A: Michael
Lennie, Authoring Attorney and Literary Agent, Lennie Literary and Authors'
Attorneys:
"The
best answer is that you should ask your publisher what it means, since
it might have a different meaning to your publisher than it does to
other publishers. This information may be on your publisher's website
or in print form available from your publisher. Generally, camera-ready
copy is the final layout of a page (or in your case all the pages)
of the book, looking exactly as it should appear on the printed page
when it is published. [This definition is modified from a definition
appearing in Lingua Links Library, Version 4.0, published on CD-ROM
by SIL International, 1999.] If you Google camera-ready copy, you
will find 16,800,000 hits, including some publisher websites."
A: Richard
Hull, TAA Executive Director:
"Publishers,
after estimating the market potential of your book, will either absorb
preparation of final copy ready for photo offset or ask you to do
it. If you are asked to do so, you are in a position to attempt to
negotiate a higher royalty rate as you will be absorbing a cost that
other books will incur for the publisher. Camera ready copy is literally
copy in the format that the book will ultimately take, and will be
requested in a standard format, such as .pdf files, complete with
any pictorial material, tables, charts, diagrams that you want included.
You may want to hire a producer to work with to produce this camera
ready copy if you have no experience doing so. Or, if your department
is sufficiently traditional to have secretarial help, that may prove
to be your best resource. Consider employing a graduate assistant
with some editing experience."
