Tag Archives: books

Mar 11 2013

Editing/Formatting Checklist

Here is a list of what to look for when editing and formatting a book.

Formatting checklist for a paperback book:

  • Same style and size of headers, footers, and page numbers throughout.
  • Chapter headers on even-numbered pages match the actual chapter headings.
  • Pages are numbered correctly and the style is consistent throughout the book (except for switching from Roman numerals to Arabic numbers).
  • Look for strange page breaks, line breaks, changes in alignment, changes in font style or size, inconsistent indents, and inconsistent vertical spacing.
  • Check the page references in the contents and index.
  • Match the contents entries with the chapter headings.
  • Consistent heading and subheading styles.
  • Check that all references to pages, figures, tables, equations, etc. are correct.
  • Consistent bullet formatting.
  • Examine page borders, figures, equations, tables, captions, and textboxes.
  • Quickly thumb through the book to verify the vertical justification.
  • Manually deal with hyphens, widows, orphans, and rivers when editing is complete.

Editing checklist for a paperback book:

  • Inspect the title page carefully.
  • Match the title and contributors on the cover, spine, title page, and copyright page with published information.
  • Check copyright page and front matter carefully.
  • Spelling and grammatical mistakes, and word confusion (like homophones).
  • Repeated words like the the (can also search on the word processor).
  • Punctuation, like proper use of -, –, and —.
  • Storyline, plot, character development, chronology, etc.
  • Quotes face the right way.
  • Inappropriate changes in tense and person.
  • Passive writing that may function better as active writing.
  • Too many –ly adverbs.
  • Too much use of to be (is, was, been, etc.).
  • Useless words and redundancies.
  • Overused words.
  • Long paragraphs, good variation in sentence length and structure, readily flowing text.

Chris McMullen, self-published author of A Detailed Guide to Self-Publishing with Amazon and Other Online Booksellers

Mar 2 2013

Indie Cover Mistakes

The book cover is the only part of an indie author’s marketing campaign that every potential buyer has to see before purchasing the book. No wonder cover design is critical toward having a highly successful book.

“Hey there!” Just like that, the cover aims to grab attention, but in a positive way. Once it claims attention, it must be appealing, look professional, be clear, reveal the book’s content, and ultimately persuade the potential buyer to “pick me.”

There are many ingredients to a great cover, and just one flaw can turn a potentially great cover into a lousy one. Here are some common mistakes that indie authors make:

  • Text is hard to read. It seems intuitive to look for a fancy font, but the purpose of the text is to send a clear message. Rather than struggle to make out what the title or other text says, the prospective reader is more likely to look for a different cover that makes this task easy. Some text, like Comic Sans, even tends to evoke negative reactions from readers. Research which fonts are appropriate for cover design and for your genre. Wikipedia even provides statistics for how readers react to various fonts.
  • Poor image quality. Blurry, jagged, and pixelated images are quite common. So are tiny stray marks around text and images. Find sharp, focused images and clean up any quality issues to make the best impression. Photos should be touched up (e.g. no red-eye), well-lit, and precisely cropped. Use images with sufficient resolution (300 DPI for printed covers). Don’t distort the aspect ratio by changing the shape of an image (models with stretched out faces, for example, don’t sell books). If the cover image or text is poor, people will wonder if the content also has quality issues. Customers looking for professional content prefer professional-looking covers.
  • Emphasizing the wrong words in a title. It should seem logical to emphasize – through larger text or some text effects – a few key words in the title, which relate to the text. Yet it’s a common mistake to make short, meaningless words (like “the”) larger and long, meaningful words smaller – simply because the longer words had to be smaller in order to fit on the cover. But the most important words need to be the largest. The title must be larger than the subtitle. The author should be smaller than the title or subtitle – it’s just a minor ingredient to the cover (except for celebrities and popular authors). If there are several words in the title (bestsellers often have three or fewer), emphasize a few key words over the other words in the title.
  • The cover is too busy. It’s intuitive for indie authors and illustrators alike to feel the need to fill every void on a piece of paper. Especially, artists who have a gift for artistic detail want to show this talent off. But a great cover isn’t about the art itself. It’s about grabbing attention and conveying an idea – this book is about that. One image and a few words can convey this image effectively. Extra images distract the reader from the central concept, and require the customer to invest more time and effort to determine what your book is about. Look, there are thousands of books to choose from and customers are browsing through hundreds – they are likely to pass on those that don’t send a clear, quick signal.
  • Poor color choices. A great cover often utilizes three main colors. A primary color (60%) will create good contrast with a secondary color (30%), and include an accent color (10%) which complements either the primary or secondary. The two main colors shouldn’t clash; all three colors should coordinate well together. The text color and main image should stand out very well against the background.
  • Something looks unnatural or out of place. It’s a common mistake to place an extra image in a cover that just doesn’t seem to belong there. The indie author is trying to add an additional image that relates to the content, without realizing that the distraction isn’t worth this. An image in the foreground that ruins an otherwise nice cover is said to be photobombing the cover. Look out for potential photobombs. Use of a transparent foreground image can also result in a distracting background object. For example, if a small image in the background happens to be inside the head of a model in the foreground, this will ruin the cover.
  • Text arranged in a way that is difficult to read. It’s not easy to read text that is arranged vertically – either one word above another or, even worse, one letter above another. At the very least, don’t create special effects like this for every word in the title. When customers are browsing through hundreds of covers, they tend to skip the ones that don’t send quick, clear messages.
  • Hand drawings that aren’t expertly done. Crayon and colored pencils create a poor impression. Even handmade art that is fairly well done has a tough time competing against the amazing possibilities of graphic arts. It’s a much greater challenge to make a cover appear professional when images are made by hand. Let the customers see any slight fault in the cover and you’ve given them a reason to pass on the book.
  • Title and cover don’t relate to the content or genre. If the cover attracts the wrong audience, nobody will purchase the book. The cover and title both need to signify the precise audience (e.g. adult romance should not be confused with erotica or young adult romance), and should relate to the content of the book. Research the covers of top-selling books in your genre to see what those readers are accustomed to seeing. Which cover designs, color schemes, and font styles tend to work well in this genre?

