A-ha!

Promoting Your Book in 2009

It's not as hard as you may think. And, it's not as easy as you may think. But, in the end, it's after your book is completed - and published - that the real work begins. Regardless of how you published it, you are still the best person to market your book.

With the publishing industry changing so rapidly - big publishers cutting back on manuscripts, small publishers closing their doors, even POD companies cutting back on personnel, some people may think this is not a good time to write and promote a book.

They would be wrong. Write your book.

The Bailey’s Book Project – A community responds to tragedy

It’s hard to express how deeply honored we felt when our friend Sandra Beckwith asked our advice about a proposed book project. You see, Sandy is herself a published author with lots of experience. And the project is dear to her heart: Bailey’s Book, in memory of Bailey Goodman, one of the five “Fairport Angels” killed in a car accident in Bloomfield in June 2007.

Now the project is getting under way as “a community-wide literacy project” under the auspices of the Fairport Central School District’s (FCSD) Developmental Assets® Initiative. Bailey was a student leader in the developmental asset initiative and, since it meant so much to Bailey, her family designated the program as recipient of contributions made in her memory. The donations will fund the costs of the project and lots of the work will be done by a committee of volunteers, many of them Bailey’s friends and family members.

The full title will be, Bailey’s Book: A Community Celebrates Its Assets. As the project announcement explains, the book will be “a compilation of essays and pictures to be submitted by Fairport students and community members later this fall. Each essay and picture will incorporate at least one of the 40 developmental assets identified by the district’s asset building initiative.”

“This is a wonderful way to remember Bailey’s passion for asset building,” says Debra Tandoi, FCSD asset coordinator. “Bailey’s Book incorporates the district’s commitment to literacy and supporting a caring school community,” she adds.

The project website also notes: “Excerpts from Bailey’s school writing assignments will be interspersed throughout the book in a way that helps people discover what made Bailey special.”

Yvonne and I will be volunteering our time to help the committee with some of the design, layout, and production aspects. WME Books will help arrange for printing and distribution.

You can help, too! One of the goals is “to donate copies of Bailey's Book: A Community Celebrates Its Assets to as many classrooms and students in the Rochester area as possible.” Details on how you can donate to help widen the impact are on the Bailey’s Book website.

Look for progress reports, as we work with the Fairport students, Bailey's friends and family, and community volunteers, to bring this wonderful book project to life.

Help us plan Publishing 3.0

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The Writing Process: Step Two Parts of a Book

Now that we've beat the "how do I begin?" question to death... let's move on.

The idea of the starving writer sitting in his or her attic, surrounded by dust and old furniture, freezing in the winter, sweating in the summer, is just false. That was part of some old English novel...and it has seen its day.

Today, you have so many options for writing your book. The option you don't have is how... you must use a computer. If you write it longhand, or type it on a typewriter, it will have to be keyed into a computer, so... why not just use a computer?

If you are truly a starving writer, go to the library and use a computer there. I'm not sure how efficient that is...but, it's an option. Naturally, in addition to a computer you need a printer. You may have an opportunity to email your manuscript and/or proposal to an agent or a publisher, but they may want to see a hard copy at some point. Understand this: EVERYTHING looks different in print. It even sounds different.

Let's say you're writing a book that will include graphics of some sort. Fiction books might have images of places or people, scattered about. Non-fiction might have the same, or a non-fiction book might have graphs and charts. Anything that isn't text is an image and images require "placement." You can't just willy-nilly put your cursor next to a word and click "submit" and expect that image to be placed properly. Image placement takes time, talent, and energy. Books with images cost more - as they should.

Along with images, non-fiction books may include what we used to call footnotes. Today, we usually turn these citations into end notes, located at the back of the book for quick reference. Some authors include their citations within the text - to avoid having end notes. Just remember, citations are vital to your book - do not plagarize. Your publisher will know if you do and... you will never get published, anywhere, because in this day and age, the word will get out - fast.

