Editorial ramblings
We had our Launch presentation at work this week. We show off all the new books for the season (Summer 2026 in this case) and get the team excited for the upcoming releases. It’s always a bit of a blur but the chaos is exhilarating, and it’s so wonderful to see these projects become just a little more real. But that transformation from idea and proposal to finished manuscript and ARC is always a little bittersweet. It marks the moment where it becomes a little less yours and a little more public.
Many books (not all, but many) that I edit are only with me for a short time. The nature and scheduling of category romance novels means that I often do an initial pass/acceptance read/developmental edit all at once, and once we decide the book is in pretty good shape I dive straight into line edits before the manuscript is typeset and copyedited and proofread. In a series like Harlequin Intrigue, where we publish six books a month (with significantly shorter word counts than the average trade novel), line edits move pretty quickly. Often the authors I work with have been writing for the series for quite a while, and they are very skilled at delivering manuscripts that meet the series guidelines, so we’re not usually doing a lot of back and forth with regards to the overall structure or big picture. It’s rare that I send an author a request to revise something we can’t handle at the line edit stage. But sometimes I get a project that is a little different, and these books come with a luxury that is rare in category romance: time.
I’m currently working with an author on a book that is one of these books I’ve had a lot of time with. And I’m also finishing up my own book to submit to my editor. Both of these projects have been with me for quite a while (though of course I’ve spent a bit more time on my own writing). Both are currently in this weird limbo where, for a few more moments, they are intimate and small and secret. I’ve spoken about these projects with other folks, sometimes very enthusiastically! But the writing, the creative part of it, is still very nebulous to most people. And that is about to change.
The reason, for me, that it’s hard to let go of these projects is that once they’re out there, other people have opinions. They might not like the things I love. They might want to offer suggestions that could be amazing…but they wouldn’t be mine (or the author’s). They might be from the lens of “will this sell?” or “is this the best way to appeal to readers?” rather than “wouldn’t it be great if” or “how is this character feeling” or “oh I want to talk about this movie and how I feel about it be cause I love it.”
To be very clear, I feel it’s quite important to at least consider some of these opinions about marketing and packaging and publicity and sales when you are publishing a book with a traditional publisher (whose job, of course, is to sell books). Ultimately, if you (and hopefully your editor, who is the book’s champion in all the places and meetings you aren’t in) have a vision and a plan, then you can dismiss some of these opinions. But it makes sense to consider them because in many cases the people offering those suggestions have some good insights you may not.
Anyway…this is once again a long and rambly post that could be summed up like so: letting go of your manuscript is daunting, and scary, and exhilarating, and necessary. It’s the next step to having it become a real live book, for people to read and love and think about and disagree with and love (yes, I said love twice, that’s what most authors want, no?).
I’m going to come back to this post and read it again before I actually send my manuscript off to my editor.
What I’m reading
- Just finished a reread of Stephen King’s The Waste Lands because I’ve been sucked into Neil McRobert’s Dark Tower podcast, featuring Nat Cassidy and Chris Panatier revisiting (or in Chris’s case, experiencing for the first time) King’s weird epic. I’ve read it several times and I always forget how much I love it. This series was my first real encounter with slightly weird fantasy and I love it, warts and all.
- Also reading Emily Weedon’s Hemo Sapiens, a Canadian literary take on vampirism, pregnancy, and wellness through a slightly noir lens. Really enjoying it so far; I am a sucker for a sad sack detective type who stumbles into a situation he doesn’t quite comprehend.
- I really want to start Max Evry’s A Masterpiece in Disarray, his monster book about the making of Lynch’s Dune (which I love). I think I need to finish writing first, though, because I find it hard to read nonfic when I’m writing nonfic.
What I’m watching
- Murderbot, which is enjoyable if a little slight.
- Presence, Stephen Soderbergh’s take on a haunted house story, through the eyes of a ghost who is unstuck in time. It’s sad and contemplative, and though I loved it more before the reveal toward the end, I thought it was quite effective and I liked it a lot.