About Books

  • Venom back cover copy …

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    Gah! I did it again. Once again, I forgot to post the description of the book along with the cover art — you know, what the book is actually about. Sigh. Anyway, here’s the back cover copy for Venom to go along with the preliminary cover art.

    Warning: There are a few mild spoilers below for folks who haven’t read Spider’s Bite. You’ve been warned, so here goes:

    It’s hard to be a badass assassin when a giant is beating the crap out of you. Luckily, I never let pride get in the way of my work. My current mission is personal: annihilate Mab Monroe, the Fire elemental who murdered my family. Which means protecting my identity, even if I have to conceal my powerful Stone and Ice magic when I need it most. To the public, I’m Gin Blanco, owner of Ashland’s best barbecue joint. To my friends, I’m the Spider, retired assassin. I still do favors on the side. Like ridding a vampire friend of her oversized stalker—Mab’s right-hand goon who almost got me dead with his massive fists. At least irresistible Owen Grayson is on my side. The man knows too much about me, but I’ll take my chances. Then there’s Detective Bria Coolidge, one of Ashland’s finest. Until recently, I thought my baby sister was dead. She probably thinks the same about me. Little does she know, I’m a cold-blooded killer . . . who is about to save her life.

    Yep, that’s right. Gin’s long-lost baby sister Bria finally shows up in Venom. Huzzah! Much family drama ensues, along with the usual bouts of mayhem, mischief, and violence. 😉

  • Venom cover art …

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    So look what showed up in my e-mail last week — the preliminary cover art for Venom.

    So cool! So shiny! So cool! So shiny! Okay, I’ll quit gushing now. 😉

    Seriously, though, I think this is another awesome cover. What really impresses me about it are the colors — I can just imagine how pretty they’re going to look when the book is finally printed. And the title should really pop since it’s done in that light, glowing blue. And how neat is it to have the spider rune in the title and showing on Gin’s hand again as well?

    As an author, you never know what you’re going to get when your editor sends you cover art. But I have to say that the folks at Pocket really keep impressing me. I’m already excited to see what they do for Elemental Assassin #4 and #5.

    And you know what the best part is? The cover actually fits the book. Those riverboats you see in the background? Well, Gin gets on board one of them during the course of Venom. So consider that a little teaser for the book, which comes out Sept. 28. 😉

  • The bookmarks are here …

    Guess what I got in the mail? The bookmarks for Web of Lies. Huzzah!

    And believe me when I say that these are some pretty nice bookmarks. They’re 2-by-8 inches on thick, sturdy, glossy paper. Kudos go out once again to Kelley and the other folks at Iconix, the company that prints my bookmarks. They really do put out a quality product.

    As always, the bookmarks are free to readers, librarians, bookstores, or whomever wants a couple. However, I do ask folks to send me a self-addressed stamped envelope (SASE) to get the bookmarks. This helps me out with postage costs.

    So if you want to get some bookmarks, send me an e-mail at jennifer@jenniferestep.com, and I’ll tell you where to send your SASE. I’ll also be getting bookmarks made for Venom later on during the summer when the cover art is finalized.

    In the meantime, I’m going to enjoy the boomark goodness! 😉

  • ·

    Timelines …

    So I’ve talked about copy edits and page proofs, and now, I thought I would share a rough timeline of when I get them in regards to when the book is published. So here’s an example of a rough timeline of a book based on Web of Lies, which comes out on May 25.

    When I turned the book in: Winter/spring 2009, or about one year before the publication date.

    Revisions from editor: These arrived about two months after I turned the book in.

    Copy edits: Arrived about six months before the publication date.

    Page proofs: About four months before the publication date.

    Confirmation pages: About two months before the publication date. Note: Not all publishers send confirmation pages to authors. A lot of publishers just send the page proofs, and that’s the last time the author sees the book before it goes to press.

    Final book: Usually, the finished book goes to press about a month or so before the actual on-sale date, so my publisher will actually start printing copies of Web of Lies around the last week of April. Books will start shipping out to store usually about two weeks before the on-sale date.

    The publication date: This is when I’ll see the finished book for the first time, either by going to the local bookstore and finding it on the shelves or getting my author copies in the mail. I don’t usually get any early copies.

    People often wonder why it takes so long for books to be published. Well, this is part of the reason why. Each one of these steps takes about two months, which includes giving me time to do my part of the process and mail the book back before my editor sends it on to the next step. So even if I don’t have a book hitting shelves, I’m working on something all the time, even if it is all this behind-the-scenes stuff.

    So there you have it. A little bit about publishing timelines. Got questions? I’ll answer what I can in the comments.

  • Page proofs …

    In addition to working on copy edits for Venom, I also finished up page proofs for Web of Lies this past weekend. So here’s a little bit about what page proofs are:

    So after I sent my copy edits back, a few weeks later I’ll get what are known as page proofs — or the typeset version of the manuscript. The pages are what the book will actually look like when it is bound and put on the shelf.

    Basically, during the page proof stage, I’m just reading through the book looking for typos and punctuation errors. At this point, I can only make relatively small, minor changes to the book — no adding big chunks of text or anything like that. You don’t want the publisher to have to typeset your book again because you added 20 pages to it — that’s a big no-no.

    After I’m done with the page proofs, I mail them back to my editor. A few weeks later, some publishers will then send out what are called confirmation pages — or one final proof of the book before it goes to press. The point of the confirmation pages is to make sure that all the page proof changes made it into the book. For example, I got confirmation pages for Web of Lies and discovered that a couple of commas hadn’t made it in where they were supposed to go and a word had been misspelled. So they really are handy.

    I don’t mind doing page proofs so much because they go a lot quicker than the copy edits — and it’s exciting to see the book typeset for the first time. Getting page proofs always means that the book is getting close to hitting stores and that you guys will be able to read it soon. 😉

    Got questions? I’ll answer what I can in the comments.