March and April are big months for the Shires Press Series program and all those involved with it. With the help of Southern Vermont College Professor Daisy Levy and Debbi Wraga of Northshire Bookstore, we, the authors, have finished our part in the process. At this moment in time, we have finalized our edits and our book covers have been completed. A lot has happened in the past month and a half, to say the least.

Since the middle of February, we have already had five different deadlines pass. February 23rd was the deadline for content edits, as we were not allowed to add any more material to our books after this date. March 9th was the due date for the artwork for our book covers, and March 16th was the cut-off date for the majority of our copy edits. Following that, April 2nd was the deadline for our final edits, as we read through the first proofs of our books and made sure we caught any lingering errors. Finally, April 9th marked the very last day of our edits, as we went through the second copy of our proofs one last time to check that all the correct changes were made.

Now, the next and final step of the process is for our books to be printed. Once the final changes have been made, we will be sent an official copy of our book to read through one last time. Upon giving our books a final “okay”, the process of printing will begin. The fast pace of this process is extremely necessary, since we need to have our books printed and available for sale at our book reading event before the semester is over.

Our Shires Press Series book reading/signing event is held at Northshire Bookstore in Manchester on May 7th at 5:30 pm. The other authors and I are all so excited to share our books with the public after this extensive process and all the hard work we’ve put into them! We hope to see you there, but if you can’t make it, be sure to stay tuned for the final installment of this series, along with a video with the inside scoop on the publishing process before the end of the year.

For now, here’s a sneak peak of our book covers!