Dispatch from the Razor's Edge, the Blog of Michael Stephen Fuchs
Page Proofs!
"The most important quality any piece of writing can have is doneness."
                 - Fred Barnes

     And so week before last, I got typeset page proofs of the book sent over from Macmillan. And after proceeding to ignore them for several days, then struggling to spend several evenings (or parts thereof) not drinking, so as to be in compliance with the old writerly adage to "write drunk, edit sober", I finally got these done and off my desk yesterday. It was my first look at the book after the editing, copyediting, and typesetting processes . . .

Here's the funny thing: I can remember, years ago, when I was writing this thing (my first book), fantasizing about one day getting page proofs couriered over for my review . . . well, let me tell you, there's nothing glamourous about it. At all. First of all, they're not on glossy paper – just regular old printer paper. Secondly, reviewing them, I found, was simply another repetition of the routine I've gone through about 692 times over the better part of a decade – sitting there with a red pen, re-reading prose I'm really very sick of, marking a never-ending flood of typos, formatting issues, and years-late-to-the-party changes of heart about word choice . . .

But at least it's done! (I think.) We go to press in October. And I had a couple of nice surprises about support for the project. The thing is, I'm under an imprint which my friend Peter memorably characterized as being "for special needs authors": Macmillan New Writing. So, aside from the unlikelihood of there being much, if any, marketing budget behind the book, I had actually got under the impression that there would be, like, a generic design for the books in this series. So, I'd actually taken a flier at some graphic design myself – which I threw on a starter web site for the book – when my editor (whom I adore, by the way, he's a complete prince) sent over cover artwork! He even told me the guy who they got to do it is "one of the best book designers in the business". That was a surpise! And the word "bestseller" even slipped his lips at one point – albeit in a very tongue-in-cheek fashion. But still. Anyway, please send everyone you've ever known by the site. Throwaway comments about bestsellerdom aside, I'm going to need all the help I can get – even just to sell enough books so that I might ever get another one published. (The only thing more hopeless than a never-published novelist is a novelist who has had exactly one book published, and that didn't sell . . .)


  my books  
about
close photo of Michael Stephen Fuchs

Fuchs is the author of the novels The Manuscript and Pandora's Sisters, both published worldwide by Macmillan in hardback, paperback and all e-book formats (and in translation); the D-Boys series of high-tech, high-concept, spec-ops military adventure novels – D-Boys, Counter-Assault, and Close Quarters Battle (coming in 2016); and is co-author, with Glynn James, of the bestselling Arisen series of special-operations military ZA novels. The second nicest thing anyone has ever said about his work was: "Fuchs seems to operate on the narrative principle of 'when in doubt put in a firefight'." (Kirkus Reviews, more here.)

Fuchs was born in New York; schooled in Virginia (UVa); and later emigrated to the San Francisco Bay Area, where he lived through the dot-com boom. Subsequently he decamped for an extended period of tramping before finally rocking up in London, where he now makes his home. He does a lot of travel blogging, most recently of some very  long  walks around the British Isles. He's been writing and developing for the web since 1994 and shows no particularly hopeful signs of stopping.

You can reach him on .

THE MANUSCRIPT by Michael Stephen Fuchs
PANDORA'S SISTERS by Michael Stephen Fuchs
DON'T SHOOT ME IN THE ASS, AND OTHER STORIES by Michael Stephen Fuchs
D-BOYS by Michael Stephen Fuchs
COUNTER-ASSAULT by Michael Stephen Fuchs
ARISEN, Book One - Fortress Britain, by Glynn James & Michael Stephen Fuchs
ARISEN, Book Two - Mogadishu of the Dead, by Glynn James & Michael Stephen Fuchs
ARISEN : Genesis, by Michael Stephen Fuchs
ARISEN Book Three - Three Parts Dead, by Glynn James & Michael Stephen Fuchs
ARISEN Book Four - Maximum Violence, by Glynn James & Michael Stephen Fuchs
ARISEN Book Five - EXODUS, by Glynn James & Michael Stephen Fuchs
ARISEN Book Six - The Horizon, by Glynn James & Michael Stephen Fuchs
ARISEN, Book Seven - Death of Empires, by Glynn James & Michael Stephen Fuchs
ARISEN, Book Eight - Empire of the Dead by Glynn James & Michael Stephen Fuchs
ARISEN : NEMESIS by Michael Stephen Fuchs

ARISEN, Book Nine - Cataclysm by Michael Stephen Fuchs
ARISEN, Book Ten - The Flood by Michael Stephen Fuchs
ARISEN, Book Eleven - Deathmatch by Michael Stephen Fuchs
ARISEN, Book Twelve - Carnage by Michael Stephen Fuchs
ARISEN, Book Thirteen - The Siege by Michael Stephen Fuchs
ARISEN, Book Fourteen - Endgame by Michael Stephen Fuchs
ARISEN : Fickisms
ARISEN : Odyssey
ARISEN : Last Stand
ARISEN : Raiders, Volume 1 - The Collapse
ARISEN : Raiders, Volume 2 - Tribes
Black Squadron
ARISEN : Raiders, Volume 3 - Dead Men Walking
ARISEN : Raiders, Volume 4 - Duty
ARISEN : Raiders, Volume 5 - The Last Raid
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