Notes from the desk of the editor are offered in the interests of personal posterity and transparency for writers and other potential editors who wish to learn from my experience.
the editor
A few moving pieces must develop concurrently to find success across all segments in motion: the cover design, the back cover copy, the interior page count, and the ISBN / barcode purchase.
First: the cover. If you’re one of the folks who reads these behind-the-scenes updates, you’ll see the cover first, as I’ll post it here first. I’ve bought the rights to a design from JD&J, the group behind Costs of Living‘s cover. To have them complete the design, they need to know some particulars: the ISBN and price along with the barcode image, the back-cover copy (the text that’ll go on the back of the book), and the info for the front cover. They also need dimensions include page count and intended paper printing weight to get the spine size design right.
Next: ISBNs. If you’re publishing multiple variants (epub, audiobook, trade paper, trade cloth), you’ll need multiple ISBNs since each ISBN is an identifier for the printing you’re putting out there. (For the newbies out there, BOWKER is where we get ISBNs in the USA.) I’ve already got ISBNs for Dread Mondays because, last year, I bought ten for a significant discount as compared with purchasing one ten times. When I determine the price of the book (should it be 19.99? 23.99? More? Less?) and download the barcode, I can send that info to the cover designers, who’ll add it to the back cover.
And third that’s needed for the cover: the back-cover copy. I’ve developed this, so far:
Dread Mondays will drown its readers in the miasma suffusing the workplaces where we toil. In this collection, the ghastly underpinnings of our daily lives, the nightmares baked into our routines, are given form. In three parts, Dread Mondays uncovers what terrifies us about the absurd mundanities we working stiffs confront in earning a paycheck. “Retail Hell” highlights some awful truths inherent in customer service. “Institutional Terror” explores the dread lurking in structured environments like libraries and schools. Finally, “Corporate Nightmare” finds ambition, technology, and alienation a ghastly breeding ground of horrific speculation. This collection offers a chilling exploration of backrooms and workplaces, where the ordinary mutates grotesquely and each profession’s unique set of horrors is well-lit and impossible to ignore. The real monsters aren’t under the bed or in the closet: They’re sitting beside us at work.
Featuring Bram Stoker Award-winners, contributors to esteemed literary magazines, ‘Best of’ sci-fi authors and playwrights, and emerging voices from around the world, Dread Mondays blends established talent with fresh perspectives, delivering a chilling vision of workplace horror from a diverse cast of authors.
Pretty good, I think. I got some help from one of my contributing authors, as I sent out the proposed text a few hours ago and already heard back with some helpful phrase shifts that are represented here. I added the second paragraph a few minutes ago.
The only thing that would really have me making significant changes would be a determination that, for marketing reasons, I ought to be putting authors names on the book itself. There are some bigger names (several definitely recognizable names), but I would want to include all the names if I include any at all. There are philosophical reasons for insisting on this point that I won’t get into here, but in any case, it would render the text too long on the back of the book since there are thirty-seven contributors… so I think I keep the names off the book and go for the descriptive text that merely highlights the variety of authors who’ve lent their words to the book.
I’ll check this copy once again before finalizing the cover with the designers after I’ve got a more careful page count to send to to them. (So far, I’ve dumped all the unedited stories into a Vellum file and have begun writing forwards, afterwards, acknowledgments, etc. and I still need to get content warnings from this group of authors to add a disclaimers section to the back of the book as I did with Costs of Living. There’ll be a warning, likely, for every story, and that will add a significant number of pages to the total.)
I’ve edited seven of the thirty-six pieces, have finalized three of those seven with their authors, and am aiming to get the majority of the rest done over spring break (first week of April, yay!).
`Til next time.
– steve
Whisper House Press 
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