Trump Is Visiting A Class In An Elementary School Where They Are Talking About Words And Meanings

Trump is visiting a class in an elementary school where they are talking about words and meanings

The teacher asks Trump if he would like to lead the class in a discussion of the word “tragedy”.

So he asks the class for an example of a tragedy. One little boy stands up and offers, “if my best friend who lives on a farm is playing in a field and a runaway tractor comes along and knocks him dead, that’d be a tragedy.”

“Not quite”, says Mr. Trump, “that would be an accident.”

A little girl raises her hand: “if a school bus carrying 50 children drove over a cliff, killing everyone inside, that would be a tragedy.”

“I’m afraid not,” explained the president. “That’s what we would call a great loss.”

The room goes silent. Trump searches the room. “Isn’t there someone here who can give me an example of a tragedy? “

Finally at the back of the room, little Johnny raises his hand. In a quiet voice he says, “If Air Force One, carrying you was struck by a missile and blown to smithereens; that would be a tragedy.”

“Fantastic!” exclaimed Mr. Trump. “That’s right. And can you tell me why that would be a tragedy?”

“Well’, said little Johnny, “because it sure as hell wouldn’t be a great loss and probably wouldn’t be an accident either.”

What happens after you get accepted by a publisher?

As some of you may know, I’m a professional editor who used to work as an in-house editor. I see many posts about how to query and stuff, but very little describing what happens after you sign the contract. Of course, this varies between publishing houses, but I’ve worked as an in-house editor in three publishing houses, and I will relate my experience with them.

I’m your primary contact person. I will send you the contract, signed by the publisher (my boss), and answer any questions you have before signing it and sending it back to me.

Then you probably won’t hear from me for a few weeks. I’m thoroughly reading through your manuscript, and usually simultaneously a few others as well. When I’m done, I will get back at you, to let you know if there’s any rewriting work to be done on your book. There usually is. In fact, over the years, I’ve only had one author whose book could be sent to the text editor straight away. So don’t take it as a bad sign.

Major rewritings can also happen before you sign your contract. This means we see your potential, and it’s big enough for me to invest my time in you (my salary costs money too), but you have to prove that you can rewrite it. See my other post on “What if your publisher asks for a complete rewrite” and some nuance and other nuance for more information on, well, complete rewrites.

I will never put you to work without helping you, and you can always call or email me if you’re stuck or if you don’t know what I want. In fact, I’d rather have you contact me than you trying to hide the fact that you will most probably miss your deadline.

After the rewrites have been done, what happens then? In the bigger publishing houses I worked at, a freelance editor corrects your grammar and spelling and stuff. They work on a sentence and word level. In the small publishing house, that was also done by me. That doesn’t change anything for you.

I will send you the manuscript with the corrections for you to approve. Usually, authors agree. If you don’t understand or don’t agree, just let me know and I can either explain it to you or see if you have a point.

Meanwhile, I will put the cover designer to work. I will tell them what kind of a book it is, which genre, which target audience. If I have ideas for similar covers they can use, I tell them as well, but usually I trust the designer to do their work. I think in words, they think in images. To each their strenght. If you have ideas for a cover, we will look at them. (But usually cover ideas by the author are not commercially interesting, and they end up liking the cover we designed better.)

I will send you some unfinished cover ideas, or sometimes the one cover we all agreed on. You usually have veto power, but authors rarely veto a cover (”It looks so real now!”) because our cover designers know their job ^-^ The cover needs to be approved by a lot of people: you, me, the publisher, the people from marketing, the salespeople… Negotiation about 14 conflicting opinions is part my job.

By now, you’re probably done with approving the corrections in your manuscript. I check it one last time and send it to the lay-out people.

The publisher decides on the format of your book (softcover/hardcover/fancy edition…), based on what is financially possible and commercially interesting.

The lay-out person sends me a sample, usually the first five pages. I print it to see if the font, margins, interline, readability… are okay. They usually are, and I give the lay-out person a “go!” to lay-out the entire book. A few hours later they send me your book in pdf.

I will now send it to a second freelance editor, whose job it is to check for typos and weird line breaks etc. They will send me their corrections and the lay-out person will take care of it.

I will send you your final, clean manuscript and you will beam with pride to see your book as a “real book”! ^-^ (Similar feelings as when I send you the first cover.)

I will have written a blurb, sometimes based on your query letter. Everyone who had to have an opinion on the cover will be consulted again for the blurb. I will send you the definitive version, but to be honest, in practice, you can’t change much about it, unless you have Good Reasons, because this is the version the 14-headed monster - I mean, committee of colleagues - agreed on.

The cover designer now makes a back and spine cover.

Now there is nothing else for you to approve, you’ve seen everything. I’ll send the covers and the text pdf to the printing house, confirm the publishing date and then we play the waiting game!

Next, my colleagues of the marketing devision can take over, or sometimes they take over earlier in the process, or sometimes they don’t consult you at all.

When your physical books arrive on my desk, you can be sure that I am as proud of you and your book as you are. After some happy unboxing and bothering my colleagues - “just LOOOK at this BABYYY!” - I will send you a few copies through the snail mail for you to unbox and bother people with. (At least, if this is stated in your contract. At the publishing houses I worked at, usually it said that an author gets 5 copies of each edition.)

We usually don’t organize and pay for a launch party, but if you want to have one, go ahead. For debutants, a launch party doesn’t help selling copies that wouldn’t have been sold anyway. Journalists don’t scour book launch parties, it’s usually the author’s friends and family who attend, and they were going to buy a copy anyway.

And then it’s time to keep your fingers crossed, hope for good sales, and start writing on your next book!

***

I hope this was helpful. Don’t hesitate to ask me any questions, and happy writing!

Follow me for more writing advice, or check out my other writing advice here. New topics to write advice about are also always welcome.

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Living with Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria(RSD)

RSD is a real problem and is often found in people who have been diagnosed with ADHD. What it means is we’re hypersensitive to rejection and can interpret things that people say way too much and think that it’s some form of rejection. Getting an actual, legitimate rejection can send us spiraling into depression for hours or even days at a time and cause us to be unmotivated to do things. We’re people pleasers, trying so hard to make sure people are happy with us so that we don’t get rejected. It’s more than just a fear of rejection, it’s a downright terror of it.

What I say: Oh, I won’t bother you with *insert thing here* What I mean: I’m scared you’re going to reject me for sharing this thing that’s personal to me.

What I say: Don’t worry, my anxiety isn’t too bad. What I mean: My anxiety has been killing me, but I don’t want you to think it’s weakness and will stop being friends with me because of it.

What I say: Don’t worry about me. What I mean: I’m afraid if I talk about my major problems, you’re going to reject me and stop being my friend.

What you say: Please stop *blank* What I think: Oh fuck I did something majorly wrong, how can I fix this, what can I do to make things right what do I need to do? Will *person* want to stop being friends with me now? Am I okay?

These are just a few examples of what goes through the mind of someone with RSD. I would love to thank people like @adhd-alien for making comics that I, as a person with ADHD, can look at and relate to. It really calms down my RSD, even if I feel like I can’t talk about it with my friends for that terror that they’re going to reject me for it, even though I know they won’t.

💚💜💖

I used to get scolded for saying IDK all the time as a kid. . .had no clue it was an ADHD thing

‪GOD I found another article about why ADHD kids say “I don’t know” so much. my entire childhood was getting yelled at for doing some ADHD shit and me not being able to offer an explanation when asked why I did something. ‬

I know you guys wanted Atla fan art from me, and I promise I have some more in the works but… masters on a string..? 

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