I see from the list that some reviewers require galleys. Does this apply to picture books? Will we have any to send out?

 

 

‘Galley proofs’ is a term still used but actually comes from the history of printing. The equivalent now for us is our Proof 1 that we send out as the last version the author sees of the text before it is printed. Please feel free to send out Proof 1 to any potential reviewers or people who might offer to endorse. However, please make sure it’s clear it’s an ’uncorrected’ proof. 

The text is proof-read twice again before the final text is released.

When we enter that soft launch phase we provide you with four different size copies of the cover image, a PDF of what the inside of the book looks like, an e-book file, an order form for author copies  and an up to date marketing plan.

For picture books we supply a PDF that is good enough resolution to see on a screen but that wouldn’t print well. Full resolution files are huge.           

Behind The Scenes at Bridge House Publishing - a few words from Fatima, our intern 2024-2025

 

Behind The Scenes at Bridge House Publishing

 

From the moment I learned how to read, there has been a book in my hand, on my bedroom shelf, and in every room in my house. My love for words, characters, reading and telling stories began early on in my life. So, naturally I was always enthralled by the idea of working in publishing, but unfortunately the world of publishing always felt beyond my reach. In my teenage years the internet offered little to no solid advice on how to enter the industry and flourish in it. After many applications to many companies I thought it might be wise to put this dream of mine on hold. That was until I came across an opportunity to intern at Bridge House Publishing. I knew immediately I wanted the position, and after much interview preparation I am proud to say that at the time of this blog post I am coming to the end of my yearlong publishing internship. Here are some of the best things I experienced this year:

 

Book launches

One of my favourite things to experience is seeing the final product come to life. Early on in my internship I helped set up the room for Karen Kendrick’s book launch for her novel Afterwards. It was wonderful to hear the 1-2-1 discussion and Q&A session between the author and Gill James; the founder of Bridge House. I think one of the most astounding things about book launches is how beautiful it is to see other people also praise and love a book an author has worked so hard on and for so long. You feel a warm sense of community standing amongst all the other readers in the room.

I also attended Gill’s book launch of her book called Natascha’s Story earlier this year in February. She explained how her children’s story was inspired by the Russian Dolls that sit on her piano and how it was a twist on the Wizard of Oz story so many of us know and love from our childhoods.

Book launches come in all sorts of different shapes and sizes and it is such a good insight into learning how an author comes across the idea for their story and to show that as a reader you admire their work.

 

Copy-writing

One of the things I loved most about my internship is that Gill, my supervisor, always gave me the opportunity to set my own tasks and always encouraged my own independent ideas. Bridge House opened a new imprint this year called Walela Books and I was responsible for writing the advertisement that was calling for submissions. This was something completely new for me and it did make me a bit nervous to get it wrong. However, I pushed past this discomfort and after hearing some constructive feedback from colleagues working at Bridge House I was able to write an effective post. Copywriting is something I enjoyed in the end and would love to do more of in the future.

 

Reviewing and editing

Reviewing is when you read a submission and you decide whether you like or dislike it and whether it’s a good piece of writing and you write a short review about your thoughts. Doing this over time I started spotting good/not so good writing much more easily.

After a submission is accepted for publication, the editorial process begins. Editorial work is hands down my all-time favourite thing to do. In fact, my very first 1-2-1 meeting with Gill was learning about the editing process from A-Z. Every publishing company does the editing process differently, but at Bridge House it involves three stages. The first stage of editing is a scan of the overall text to spot any major mistakes, issues with characters, pacing, etcetera. The second edit is the biggest and longest editing stage. Edit 2 involves a detailed line by line edit. I’ve had numerous opportunities to do this and the most important thing I’ve learned is to edit so that sentences show improved clarity, but that the author’s writing style and voice still shines through. The last edit is a proof read of the overall text to make sure there’s no remaining mistakes.

I’ve had a fantastic time working alongside Jim Bates, an award-winning author, on his latest collection of short stories called Where The Heart Is. I’ve really enjoyed editing Jim’s short stories and would love to carry on working with authors in the future.

 

 

 

 

I’m pleased about the skills I’ve learned and developed as a result of interning at Bridge House and I know these are skills I plan to take with me into my future career. I am beyond honoured to be able to do what I love and I hope I carry on doing what I love in the future.

I’m a Big Boy Now by Eamon O’Leary

 

How we came to publish this one

Eamon has been a contributor to CaféLit for quite a while. His stories are well-told, a little quirky and often a lot of fun so when he approached us with this collection we didn’t hesitate to offer him a contract.    

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The title

It’s actually a quote from a line near the end of the collection. Most of the vignettes are about Eamon as a child.

Some notes about the process

Eamon had already had this edited but we still put it though two of our editorial processes and found a few things to alter. And we even found a typo post publication. However, we weren’t too thrown by this: the average number of typos / other  mistakes in published books is fifteen. Will we spot the other fourteen? We hope not.  

The cover

Obviously this is a photo of Eamon. It took a while to find the right one that worked technically and artistically. This one works well in both ways.     

Some notes about style

There is some dry humour in these stories. And in places you will want to laugh out loud.

Who we think the reader is

Eamon already has a following from his stories and reflections on Irish radio. There are quite a few fans from CaféLit as well

What else

The book is selling well. Eamon has been quite proactive in promoting it and several bookshops in Ireland have ordered directly from us. Currently this is our best seller. Eamon has had a few copies made in hardback as a souvenir for the family, We are exploring offering this to other authors.    

