of confidence.”
Sometimes, writers feel as though changes to their work mean they have done something wrong or that their work is not sufficient. Editors realize this stress but recognize the benefits of an extra set of eyes on work.
“As a publishing house, we’re investing tons of money into you and your project, we’re doing everything possible to make it the best book it can be, and we wouldn’t have signed it if we weren’t willing to do all that,” Hill Newton said. “We already believe in it to some degree.”
Once any lingering structural threads are ironed out, Hill Newton reviews the manuscript for its content, addressing anything that appears to be of specific concern.
In nonfiction, concerns typically arise with the back matter and the citation style, Hill Newton said. In fiction, there can be inconsistencies with proper nouns, misspelled words, and tense shifts.
Anything she observes that is particular to a certain project, she flags for the copy editors to pay special attention to. While developmental and structural edits address overarching themes within a book, copy edits are designed to examine the minute details of a work.
“For instance, we have had a nonfiction memoir that jumped back and forth in place and time. Tracking that got a little confusing, so the copy editor caught a lot of inconsistencies with that style,” Hill Newton said.
As she manages manuscripts, Hill Newton also finds herself managing personalities. Before pairing an author with a copy editor, she first thinks through both the author’s and the editor’s temperaments and experiences.
From there, each author has a structured schedule and time to work with the design department, which undergoes another round of proofreading.
Each step of the process reveals something new, and each step varies in the time it takes for an editor and author to complete.
While the acquisition phase can go on for years, once a book is put into production, the timeline becomes more foreseeable. The copy editing phase normally takes around eight weeks — four weeks for editing, two weeks for author review, and an additional two weeks of cleaning up the manuscript.
After the book is considered complete, selling begins.
UI Press Assistant Director and Marketing Director Allison Means’ job is to determine where a book is going to be placed within the market. She has to figure out the best way for a book to stand out, which can be a huge challenge due to the large volume of novels published every day.
“There’s a lot going on at any given time, starting a minimum of six months before the book is going to be out in the world. By the time the pub date hits, you’re hoping some of the things you’ve been working on for six months will come to fruition,” Means said.
Coming to fruition can be a tall order, especially when considering the body of new releases that are published weekly. An important portion of her job is working with reviewers and publicists to spread the word about upcoming releases.
“When we can get something for an author, it’s a big deal. We’ve gotten books in The New York Times, The Washington Post, and the Wall Street Journal,” Means said. “You have to know that marketing is kind of like water. You can always do more, or you can just fill the space.”
Throughout the process, while each editor oversees their own stage of editing, they remain in constant communication and collaboration with one another.
“It is enhanced every time somebody adds to it,” Hill Newton said.