WRITING FOR DIAMOND BOOKS
There are various ways to put a book in front of readers – from self-publishing via Kindle to publishing co-operatives, to one of the long-established majors.
Diamond Books is at the small end of the market. We are independent and we value our independence. We do not want, neither would we be able or likely to become
one the giants of the publishing world.
We, the three founder directors of Diamond Books, are all published authors. Our backgrounds are all media: TV production and direction, TV and film script writing,
theatre direction, acting and media business management. In brief, we understand the interface between creativity and market reality.
We want to work closely with our authors from manuscript submission through development editing, copy editing and proof reading to publication in eBook and paperback.
And what happens at the end of that process is that your book, printed by Ashford Colour Press, can be found in independent bookshops or bought from our website.
It will be available on Amazon in paperback and Kindle format and as an ePub in libraries through the BorrowBox app.
WHAT YOU CAN EXPECT FROM US
You have finished your novel. You have let it sit on your PC/Mac for a couple of weeks without looking at it.
You read it once more, remembering point ten of Elmore Leonard’s list of Rules for Writing “Try to leave out the part that readers tend to skip”
and then send the Ms off to publishers. If you choose us as one of them, please try and remember the following:
- Book length. The book should not be longer than 75,000 words. This is purely a function of market costs.
It will cost us appx £4 to print it; retail outlets want a discount of between 30% and 50%. Then there’s packaging and posting and finally,
your own royalty. If your book is too long, you don’t get your royalty and we lose money.
- Submission. In submitting your Ms, please adhere to the manuscript layout guidelines attached below. This makes both our tasks a lot easier.
- Please use 1.5 line spacing.
- Response time. We may take a few weeks to respond, but this is because at least two out of three of us have to read your Ms before discussing
it at one of our weekly editorial meetings.
- Editing. Be prepared for a detailed editing process. The three of us edit each other’s books as well as all the books that are submitted.
Our approach is explained below in the Editing Process section. The aim of our editing is to bring out the very best of your writing.
It isn’t a battle between us. You don’t win if we agree to something you have written. We don’t win if you take out your favourite piece.
If you don’t like what we are saying then please explain and we will try and reach an understanding.
- Marketing. Once the book is published, we enter the marketing stage. As a small independent, there is only so much we can do.
If you are not happy with this thought then we are not for you. There will be no press launch, no champagne receptions and little in the way of fanfares.
We prepare an AIS (Advance Information Sheet) which will be sent to bookshops and reviewers. We prepare press releases to go to newspapers in your area.
We contact bloggers like Mystery People. But the key to everyday marketing is social media - your social media. We employ our own social media co-ordinator
who puts out tweets, Fb and Insta posts etc, but you will only break through if you have a strong social media presence and you work the platforms on a daily / weekly basis.
- Events and festivals. We recommend that you try and get to one or more of these per year. There’s the big one, CrimeFest, in Bristol.
There’s Crime Cymru in Aberystwyth, Bloody Scotland in Glasgow, etc etc.
MANUSCRIPT LAYOUT FOR DIAMOND CRIME AUTHORS
We would be grateful if you could adhere to the following guidelines when submitting your manuscript to Diamond Books Ltd.
This is probably teaching you to suck eggs and these guidelines may not help you, but they certainly help us by saving eye strain, time and money in the preparation of your book.
- Please send us your document in Microsoft Word. Please do not use the Times New Roman font. Helvetica and Optima are fine.
- When you open Word, please click on Format and then click on Paragraph as in the diagram below and use the settings as marked in the red lines.
- Please use 1.5 line spacing.
- Do not use line inserts for the first paragraph of each new chapter.
- For every subsequent paragraph in each chapter use the Special - First Line insert as shown in the diagram below.
This needs only be done once after the first paragraph as it will then indent automatically until the end of the chapter.
-
- Please align the Word doc from the left-hand side of the page only and leave Word to make its own choices as to where lines end.
