Under the Cover, The Creation, production, and reception of a novel by Clayton Childress

We love books and we love buying them online, in our favorite bookstores and our houses populated by a lot of books but...
Do we know the process of the creation of a book from the first idea, intuition of the author to the final product, later sold on bookstores and online stores, and what it remains of it after its launch and reception?

If the answer is no, this book Under the Cover, The Creation, production, and reception of a novel by Clayton Childress is for you!

Published by Princeton University Press it will reveal to the reader the amazing work that there is behind the publication of a book.

Written with great love, accuracy, attention for every little detail, it is extremely clear in the exposition of the various steps of the creation of a book, it's a great reading, captivating and  interesting!

Intriguing from the beginning to the end, this book can't be put down for a second.

Mr. Childress will analyze the creation from the beginning to the end of Jarrettsville a novel published by Counterpoint in 2009, written by Cornelia Nixon. The tale: a real historical murder in the profound South of the USA.

Under the Cover will largely touch a lot of topic of book industry.  The main differences between recent authors, in general people with another very well paid work, like in Nixon's case and so without the stress of writing a book feeling the pressure of making money with it for a living, if compared with authors of the past.
We will discover that Mario Puzo decided to write The Godfather  for desperation thinking this one his latest chance before to giving up with this career.
Bloomsbury decided to publish Harry Potter, but just few copies at first.

Publishing houses, their marketing strategies, their fields of specializations under the lenses of Childress, like also the role of agents in a writer's life.
In the past their role "limited", now a bridge, the most powerful one between the author and publishers.

Nixon fired her first agent, hiring a new one, Weil, the same agent by Fannie Flagg (Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Café) because she was searching for something else. And because she wanted to be...read. The story of her first two books and her first agent is very interesting.

Childress will explain the genesis of Jarrettsville from the first version created in a Starbucks for a story of time well-spent, to the final editing and important changes wanted by the publishing house later.

A writer is not alone in the process of writing.

In the creative final process of a book every element is important: title, cover, synopsis, reviews, the book launch.
Every market is analyzed.
The power of Amazon if compared with other markets and its ability of helping authors in the process of selling copies of their books makes the difference, tells us the author.

Childress will explain how the New York Times, the most important and prestigious newsmagazine where all the authors would want to be launched, pick up successful books and authors.
The New York Times receives 1000 books submissions every week but just few books will receive the privilege of being read, reviewed and suggested to the readers.

We will also appreciate how the final product in commerce is lived in book groups located in various areas of the country.

But what we will understand the most thanks to Under the Cover is that buying a book means to buying the final and definitive piece  of a long process of materialization of ideas, purposes, expectations.


I thank Princeton University Press for the physical copy of this wonderful book!



Anna Maria Polidori