An important part of your non-fiction book is the index. An index is a complicated thing to build. The software tools in use today are far better than those of yesteryear, but a true index needs human involvement. A real, live human being needs to double-check the software's version against what he or she believes should be in the index. Often, the human element will find things the software program missed, or miscalculated. Depending on the size of the book, this task can take days. People who create indexes are worth their weight in gold.

As the book is written, I hope you are thinking about the cover. The cover is vital...necessary...more important than the introduction, the forward, the end notes, and the index. Why? Because... people really do consider a book by its cover. If your cover is a turn off, no one will see the inside of the book. If you cannot create your own cover, if your publisher cannot create your cover, hire a real book cover designer. Not a designer. A book cover designer. You will be glad you did.

Speaking of the cover... do not overlook the back of the cover. A customized back cover includes a short blurb about the book, some testimonials (which you will get while the book is in galley stage, just before printing), and a picture with a short bio, of the author. People want to know who you are, what makes you so special that you got to write this book, and they want to hear what other people have to say about it. If you have celebrities at your fingertips, grab'em. Drop names. Yep - in this case, it helps sell books.

That's all for now. We'll get into the rest of the process next week. TTFN!

The Writing Process: A Beginning

When you get that first Aha! idea about writing a book, it usually thrills you with excitement. Maybe you're like we are and you run upstairs (or down) to share you wonderful idea with colleagues and friends.

"Wow! I just got this brainstorm of an idea about a new book...one that's never been done before!"

Ut-oh - "never been done before?" To be honest, there's no such thing. EVERYTHING HAS BEEN DONE BEFORE. There are no plot outlines left, they have all been plotted. Sorry.

Now, maybe your topic has been covered by other writers - but not in the same way you're planning to cover it. So, the "never been done before" should really be, "No one's approached it like this, before."

Great. That's a good start. Now, to support that assumption... you need to do some research and find out for sure whether or not your book idea has been done 'your' way before, is true. If it hasn't... well, get going. Start your book.

This is where a lot of new authors fall down.

"I don't know where to start," they whine. 

Writing Your Book: Begin at the Beginning

I've had a number of people ask me how to get started writing their book. For instance, a lot of people, when they find out what we do, say, "I've always wanted to write a book, but I don't know how to get started."

The easy way is... to start. The hard way is... to think about it day after day, and to put roadblocks up, like saying, "I don't know how to get started."

Truth is, putting pen to paper or fingers to keyboard is the best way to begin. If you have the idea already, great. The words will flow and you'll have your introduction or chapter one in no time.

What seems to hold people back is the worry that - they aren't good enough to write a book. That writing a book is a hard task, or a long task, or an arduous task. In reality, it's a task. Much like anything else. There is a beginning, a middle, and an end. Just like the book... a beginning, a middle and an end.

Sometimes I suggest doing a little bit of research. Visit Amazon and see if there are millions of other books on the same topic. That will tell you to make sure you have a new approach or a unique view to write about - one that will set your book apart from the millions of others on the same subject.

Next, visit a Barnes and Noble store and look for books relating to your topic. Don't limit yourself to books about the actual topic - expand your horizons and look at books about relating topics, or books about the opposite topic. In other words, check out your competition.

Don't ever believe your idea is so original that you have no competition. Even Harry Potter has competition.

Do you know what that is?

Thinking you're so original, so unique, so special that readers will want only what you're writing, is a recipe for failure. The key is to write what you know, but also, to know who else is writing it.

So, get started. Today is the best day to begin...

The Dickens you say . . . Texting a Novel?

The changes in how technology is affecting writing are not limited to blogs and other social media. My friend Seth over at the Cup 'O Books blog recently posted exploring one of the inevitable outgrowth of the increasing popularity of text messaging is that someone would apply it to other forms of expression—in this case a texted novel.  Textually.org reports that the novel "The Last Messages" by Finnish author Hannu Luntiala strings together about 1,000 of the texts and replies to tell the story of an IT-executive in Finland who resigns from his job and travels throughout Europe and India over 332 pages. Although admitting that he hasn't read any of the novel (I can't read Finnish either).  As usual, Seth's post is thoughtful and asks some interesting questions about this use of language and expression, but he comes down to the following:

Unfortunately, I think texting a novel will really turn out to be like writing one in crayon; nothing more than using a tool for creating words out of its expected context.  I haven’t read the book, but I suspect that it is more novelty than serious undertaking.  Of course, that doesn’t mean it won’t be fun.

