A few weeks after I clicked “submit,” an email arrived from my editor at Routledge with two author queries — the cover design, and the words that will go on the back of my book. No one tells you how emotional these small handoffs are.
Most academics know they need editing before submitting — but few know which kind. Developmental editing works at the level of structure, argument, and logic, not punctuation. If a manuscript is struggling to find a home, the problem is rarely the grammar. Here's what developmental editing actually does and when to seek it.
Almost a year ago, a peer-reviewed article of mine was published online — and I was so deep in book deadlines and client work that I never said a word about it. So here, belatedly and a little sheepishly, is the study that sits underneath everything I write about grief: my synchronicity-and-meaning research in the Journal of Humanistic Psychology.
A look behind the curtain at what actually happens after you hit “submit”: the first round of editor queries, the small fixes, and the surprisingly human back-and-forth that quietly turns a manuscript into a book.
This week I did something I've helped dozens of authors do, but never quite this way: I submitted a full book manuscript to Routledge — on time. It's about synchronicity in grief, and it opens a new series, The Patience of Publishing, where I share the real, unpolished version of what happens after you hit "submit."
The reference list is the last thing you build and the first thing a reviewer scrutinizes — and it's where small, repeated mistakes pile up. After 15 years editing dissertations, I run the same audit on every one. Here are the seven APA 7 reference list errors it catches most, and how to fix each before your draft bounces back.