Do not put hyphens into words which appear too long for the right-hand alignment
-
Use of Asterisms - the three stars in the centre of the page that mark a gap between scenes within a chapter.
Please do not just leave a line gap as e book printing can miss it. Please also make sure there is a space between each star.
Leave a line between the last word of the outgoing paragraph and the stars and one beneath the stars.
Please also ensure that the first line of the paragraph after the ellipses is not indented - as below.
- Please do not use Section Breaks - EVER!
-
Please put in a Page Break at the end of each chapter as in the diagram below. This indicates to Kindle Publishing that
it can insert chapters at the front of the book.
- Please use speech marks as follows -“- rather than the single -‘-.
- It’s worthwhile glancing through the advice by the great newspaper editor, Harry Evans:
https://www.pressgazette.co.uk/raze-the-adverbs-beware-superlatives-and-be-specific-six-tips-on-clearer-writing-from-sir-harold-evans/?page=3
- Good Luck!
THE EDITING PROCESS FOR DIAMOND CRIME AUTHORS
One of the Editorial Team reads the submitted Ms. If liked, the book is passed to a second member of the team for approval.
If the editing team wishes to publish the book, the Author is then sent a Draft Contract to read.
(All authors receive the same version – approved the Society of Authors).
If this and the publishing conditions are accepted, the editing process begins. Given a clear schedule, this should take 4 weeks
Just to reiterate that we only work in Microsoft Word and we never use the Review Pane for comments,
as getting rid of it can, all too easily, become a nightmare.
-
Only one of the editorial team works on the edit. It will be done roughly 10 chapters at a time. Suggested changes will be in
red
.
Bits that the editor disagrees with will be crossed out in red
like this to show it should be removed.
An example of a typical editor response to an Ms is here:
(Suggested cuts and re-drafts needed here. All to do with rhythm and pace: e.g. ‘began’ below is better than ‘started’)
James levered himself into a sitting position and leant against the wall, his legs spread wide. He pulled the body towards him,
wrapped his arms around his
dead friend
and held him like a child.
James held his friend like he would a child. Andy, his His friend was dead,
face blown away by the gunshot, was his hand still clutching the piece of paper.
‘Help. Help me. For Christ’s sake, please . . .’ James tried to shout but it came out a whisper.
Tears
began
started to roll down his face.
(I think it needs another line added - to complete the sequence. And I feel there should be a chapter change here,
even though we aren’t switching locations – new characters introduced and a change of pace)
- The whole Ms which includes the 10 chapter edit will then be sent back to the author after having been renamed and redated: e.g. BookTitle-PW Edit 1-14.02.22.docx.
-
The author agrees the red changes and turns them back to black. Bits they disagree with or want to alter,
they should type in
green
and send this version of the Ms back to the editor renamed once again: e.g. BookTitle-Author Edit 2-20.02.22.docx.
So, the editing example given above would now look like this:
James levered himself into a sitting position and leant against the wall, his legs spread wide. He pulled the body towards him,
wrapped his arms around his dead friend and held him like a child. Andy, his face blown away by the gunshot, was still clutching the piece of paper.
“Help. Help me. For Christ’s sake, please. . .” James tried to shout but it came out a whisper.
Tears began to roll down his face.
He clung to the body, rocking it gently. “Jesus, Andy. . .” (Does this work?)
- This section of the book is agreed by the editor who puts the Ms into black type and then moves on to the next section of the book,
repeats the process in 1. and 2. above and sends the Ms back to the author renamed and re-dated each time. The author repeats 3. above.
- After this process is completed, we end up with the final Edited Master
- Another member of the editorial team gives the book a final read through.
- The final proof read is the responsibility of the author. Please make sure you read every word and check for grammar.
It helps if you have a recent version of Word. It is very clear when it comes to things like hyphenation, and a bit OTT with regard to commas,
but the blue underlining does help point out mistakes.
