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Friday, February 10, 2023

I finished my book!

The last few weeks have been hectic. I got the first page proofs about a month ago and my job was to proof read those pages and prepare the index. Proof reading is tedious and the pressure is on because after that you can only make minor changes. I found several serious errors that I had made so that was a bit deflating. In one of them, I completely screwed up the calculations of the size of a typical protein-coding gene and the amount of the genome that was devoted to genes.

The index was hard because I wanted to have as comprehensive an index as possible. Publishers usually give you the option of hiring someone to do the index and taking the charges out of your royalty. If you look at some of the books on your shelf you can easily pick out the ones that were indexed by someone who doesn't understand the material.

The next step is "second pages" or the almost final version of the book. I had to proof read that version knowing that this was the last chance to fix anything. This includes the index, which I was seeing for the first time in a formatted version after the copy editor had dealt with it. I found 55 issues in this version that had to be fixed. This included several copy edit changes that I had missed on two previous passes (e.g. "cyIne" instead of "cytosine.") That's very scary—I wonder how many others we've missed?1

That's it for me! The book is now "locked" for me. The publisher will deal with the issues I found, and a few others, and then send it off to the printer at the end of next week. It's still scheduled for release on May 16th. You can't see much about my book on the US version of Amazon but there's more on the Canadian version [What's in Your Genome].


1. There have always been some errors in my textbooks but all the copy editors had degrees in biochemistry so there were lots of people who could catch mistakes. Publishing a trade book is an entirely different kettle of fish because none of the people who worked on the book knew anything about the subject and most had no science background whatsoever.

20 comments :

Karen D said...

"This included several copy edit changes that I had missed on two previous passes (e.g. "cyIne" instead of "cytosine.") That's very scary—I wonder how many others we've missed?"

It's not for no reason they say the best way to find a typo is publish. Second best is show the slide to your class.

Anonymous said...

Congratulations.

apalazzo said...

Good luck Larry. I'm looking forward to reading the book.

John Harshman said...

I sure hope this gets a major review in Science, which might bring it to the attention of some of the "no junk" molecular biologists.

Larry Moran said...

@John Harshman

I'm pretty sure Elisabeth Pennisi won't touch it. :-)

She doesn't get a lot of praise in my book.

John Harshman said...

I expect she won't be the one asked to review it.

gert korthof said...

Larry, I never published a book myself, my question is: when preparing an one-author book for publication, is there peer review involved like the peer-review at scientific journals? Or did you send chapters to colleagues for comments or help?

Jon Peters said...

Will definitely purchase your book. Most say 50%; Shubin says 75%. But 90%? Can't wait.

Justin Nodwell said...

Great new Larry - congratulations. I know that's been a long slog!

Larry Moran said...

@gert korthof

There's no official "peer review" like you see in scientific journals or in textbooks but the publisher does send the manuscript out for review and bases its decision on whether to go ahead on those reviews and how I respond.

I also sent the manuscript to several colleagues for comment but most of them didn't read the manuscript. Some colleagues were very helpful.

Warren Johnson said...

Does a similar quantitative measure of junk in the genome exist for animals with a very short generation time? Could one then decisively show that putative junk really is junk by breeding generations with those genes "knocked out"?

Hemidactylus said...

As a regular reader who loves the blog, I think you should offer and push for epub and/or kindle versions. I rarely buy print anything anymore. I would probably buy the print version if it’s the only choice, but digital copies broaden the audience. I would purchase the digital copy. Please! It’s the 21st century.

Larry Moran said...

@Hemidactylus

There will be an electronic version of the book but there's no need to insult those of us who prefer print versions of our books. I realize that this is the 21st century but that doesn't mean we all have to keep our reference books in the cloud instead of on our bookshelves.

There are some very good reasons to buy print versions. For one thing, they are the only copies that I will sign! :-)

Graham Jones said...

I am a mathematician. Kindle displays inline maths formulas very badly, and I have regretted buying books in digital form for this reason. The problem of displaying maths on computer screens was solved in 1986.

I will probably buy your book, with no strong preference for format, but I avoid Amazon.



gert korthof said...

Larry, thanks for your reply.

I own a KOBO ebook reader now for some 10 years and have over 100 books on it. All in the same old reader. Free software updates on a regular basis. Perfect. I have experienced that ebooks lower the threshold of buying a book. eBooks are cheaper nowadays, sometimes good books for ridiculous low prices! It certainly makes it easy just trying a book you know in advance you won't read from begin to end.
The only disadvantage is that KOBO ereaders have no color, but is circumvented by reading your books in the browser (recent new feature added by KOBO).
On recent exception: Evolution 5th ed. Futuyma, Kirkpatrick (2023) hardback...

SPARC said...

Some advantages of real books: You can share them with friends/colleagues and/or donate them to your library, the medium is stable for ages and you will not experience any compatibility issues.The poor searchability provided by the index may be considered disadvantageous, though.

judmarc said...

Oh now, Dr. Moran, can't you append an electronic signature to my electronic copy? ;-)

judmarc said...

"You can share them with friends/colleagues...." You can lend electronic books to friends/colleagues now, but I believe it's on a time-limited basis, not very satisfactory for a book like this.

Doug said...

Your book is finally available for preorder on Amazon.com.

Unknown said...

Would love to discuss your book on our podcast. Always happy to help a fellow Canadian. Email me please at Leftatvalley@outlook.com. Let's talk- Thanks