I’m a self-published author myself and I enjoy designing my own covers. But I didn’t write this article with my own design skills in mind. Rather, I’m also an avid reader, and I know which covers tend to attract my attention, what mistakes I have seen when browsing through books, and what aspects of cover design tend to work for me or turn me off when I’m shopping for a book. I’ve also done some research to learn more about cover design. I’ve come across some very professional indie covers out there, and seen some amazing designs from graphic artists. I do enjoy designing my own covers, and have experienced many of these challenges firsthand (and also experienced a few of these mistakes, such as making a cover that’s too busy). If you’re an indie author, may you learn from and avoid some mistakes that others have made. 🙂

Chris McMullen, self-published author of A Detailed Guide to Self-Publishing with Amazon and Other Online Booksellers

Mar 2 2013

Kindle Pitfalls

Anyone can publish an eBook on Amazon using Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP), but there are many pitfalls to navigate in order to produce a professional-looking product. The main problem is that the eBook layout works like a web page, whereas most writers are experienced with word processing.

So what are the pitfalls, and how do you avoid them? Hold onto that thought (or just skip ahead).

To make matters worse, Amazon’s free resources – the KDP help pages (https://kdp.amazon.com/self-publishing/help), Building Your Book for Kindle (http://www.amazon.com/dp/B007URVZJ6), and Publish on Amazon Kindle with Kindle Direct Publishing (http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004LX069M) – are largely geared toward the basic use of Word to prepare an eBook, while not revealing the subtleties entailed in achieving a professional design.

Word is designed for creating pages with writing and drawings, whereas eBooks format like a reflowable web page. When a Word document is uploaded to KDP, what Kindle is interested in are HTML instructions. Unfortunately, the HTML that Word generates does not translate as well as could be desired into eBook format. Even if you convert the document to HTML before submitting the file to KDP, unless you clean it and tweak it, there can still be undesirable and sometimes even unpredictable behavior in the converted eBook.

KDP provides a previewer to help catch the mistakes. Actually, there are two previewers, and both are available in Step 6 of the publishing process. The online previewer is tempting because it’s so convenient and also much more aesthetic – it mimics each device visually. But the downloadable previewer is more reliable – you can catch errors with it that you might not find on the online previewer. Once you install it, find it after it’s installed, and figure out how to download and view your book with it, you must inspect it carefully to find mistakes on all of the devices (like the different eInks, the different Fires, and the iPad and iPhone). Not uncommonly, an eBook sometimes looks perfect on all but one device, which makes it important to check each device.

Nonetheless, the indie author who researches the basics of Kindle formatting with Word and invests the time to properly check the formatting across all devices is likely to encounter unforeseen, yet very important, problems: the confounding Look Inside. Many customers will judge the professionalism of the eBook based on this Look Inside. Unfortunately, KDP’s previewers don’t offer a preview of the Look Inside feature. The Look Inside adopts the strictest interpretation of the HTML, and often formats Word-originated HTML instructions differently than indie authors intend. For example, it’s very common to see the first paragraph of the chapter indented on the Look Inside even when First Line is set to 0.01” in Word. What do you get when you cross the challenge of properly formatting the Look Inside with the lack of a Look Inside preview and indie authors who have spent months or years writing, editing, and formatting their work? F.r.u.s.t.r.a.t.i.o.n.