Review copies

It’s always great if you can buy the book and give us a review. Just click on the link to be taken to our bookshop. If you would like to review and you are strapped for cash, just get in touch for a free PDF or e-book file.

 

Grab your copy here.        

How do we ensure we’re not cross-contaminating review lists with you?

 

It’s unlikely that we’ll pick the same reviewers as you. We have a mailing list of reviewers we send out to.  We also sometimes approach professional reviewers who advertise via their web-site. And occasionally we might approach people in special interest groups.  We query as a publisher, whereas you will query as an author. Even if they’re presented with the same book twice they may well even review differently for a publisher (production values, editing, book cover) from the way they would for an author (style, voice, characters, plot).  Or they’ll just say ‘no’. ‘No’ doesn’t actually hurt anyone        

Tales of the Unelected by Dan Corry

 

How we came to publish this one

Dan was actually a client of Debz. She recommend that I look at this one and I did like what I saw, even though it was clear the readership was going to be quite specialised.  

The title

There is quite a play on words here but it works very well.      

Some notes about the process

Debz had already worked extensively with Dan on this project. Yet his book was at the stage we hope most books are when they come in to us: as good as the writer themselves can get it ….and then we start editing it. So, Debz took Dan’s book through stages one and two of editing and I did the final proof.  

The cover

This started off as a photo taken by Dan’s wife. Well what else would we have for a book like this other than a photo of the Houses of Parliament? It was quite dark to start with and we had to manipulate the picture to bring more light into it. But that landscape photo is exactly the sort of image we like for our photos: room for the title and by-line on the front and room for the blurb on the back, yet the would -be reader can still see the picture.  

Some notes about style

There is some dry humour in these stories. They are narrated in a matter of fact way and the writer doesn’t tell the reader what they must think. The latter is left to make their own mind up.  

Who we think the reader is

The reader will have some interest in politics and current affairs but will be worldly  wise enough to appreciate that everything can’t be reduced to black and white. And they’ll be given a lot to think about.    

What else

The book is selling well. A very lively launch was held a stone’s throw from where the cover photo was taken. Debz attended and rubbed shoulders with several well-known public figures.    

Review copies

It’s always great if you can buy the book and give us a review. Just click on the link to be taken to our bookshop. If you would like to review and you are strapped for cash, just get in touch for a free PDF or e-book file.

 

Grab your copy here.        

Do you set up the Amazon page?

 

The Amazon page is set up from the information we send to Ingram’s, our distributor. This is largely the same as the back cover blurb. We use a particular formula for this.  Note, if you have written a book for children Amazon asks readers who review the text the age of the child they bought it for. So the assigned age can change and this is beyond our control.   

As a writer you should create an Amazon author page and encourage people to follow you. This means that every time you have a new book out and you register it on that page, even if it’s just a story in a multi-author collection, Amazon notifies all of your followers.  The more followers you have the more visible you become. And this will also help other authors in a collection.

Note we have world-wide distribution, and this includes all of the Amazons.   

 

 

Getting those book covers right

We are unusual in that we give authors quite a lot of say in what their book cover might be like.

The overall concept

We ask our authors to give us a concept for the book cover. We almost prefer words at this point to pictures. Very specific pictures often have so many problems that we really have to let them pass.

 

One book was called See Through a Glass of Red and the author asked us to represent that description on the cover. It worked!

 

We issue a caution with short story collections. Wait until we’re at least through Edit 1. Sometimes we rename a story or even take it out altogether. What if that were the one you’d based your cover on?

 

Covers shouldn’t give spoilers but they can hint at what’s happening.

 

Don’t commission too soon

Your father/ son / sister / aunt may be a talented artist or photographer and you may have a vision of what your book cover may look like. But please don’t ask that relation to do too much work until we’ve had an opportunity to talk to them. Certain things have to happen: e.g. there must be room for the title and the by-line. The colours must be bold enough to show up. It’s such a shame if all of that effort goes to waste.

 

Types of picture

We like landscape pictures with the focal point on the right (though we can flip it if need be). Over on the left should be some sand / sea / sky / grass or fencing etc. that we can write the blurb on. 

 

 

This picture has been flipped yet no one complained about  the Blackpool Tower facing the wrong way!  

 

Occasionally we have used a portrait picture and just made the spine and back cover a contrasting colour. This is particularly so for novels in the Schellberg Cycle, The Red Telephone, Feisty Women and Walela. 

 

 

Take care with blue

It’s generally quite hard to get the colours on the cover to print as you see them on a computer screen. We have our screens configured so that we’re pretty near to what one can print. Blue can be notoriously difficult.

 

Available on the net doesn’t mean copyright free

No, it doesn’t. And you can get into a lot of trouble for using pictures that aren’t copyright free. We use pixabay a lot: not only are the pictures copyright free but also they are free. However, we do give a small amount each month to them which is shared between all of the artists and we do acknowledge any artist we use. 

 

 

Picture books are a little different

The design for the cover normally comes along with other illustrations though we often find that author-illustrators forget this one very important illustration. 

 

Working with artists

There are a handful of artists we work with who understand the way we work. Usually though if we work with an artist it involves us in more work than if we work on our own. We do also do a little of toing an froing with the writer. Sometimes we vary the font or the size and colour of the font. Often we’ll involve the writer with the blurb that goes on to the back cover. This has usually already been decided by this stage.

 

 

 

Pulling the eye of the would- be reader into the picture

It’s a little trick; if the potential customer is drawn into the cover picture they are more likely to buy the book.