Madsadgirl asked me about my book in the comments in my previous post: I'd forgotten about it with everything else that happened over the summer. As is typical, the proofs arrived right slap bang in the middle of me cleaning, painting and packing. On top of the proofs arriving, they arrived without table of cases/documents and an index. Now the cases/documents weren't a problem as I had it from my PhD and just needed to add a couple of things to it, but the index was. When I enquired I was told that authors do their own and did I really need one. I pointed out that the contract stated they would do it and that the book was over 400 pages long and did need one. I was a bit upset over this as I've never done an index before and no real idea how to do one. I could pay for someone to do it but I resent spending money on that. I asked about the department what the deal was normally but didn't receive much advice (no real surprise there: I sometimes think most of them feel they did everything by themselves and had no advice, therefore everyone should). In the end, I proofread the book and jotted down key words and phrases as I went along, emailed the corrections to the publisher and said that if they wished me to do the index they would have to wait as the earliest I could manage was the end of September due to other commitments. They said that was fine so once I'm back from the conference and the teaching course I have one week before students come back (during which, as year head, I'm involved in student enrolment) to update and organise lecture notes and write the index. I'm hoping that the book will be delayed to January because that will mean that it's published in 2010 and therefore will be newly published for a year, rather than publishing it in December 2009 and in January it's already a year old!
As for the time of this post: I'm not sleeping well still. I've been taking sleeping tablets but my GP is reluctant to prescribe me many more so I'm tring to eek out what I have left. It only takes 3.75mg to help me sleep and more importantly keep me asleep and let me waken without feeling zombi like. I see my GP again on Monday 14th so I'll speak to her then about it. With term starting soon and work piling up, I don't want to end up in a state because of lack of sleep.
1 comment:
Thanks for the update on the book. I can understand you being upset about the index. If the contract said they would do it and now you are being expected to do it, you have every right to be aggrieved.
But the most important thing is that the end is now in sight and it won't be so long before you have your author's copies in your hand and can feel really proud of yourself.
I'll send you an email later with some information that you might want to discuss with your GP reference insomnia.
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