Today I finished making revisions to the book based on comments from the proofreader. All told, there have been five people providing feedback and comments for how I should modify, fix, and improve the content:
- me
- the technical reviewer
- the project editor
- the development editor
- the proof reader
My editing started as soon as I started writing, but it has been an iterative process. The technical reviewer made sure what I said was correct, and occasionally caught typos. The project editor, Tom Jacob, focused on the workflow of the overall process and contributed comments about the physical structure of the book and what publisher content should be included.
The development editor, Dr. Ian Hough, has been my constant online companion for the last few months. It is his responsibility to sign off on the final content. He provided suggestions and ideas, and checked that I made good revisions. Sometimes he corrected the revised text when I made mistakes (hey, it was late!). The proofreader did the nitty-gritty editing for punctuation and clarity. Ian filtered those suggestions and passed them along to me. He then checked, again, that I had done the correct revisions.
Some “suggestions” were really just that. They were optional, but I incorporated almost all of them.
Here are five things I’ve kept in mind or learned through this editing and revision process:
- This is not about my ego, it’s about producing the best content.
- The mathematics and science must be correct. (I knew this!)
- If anyone thinks something is unclear, then I rewrite it.
- I need to use many more commas.
- It’s important to correctly use the right word in standard pairs such as “that/which” and “already/all ready.”
My bonus rule is to eliminate superfluous words.
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| In December, 2019, Packt Publishing published my book Dancing with Qubits: How quantum computing works and how it can change the world. Through a series of blog entries, I talk about the writing and publishing process, and then about the content. |
