TL;DR: Line editing is in process! I'm discussing paper types with my printer and will have samples soon. I expect to start working on layout tasks in parallel with editing. No action items for you. If you have questions or concerns about anything relating to your order please email [email protected]. I'm giving you all another chapter to read. The chapter can be accessed by clicking over to Backerkit and logging in.   Your next update will be the week of March 24-28. Details below.

I got stalled on editing and I didn't want to be. I can partly blame recovery from events and taking on a new admin-heavy freelance job. I can also partly blame the fact that my seven-year-old laptop suddenly went from being a reliable workhorse machine to a machine that crashes if I touch it wrong. I moved swiftly to replace it ... and unfortunately ended up with a lemon of a new machine that became non-functional inside a week. I'm now doing without a laptop while my old one sits mostly unused and my new one has been mailed off for warranty service. (I chose mailing for warranty service instead of mailing for maybe-I-get-a-refund. Still not sure I made the right call on that, but I'm committed to the process now.)  Theoretically my new laptop will be returned to me by March 26. I'm not willing to wait that long to get work done, so I've been spending a lot of time at my desktop computer. 

The other thing that had me stalled was the editing process itself. I wanted to make sure that I always had a master document, so I was manually transferring edit notes from a word document back into Scrivener. It was tedious and I kept having to push myself to get it done. When I let go of the idea of putting things back into Scrivener and instead just embraced "Accept / Reject Changes" in MS Word, suddenly I had an editorial flow that didn't feel like an uphill battle. Finding the right process makes all the difference. Which is definitely a thing I knew and even put into the book I'm editing, but sometimes we don't realize what problem we're having until we step back and experiment with doing things differently. 

Now I'm taking the chapters with edit notes done by Bob, and accepting changes, making wording adjustments, adding sentences, clarifying points. I then immediately send those same chapters off to my line editor Linda. She gets them back to me in a few days. I repeat the process of accepting changes, etc. At that point I plan to read each chapter out loud to myself because that will show me even more words I want to fix. Next I'll take that text and put it into layout. There will be one more copy edit looking for grammar mistakes and typos, but then the book is ready for print. 

I'm excited to be at this stage. I've gotten a bid from my printer in China. We're talking about paper types and they're going to send me both a dummy book and paper samples. I want this book to be beautiful to touch and hold while you're reading it. The quote looks good and fortunately books aren't (yet) as badly impacted by tariffs as other commercial sectors. So the bid, even with shipping and tariffs, still falls inside my printing budget. I am feeling some urgency to get the books ordered before pricing changes dramatically.  (Printing stateside is already more complicated and expensive because of paper sourcing and manufacturing problems.)

It is nice to feel like I'm close to the finish line on this book. Your next update will be the week of March 24-28.

I'll get to work and have an update for you in a couple of weeks. 
Thank you so much for backing my project!
Sandra Tayler