Working Online…it works.
I promised I’d share my publication events as they occurred. Accordingly…
The feared schedule slip did not transpire—yet. My publisher is projecting Hearts will be on the street by Mid-March. However, if we continue to examine and parse each word and blank space on some 250 odd pages, we’ll be hard-pressed to make that date. On the other hand, the edits don’t generate much discussion. One-way changes speed the process.
Additionally, In the past week, I completed an Author Information form and a Cover Art worksheet. The first was a combo of personal and professional information about me, and marketing information for the book. Examples:
- A synopsis,
- A bio,
- Personal data,
- Back cover blurb (Hello query letter),
- Information about what makes the book unique or compelling,
- Competition,
- A tag, or logline,
- Previously published information, and much, much more.
The cover art worksheet asked about the specific lead characters, including detailed descriptions. It asked about the tone or mood appropriate for the cover. It asked about the book’s theme and for descriptions or passages that summarized the book and it’s general tone. It also solicited my input about what the cover should be. Nice touch. Will it be considered? We’ll see.
Friday, I held a collaborative, online edit with my publisher. We used the very cool tool, EtherPad.
The official EtherPad blurb says…
EtherPad is the only web-based word processor that allows people to work together in really real-time.
Other "real-time" editors like Google Docs work by broadcasting an updated copy of the document to everyone every 15 seconds. This creates a noticeable lag that gets in the way of collaboration. You start editing something, only to find 10 seconds later that someone else deleted it.
Etherpad updates every copy of the document every half second. This 30x increase in speed changes the experience completely. When multiple people edit the same document simultaneously, any changes are instantly reflected on everyone’s screen.
And, it works. The interface looks like…
It’s very simple to use. One party opens a public pad…which, by the way, requires no sign-up registration, or file download. You simply click on a button and you’re presented with the interface above.
There are three major areas.
- Your file appears in the large, area with the highlighted text to the left. Files are created on the spot, or, imported from your computer.
- Users appear in the top right box. Each has a unique color code. In the example above, I was assigned yellow. Other visitors can have any other available color.
- The bottom right box is the discussion, or chat area. It works like any chat program you’ve ever used. Type what you want to say in the “chat strip”—immediately above the orange “Feedback” button, press Enter, and your words appear in the box above–the one with 13 January in it. We used this area for a “discussion” about the changes. One of us then made them in the large box to the left.
- Changes are highlighted in the color assigned to the user and are visible to BOTH parties as the change is made. Very nice. To illustrate, note the highlighted text above. I added that sentence. Since I was assigned yellow, and since this a change to the original document, my edit shows in yellow highlight. At the sessions end, you can make all the colors disappear, leaving a clean document for export.
- You can also change, delete, bold, underline, indent, and add bullets. Very cool. What it doesn’t have is a spell checker, so, beware of typos and spelling errors.
We do about two hours of work per day, my editor says more than that and she begins to miss things. So, that’s what’s happening. If you want to know more about EtherPad. Follow the earlier link, or visit their FAQs.
Okay, thank you for stopping by. I hope you’ll do me the honor of another visit on Wednesday. Until then, best wishes. Galen.
Themocracy
Another interesting tool, Galen! This one seems almost a combination of IM and Track Changes. I like the idea of working in real time. Wonder if online critique groups would find this useful, too?
Elizabeth
Mystery Writing is Murder
Mystery Lovers’ Kitchen
That’s a neat program. The real-time is neat and probably very helpful.
BTW, I like the new header.
Sounds like you’re working hard, but making progress. And you’ve given us another great program to check out.
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Meryl K. Evans, Elizabeth S Craig. Elizabeth S Craig said: A tool for online, real time collaborative editing: http://tinyurl.com/yzjmbmh @GalenKindley [...]
That’s really fascinating! Isn’t technology great?
Wow that is a great tool. I didn’t know about it. Yes, Yes, keep us posted.
More treasures from the Galen! Excellent. I shall check this out in due course.
Elspeth
Etherpad sounds like a WONDERFUL tool! Thanks for sharing and the lead.
The Old Silly
Never used EtherPad, but it definitely looks like a great tool. Thanks for sharing the process you’re going through. Very interesting.
Helen
Straight From Hel
This is fascinating. I can see how writers could greatly benefit from using this. Thanks. I’m going over there to explore.
That’s a great tool. Kind of like using ‘comments’ in Word, but in real time. I’ve used Dropbox for sharing files, but haven’t had to deal with any ‘real time’ edits. This would have been handy when I was out of town, working from my laptop and its webmail program, and my editor and I were trying to work out a totally different ending for my upcoming book. We did get it done, but it was a bit cumbersome.
That is so neat. I’m surprised I haven’t seen this in my professional setting. We do see techs who can take over my desktop and I still have functionality but this would work great for working with people online in multiple areas, other than just writing.
My dad is having two books published this year by a boutique publisher and he is still in the editing stage. He is really early in that stage and they are telling him April or more likely May. They have to get moving!
Ether-pad! I love it. I wonder how it would work when dealing with my gazillion managers with the govt. stuff? Do I want them editing real time? Nah, I need space because I might blurb out how I’m really feeling. Yikes. Sounds like you are on track and I so look forward to this birthing!
It’s great following your journey here, and what an amazing editing tool. You’re really working one-on-one, almost in a virtual dialogue, it seems.
This is really interesting stuff, Galen. And the editing tool is awesome. Thanks for sharing the journey with us.