Musings of the University of Dundee MLitt Publishing Writing students

What I did today at my placement

Well Over Halfway

My time here in Leeds has flown in!

With just under two weeks left, I’ve been getting into some proper meaty publishing work; editing and typesetting that is.

Over the last week or so, I’ve been working through the manuscript for a book of interviews.

Delighted at the chance to ‘feel like a proper publisher’, I was ecstatic when the huge pile of paper landed on my desk.

The main thing with this MS was to condense it down. With it being full of interviews, the writer had added in some unnecessary repetition and remained a little too faithful to the spoken word.

It took me a few days to work through the title, averaging on around fifty pages per day.

Using a ‘cheat sheet’ that we were given last semester, with all the proofing symbols and how to use them, I marked up the MS. The changes will later be added to the electronic copy.

While this was fun and got me to put on my editor’s cap, my favourite task so far has been typesetting.

By using an existing non-fiction book as a style guide, I have made the pages, set the formatting parameters and designed the look of the book on InDesign.

I have to say, it is very satisfying to be able to ‘make the book’ myself.

 

This job takes a lot of care, attention to detail and time. So patience is key!

But I’m having a great time learning how to do this, how to solve the problems that arise – thank god for online tutorial – and make something I can be proud of.

Apart from this, there have been couple of new releases from us. Check them out here!