I need a title, my working title had been “how do I talk to my mum”, but that got dropped and a new title and then subtitle emerged as clearer signposting to what the book is about.  Compassion with Dementia – an essential guide to living well with dementia.

The text needs to be checked for grammar and clarity, so it needs editing and changing.  Mostly I agreed with my editor on the changes, but there were a couple of things that I refused to change, it felt important to me.  It must be my book after all!  Getting someone else to edit is easier, as when I read the text of the book, I read what I think I wrote or what I think is there but is not necessarily what I actually wrote.  The feedback is always a bit uncomfortable, but nevertheless helpful.

There are several steps that can be taken at the same time after the manuscript is finalised.  Books need reviews and it is helpful to share some manuscripts, so that they can provide reviews, which can then be published on the book cover.  It is very scary sharing the manuscript with anyone for the first time, as the only people who had seen any of it was me and my editor.  It feels very exposing!  But eventually I will need to get used to this feeling, as the purpose is to get the book out and for lots of people to read it.  Maybe it was because it was people that I knew!

Another step that can be done is to have the manuscript formatted for a book, so it is no longer words on many sheets of electronic paper!  It has to be formatted for the right size of a book, so I measured some other books and worked out how big I wanted my book to be.  Apparently, it requires different formatting for an e-book, so the text needs changing twice.  It can be done electronically, but a better result is obtained when someone does it.  So with a recommendation, I was off to Fiverr!

As well as formatting, I had to think about the cover.  I looked at some different books, decided what I did like and what I didn’t and had a basic idea of what it will look like, which includes getting images.  There are lots of image sites, the price of images varies significantly and the other point about images is making sure that I purchased the correct rights to them, so as not to create problems at a later date, when I did not have the correct permissions for the images.

For a book, there is the front and back covers and for paper books, the spine needs designing!  It was not something that had occurred to me, but as soon as it was mentioned, of course I realised that it would need designing!

The covers need text about me and about the book, as well as images of me, so I had professional portrait pictures taken.

My book will shortly be published, I am in the process of finalising the details of its publication and will provide more information shortly. I am very excited about this project and have learnt a lot along the way. Stay tuned for more information………..