Amazon does get into some of the subtleties in a publication that’s not nearly as easy to find as the resources mentioned above. They have a technical guide designed for professional publishers – and that’s how it’s written, too. When you visit the KDP help pages (first link above), click “Announcements” on the left, select “Introducing Kindle Format 8,” and look for the “click here” link toward the end of the article. This 79-page PDF reveals technical details about text and image guidelines and which HTML code is supported.

But most writers want to be able to publish a high-quality Kindle eBook without having to learn HTML. The self-published author who has a gift for storytelling and has spent years perfecting his or her craft has a disadvantage compared to a webmaster experienced in HTML. The webmaster can easily create a very professional-looking eBook, and even use HTML to make the description pop out with headings and figures. The poor writer who has mastered Word, but who doesn’t want to learn HTML, will suffer a few flaws in the finished product.

Here’s the thing: You don’t actually have to learn any HTML in order to perfect the appearance and functionality of the eBook, and you can even make a fancy description without knowing any HTML (see my other blog post called “Eye-popping Blurbs”).

That’s right! It’s a thousand times easier than it seems. You don’t need to be able to read and understand the HTML. You don’t need to be able to write HTML. You just need to know which lines to look for and how to change them. You just need a concise, handy resource that says to look for A, B, and C in the HTML, and change them to X, Y, and Z. It is as simple as it sounds.

Why don’t we do it? Because we didn’t see a convenient table of what-to-look-for-and-what-to-change-in-the-HTML guide when we visited KDP’s help pages and read KDP’s free formatting guides.

The first step is to format the Word document in such a way as to produce HTML with as few issues as possible. To this end, many basic Kindle formatting guides – and even Amazon’s free guides, to some extent – emphasize steps such as these (this list is not intended to be comprehensive, but does provide a healthy sample):

  • Not using page numbers, setting page margins, inserting headers or footers, making bulleted lists, and many other features that we like to use in printed books.
  • Using the Styles to format normal, first paragraph, heading, and title text.
  • Going into the Paragraph dialog box to set First Line to 0.5” (or 0.3” may work better, in general, but not as well as tweaking the HTML) for the normal Style and 0.01” for non-indented, justified styles (as you can’t make the eBook left-aligned by pressing the Align Text Left button) in order to avoid automatic indents.
  • Eliminating all use of the tab key (use the normal Style instead to create indented paragraphs).
  • Removing most special symbols.
  • Replacing some special symbols with other symbols. For example, Word’s AutoFormat tool can make en (–) and em (—) dashes by replacing consecutive hyphens (like –) as you type, but they may not be supported by every device (especially, the older Kindles). If instead you manually hold down Alt while typing 0150 and 0151, you can create these dashes as supported symbols.
  • Using a single space after a period and before the next sentence instead of two spaces (otherwise, when a sentence happens to end at the margin edge, the extra space causes one of the lines to appear mis-aligned). (I have another blog article about this, which is called “A Silly Little Space.”)
  • Formatting pictures centered on their own line and wrapped In Line With Text, with the size set to 100% (by right-clicking the picture, selecting Size and Position, and setting Width and Height in the Size tab) – even if the picture looks bigger than the page shown on the screen (just worry about how it looks in the downloadable previewer).
  • Creating a table of contents using bookmark hyperlinks.
  • Changing font size through Styles instead of using the Font tool on the Home tab.
  • Holding down Shift while pressing Enter instead of just using the Enter key at the end of a paragraph where a blank linespace is desired between paragraphs (in order to produce more reliable results); just ignore the strange spacing that it creates because the eReaders will ignore it, too.

We then save the Word document as a filtered webpage (not a single file webpage). If there are pictures, we right-click the file, choose Send To, and pick Compressed (Zipped) Folder. Then we find the newly created folder with the images and copy/paste it into the compressed zipped folder. This step is needed, for example, to avoid black lines from appearing on one or more edges of the pictures.

All of this work, all by itself, still doesn’t result in a perfectly formatted eBook. First, it is desirable to clean the HTML – i.e. to remove bloated instructions in order to help make the HTML more reliable and less ambiguous. Fortunately, there are some programs that can help do much of this automatically (you can find a list, for example, in the Kindle Tutorial that I recommend in the next-to-last paragraph – but not in Volume 1 of the book listed on the signature line; I’m trying my best to avoid possible confusion). It takes very clean HTML code to make the Look Inside appear professional.