The links in the post by Textually.org, which focuses on texting and SMS shows that this is the tip of the iceberg.  There are reports on authors who are sending novels out to cell phone users as serials and even mainstream publishers (well...Harlequin) are getting in on the act.  I've been reading blog posts on my cell through Google Reader for a while now and, other than the eyestrain, it works for me (and would work better if I had a slightly larger screen) [the part in italics was added a couple of days later--I just couldn't let the sentence hang there . . .]  Of corS,  dEz R not RitN n SMS lngwij (follow the link at the end of Seth's post to translate if you need to).

Yvonne's Pet Peeves: 1

Short note - I'm reading a lot of manuscripts and white papers, lately. All good content. I love it!

However, I have a complaint. Will those of you out there putting two spaces between sentences please cut it out! That's old, 20th century training, when newspapers and books were printed with typesetting.

The double space thing between sentences is no longer necessary! It drives me crazy! It puts too much space between some sentences and not others, depending on the font.

We can converse about it, if you like. But, if you send me a manuscript, and we work together, I will delete that extra space. It screams old century thinking.

Any comments?

Seth Godin's Advice for Authors

What Seth calls a "short list" of advice for authors reads a lot like the chapter outline for another great book! Nearly every one of his 19 items could stand more elaboration. Maybe we'll get the chance to revisit the list items individually, but for now we especially recommend these excerpts:

2. ... build a blog ...

3. Pay for an editor ...

7. Think really hard before you spend a year trying to ... get your book published by a 'real' publisher ...

8. Your cover matters [i.e. pay for a professional cover designer] ...

12. Blog mentions ... matter a lot.

And the one that should crystalize the most important and valuable ROI a nonfiction author should be focused on (hint: it's not cash in the form of advances or royalties):

19. Writing a book is a tremendous experience. It pays off intellectually. It clarifies your thinking. It builds credibility. It is a living engine of marketing and idea spreading, working every day to deliver your message with authority. You should write one.

Read # 19 again, slowly, line-by-line, and let those benefits sink in:

Writing a book is a tremendous experience.

[Wtiting a book] pays off intellectually.

[Wtiting a book] clarifies your thinking.

[Publising a book] builds credibility.

[Your book] is a living engine of marketing and idea spreading, working every day to deliver your message with authority.

You should write one.

Now GO! Read the rest of Seth's tips . . . and follow some of the trackback links, too (some good ones here, here, and here, but the list keeps growing every time I go back, so explore).

Stress Over Posting

Here's a question, what do you write about when you have nothing to say and no topic in mind? You ponder, and stress, and stress some more, and then you give up and write a post about it!

Being the newcomer to the WME team, with little to no blogging experience prior to my arrival I might add, I have been uncomfortable knowing that the day was approaching where it was my turn to write a post in this blog.

Being a college student I am quite familiar with writing when I have to. The difference between this task and writing a college paper is that college determines the topic rather than allowing me the freedom to write whatever I please. I have been programmed to write only what is required using at least 1000 words or more, the equivalent of four pages double spaced, with one inch margins on each side. This I can pull off in no time at all. When asked to write a simple post on this blog, however, I found that it took me weeks to create just a few sentences.

So this is my post - showing the frustration and anxieties that go into writing something for the first time - something that other people may actually read. Especially when you are working in an environment surrounded by talented authors! This group of individuals has published books as well as managing their own blogs - that they write in daily. A little intimidating, you may agree?

So here is my challenge-can I impress my boss and colleagues with my somewhat mediocre to hopefully potentially fabulous writing ability? Any advice out there?