I spent a fair chunk of time this weekend going over the latest draft of the book. The figures are now in it, the layout is mostly done, and the copy editor has made a lot of changes to it. Those changes are often quite subtle but have a very obvious effect: they make the text readable.

It's not that what we turned in wasn't readable, but compared to what we got back from the copy editor, it's like night and day. I was reading chapter 3 last night when I realized "Hey, this stuff seems pretty well written... Did *we* do that?" It really flows now.

Today I received a copy of the copy editor's notes so that I could see every change that she recommended. There are tons of them. On every page. I expected it. But still, as I've looked over a few of the pages, I can't help but to think "Damn, she's good!"

Thank you, Leanne Soylemez.

In a few more days, we'll have our final feedback in to O'Reilly. When they send it to be printed, I'll post a picture of the "we finally got the book done" gift I'm buying myself. I had originally planned to get a new laptop, but that's just not gonna happen...

Posted by jzawodn at March 01, 2004 12:59 PM

Reader Comments
# Brad Fitzpatrick said:

"Damn, she's is good!"

No wonder they needed to make corrections. :-)

on March 1, 2004 02:09 PM
# Asa Bour said:

Let me guess... You bought a glider?

on March 1, 2004 02:13 PM
# Jeremy Zawodny said:

Brad:

Yeah, no shit. :-(

I'll fix that.

on March 1, 2004 02:16 PM
# david said:

Sanity check for writers.. Your editor? I'm glad to hear that you're getting news with the book again. Its been so long since i've heard book news..when do they/you estimate that it'll be out?

on March 1, 2004 03:41 PM
# Doug said:

Jeremy, any news on Sterling's PHP Developer's Cookbook edition 3? Congrats on the book, I look forward to picking up a copy.

on March 1, 2004 03:41 PM
# Aaron said:

So when's the book going to be available? Weeks? Months? I'm seriously itchin to get it. Thanks a lot.

on March 6, 2004 04:09 PM
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