Next, you need to open the HTML in Notepad and learn what to look for and how to change it. Here are a few things worth looking for (sometimes there may be more than one way to do it, and exactly how to change it depends on how the HTML looks on your device):

  • Change the indents from 0.5” (or 0.3” or whatever you used for First Line in the normal Style) in terms of the em (like 2 ems) – or set it as a percentage of the paragraph width (like 8% across). In the former case, the size of the indent is based on the size of the text (this is the technical specification that publishers use in print, and often in eBooks, too); in the latter case, the size of the indent is based on the width of the paragraph (visually, this may be appealing so that the indent is the same percentage on an iPhone or a PC). You want your normal paragraph styles to look like <p style=”text-indent: 8%;”> (or a value like 2em instead of 8%) at the beginning of the paragraph followed by <p> at the end of the paragraph. You can do this with the Find and Replace option. Examine the body text in the HTML in Notepad to see what the begin paragraph code looks like, copy it into the Find field, and type the Replace text carefully. Be sure to only edit the normal paragraph styles this way.
  • Manually change the paragraph style to 0% instead of 8% (or whatever you set for the indented paragraphs) to create any non-indented paragraphs (or stand-alone, non-centered lines) – like the first paragraph of the chapter (which you would have set as a first paragraph style in Word). In Word, you had to set First Line to 0.01”, which is slightly noticeable, because (none) doesn’t work; yet this doesn’t always show up in the Look Inside if the HTML isn’t tweaked. But as long as you’re tweaking the HTML, you may as well set it exactly to 0%. And if your HTML is super clean, you’ll have zero indents to begin each chapter in the Look Inside, and on paragraphs of the copyright page and table of contents, and any other non-centered paragraphs that you don’t want indented (provided that your HTML is very clean and you simply apply this code to each such paragraph).
  • Remove spacing between paragraphs. Modify the above suggestion with <p style=”text-indent: 8%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0″> at the beginning of the paragraph.
  • Use special symbols not normally supported. Kindle supports Unicode symbols 32 thru 255 (first link below), whereas a larger set of Unicode symbols is available using HTML (second link below). You just have to look up the HTML name of the symbol and write it after the ampersand (&) symbol. For example, &hearts makes the heart symbol (♥) when converted to Kindle’s mobi format. In your original Word document, you could write “insertheart” where you would like to include the symbol, use the Find tool to find it in the HTML with Notepad, and then change it to &hearts to make this symbol, and you can do something similar for other supported HTML symbols.

https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/G/01/digital/otp/help/Latin1.gif

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_XML_and_HTML_character_entity_references

  • Prevent two words or a number and units (for example) from breaking onto separate lines. For example, if you would like 6 ft. to stay together (i.e. remove the possibility having the 6 at the right end of one line and ft. at the left end of the next line), replace the space with &nbsp; (as in 6&nbsp;ft.).
  • Improve the formatting of pictures. For example, if you already have a Word-generated HTML file with pictures set to absolute values (i.e. specified the number of pixels in the width or height), you can use Replace to change the width to =”100%” instead of the absolute measure and to delete the height specifications (just leave the Replace field blank).

After you publish your eBook on Kindle, you should view the Look Inside to see how it looks on the PC. Then go to the product page and download the free sample to your computer. This way, you can use the downloadable previewer to see what the Look Inside looks like on each device. If you have a Kindle (or maybe you can borrow one), you can view the Look Inside that way, too. (You should also view the entire book that way, just to see for yourself.)

I recommend a book called Formatting of Kindle Books: A Brief Tutorial by Charles Spender (to which I have no affiliation whatsoever; I simply found this book very useful for my own endeavors), which explains many of the details for how to properly format a Kindle eBook using Word, with a separate chapter on how to clean and edit the HTML. (My own publishing guide, listed below, covers both paperbacks and eBooks, but doesn’t get into the professional eBook details – like those discussed in this blog article – until Volume 2. Volume 1 is available now, while Volume 2 will be released sometime in the spring of 2013. Charles Spender’s tutorial is focused on the Kindle, and is very detailed regarding Word and HTML formatting, while explaining HTML so that those of us who don’t like HTML can figure out how to properly tweak it.)

Let me admit that I’m currently in the process of improving my own eBooks. For the past few years, I’ve been personally investigating the limitations of Word and seeing firsthand how well Word can yield a Kindle eBook, along with what does or doesn’t work, and have just begun the process of tweaking my own HTML. I still haven’t quite implemented all of my own suggestions in all of my own eBooks yet (some still even feature those dreaded double spaces; and I also need to update the formatting of some of my earlier paperback books), but I’m getting there. May you instead embrace the HTML tweaking from the beginning and perfect it the first time. 🙂

Chris McMullen, self-published author of A Detailed Guide to Self-Publishing with Amazon and Other Online Booksellers

Feb 23 2013

Useless Words

Although it may not seem like it at first, this article actually does have a point. In the beginning, that point is made indirectly, yet by example, whereas toward the end, the point will become directly clear. In a way, it is a sort of mystery, dropping a few subtle clues, which will (hopefully) seem to be obvious when revealed later.

