The tail end of our design for An Extraordinary Peace: St. Seraphim, Flame of Sarov  has finally reached completion.  It has been an extraordinarily eye-opening process for me to walk through my first publication from the ground up.  With our poetry book, Mysteries of Silence, the book came to me already edited, proofed, and with a strong formatting design that just had to be transferred to the appropriate software.  This book, however, started with an old typewritten copy squeezed to the very edges of the paper and “mimeographed” several times already so that some letters were blurred and difficult to see.

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With the author, Fr. Lazarus, having reposed in 1992, it was impossible to consult with him over puzzling words or passages, and there were a number of them to deal with.  I used the former publication for a guide at times (especially for obscured passages or words), the opinions of Dominica Cranor, the trustee of his literary estate with whom I consulted throughout the editing process, and I relied on prayer as much as anything to help me make decisions about the text and design.

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Having finally finished the editing, many hours were spent proofreading.  I consider myself a fairly good reader who commonly catches small mistakes.  But I certainly learned what seasoned editors already know: your own eyes just aren’t enough.  I’d read through the manuscript no less than 5 times, 2 of them intensively proofreading, when we passed it to a cadre of 3 willing souls to help us at the end, all of whom have professional skills they could temporarily lend the project.  And of course they found a number of mistakes and inconsistencies I had missed.  Finally done, then, right?  No, not quite.  I was very dismayed to find STILL MORE very small but clear mistakes in going over the proofer’s corrections with the designer.  In the end, I copped to the “Navajo Blanket” story (an intentional small mistake is woven in as a reminder of humility), realizing there are probably still more mistakes, but it was time for the book to go to press.

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Wow, was the cover design process a chore, as well!  We couldn’t finish up until the manuscript itself was set in stone and we had our firm page #.  The printer then gave us the spine width measurement so that the designer could finish her work.

In this interim, a few of us weighed in on color and design, trying to refine the basic template to get to the point where we all felt great about it.  As they say, “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder,” and so is design theory, as well, apparently!  This is where I truly appreciated working with an Orthodox team.  Differences arose, naturally, however all of us compromised, stepped back a bit, and peacefully came to a cover that we all concurred was strong and reflective of the values we shared for the book.

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I received the Index near the very end of the manuscript preparation and was quite surprised at how thorough it was.  A friend had emerged and offered her services for this important task.  Since she was not Orthodox, I had gone through the book earlier and indicated many passages that Orthodox readers would want indexed.  She furthermore applied her skills to create a number of additional subjects and all the proper names in the book, handing us a very thorough Index indeed.  I got further input from a few people with a Russian background to cull the names a bit, knowing many (some just first names and nothing else) would no longer be recognizable to readers.

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The thing that surprised me and the indexer as well was the extremely long list of miracles found throughout the book.  It was rather awe-inspiring to both of us to see listed all those unusual instances of God’s grace and mercy extended through the life of this man.

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We switched printers just weeks before the book was ready, and this enabled us to order hardback copies.  I was very happy about this, but it entailed creating yet more covers: one for the foil on the book spine, and a dustjacket.  Dustjackets have flaps that must be filled with something, and so I was emailing people at the last moment, trying to find those who were already familiar with the book and could comment on it for us.  Thankfully, several people emerged who were enthusiastic and available.  They gave us wonderful endorsements which all focussed on different aspects of what this book offers. I was thrilled to get them.The only task left then was choosing colors for the hardbound cover and the endpapers.  I compared probably 15 strong contenders out of the over 100 samples colors to choose from, looking over them for several days before finally choosing 2 colors in the gold range.

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Files were uploaded digitally and I only await the proofs to check one last time before the printrun is initiated.  We are ordering 5,000 copies, which brings the per-book price down to a point where we can offer a reasonable price for such a long (358pp) and important book, making it affordable for a large number of people.  At this point our pre-sale has raised most of the money needed to fund this run with about $1700 still remaining to be raised over the next 3 weeks.

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After beginning this well over a year ago, it is a great relief to me to see it “gone out the door” and on its way to realization.  It is truly one of the most tremendous Orthodox books I have read, combining the sweetness and intimacy of a biography like Father Arseny with the powerful teaching based on experience of many of our more theological books.  What remains to me now is to clear a big space in our upstairs stockroom to house them.  How much space will 5,000 books take up?  Well, I’ll find out!

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