Dear Supporters
By now you will have received an email from Unbound announcing that we achieved our first goal in getting the book to you.
'Trans: A British History' reached the funding target at 9.24am yesterday (Sun 5th March) following a very generous pledge from Stonewall co-founder and peer of the realm Lord Michael Cashman CBE. That means that Unbound will now work with me to publish the book.
As of this moment, 422 people like you have supported the project, preordering well over 500 copies of the book. It's a fantastic achievement in just under 40 days. And it's a great motivation for the 25 carefully chosen contributors who are going to be writing their eyewitness views and analysis from down the years.
Thank you from ALL of us. I can't describe how grateful I am for your support, and I feel an enormous responsibility to now get the book into your hands as quickly as possible.
Over the coming weeks and months I will keep you in touch with the production process. It takes a lot of time and the skills of many publishing specialists to get a high quality book into peoples' hands, and I promise that I will use this 'Shed' to share details of the progress with you. In some instances that will include exclusive access to draft content and more details of what goes on behind the scenes.
So that you have an idea of what to expect:
- The first step now is that the project changes hands at Unbound. We switch from dealing with our commissioning editor to one of the publisher's production managers.
- The contributors are already preparing outlines of what they plan to write. My first priority as editor is to agree those outlines and then set a deadline for each person to submit their first draft. I expect that the bulk of the first drafts will come in just after Easter.
- Whilst that is going on, I shall also begin interviewing many more people with memories to share. Those recorded interviews will be included into the audio archive package which some people have pledged for. Those recordings will be invaluable for social historians to take the themes in the book to another level. The interviews enable me, as editor, to cross check contemporary accounts and they will also provide quotations which will flesh out the layout of the book.
- Once all the first drafts are in, I will then review what we've got and start stitching the manuscript together. Inevitably there may be revisions required, so requests for those will go back to the authors. I will also be doing additional work sourcing more press cuttings and photos and ensuring we have the appropriate permissions to use them.
- With mutual agreement on the contributors' work in late July and August, it is then my job to polish the parts, and apply literary 'glue' to the joins, so that the manuscript is ready for me to submit in late summer.
- The work doesn't stop there. The manuscript will then go through several stages of rigorous editing -- probably with more changes required from me -- before it then moves on to the layout and design teams. A cover will be designed and agreed. The look and feel of the book will be discussed. This is quite a lengthy and intense process.
- Finally, when all the layout and copy issues have been ironed out, I will have a proof copy to check before the book goes to the printers. It's at that stage that Unbound will also ask you to confirm how you want your name to appear.
This complex process is why the book won't reach you until early next year. The intention is to try and be ready before the beginning of LGBT History Month in February 2018. I'll be keeping you in touch with our progress at every stage, so you know how we are doing against that goal. The first and most important element is for me to deliver the manuscript on time later this Summer.
So, that's my life accounted for in 2017...
Once again thank you so much for the support which has made this exciting project possible. I promise that we will not disappoint.
Your adoring editor
Christine Burns