Yes indeed, the matter is plain to see, right before your eyes, under your nose, just waiting for you to grab it (so just reach out and take it, please). If you haven’t guessed it yet – the point of this article, that is – keep trying. There will certainly be many more opportunities to do so. Absolutely, positively!

Maybe you’re wondering if you’ve already figured it out. Well, if you’re presently thinking that the entire article is wastefully useless, that’s not it. (This entire article might actually, in fact, be useless, but that’s not the point that this article is trying to make.) But the title of the article is a hint, and it doesn’t just relate to this article, but to the process of writing in general.

Spoiler alert: Ready or not, here comes the answer. The point is that most writers have a natural tendency to include many useless words in their writing (without even knowing it). Realizing which types of words may be useless can impact our writing and our revising.

So which words are useless? There are many kinds of useless words and phrases.

One type is a tautology. For example, “wastefully useless” is redundant. There are also other sorts of redundancies in meaning. The first two sentences are repetitive with “at first” and “in the beginning,” for instance.

Another sort of word that can be wasteful is an adverb. Stephen King said, “I believe the road to hell is paved with adverbs.” One school of thought about writing suggests to avoid using adverbs that end with -ly (as opposed to a few that don’t, like “well”). For example, consider “directly clear” in the first paragraph. Was it really helpful to include the word “directly”? The end of the second paragraph, “absolutely, positively,” combines these two ideas together with redundant adverbs.

Sometimes, adverbs do add meaning, but when they do, it is often passively rather than actively. For instance, “she returned to her bedroom sadly” tells that she was sad, whereas “she wiped the tears from her eyes on her way to the bedroom” shows that she was sad.

Various forms of the verb “to be” (is, are, was, were, been, etc.) also tend to tell rather than show, and can also be useless words. I could easily remove “to be” from “seem to be obvious” in the first paragraph. Replacement of the verb “to be” may mean removing a couple of short words in favor of a few longer words. For example, compare “it is very cold today” with “although he wore a thick jacket, a scarf, a ski hat, and mittens, he was still shivering.”

Some words and phrases are essentially filler – that is, the same information can often be conveyed without using them. (It’s true! See!) Check out the very first word of this article: although. Others used in this article include “that,” “whereas,” “in fact,” “in general,” and “as opposed to.”

Comments in parentheses and footnotes can distract (like this one, which interrupts the flow of the sentence) the reader. This is necessary to insert a note that may be helpful to many readers, but sometimes the note may not really be needed or there may be an alternative to interrupting the text.

I’m not saying to eliminate every use of “is” and “was,” remove all adverbs that end with -ly, never write a passive sentence, or completely avoid filler words and comments. Each of these can be used effectively in moderation, and some may help to develop your sense of style. However, it may be fun to look at some of your writing and see if you tend to use any useless words. If you see that you do, you might consider what alternatives you may have had. In the end, you might be happy with it the way it is, but at least you’ll know that those words are there.

Let me acknowledge Pat Fitzhugh’s article, called “Three Simple Writing Tips,” which helped to inspire my article. I recommend checking out:

#amwriting Three Simple Writing Tips

Chris McMullen, self-published author of Formatting Pages for Publishing on Amazon with CreateSpace

Feb 22 2013

The Short Link to Amazon Books (Why Doesn’t Everyone Know This?)

First, here is the wrong way to link to an Amazon book. Search for the book on Amazon, click to open the book’s detail page on Amazon, copy the webpage url, and paste it.

What’s wrong with this? It makes the url much longer than it needs to be.

See this with an example. I’ll go to Amazon’s homepage and type “self publishing chris mcmullen” in the search field, and click on my own book. (I would happily have used your book as an example instead, but you didn’t ask. :-)) Now I’ll copy the webpage url:

http://www.amazon.com/Detailed-Self-Publishing-Amazon-Booksellers–Demand/dp/1480250201/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1361505178&sr=8-1&keywords=self+publishing+chris+mcmullen

(Yes, of course I could have given the link a short title. When you insert a link, you can make the text for the link different from the url itself. But that’s not the point. The point is that the url itself can be much, much shorter.)

So what’s the short way to do this? First, find your book’s ISBN (the 10-digit number will work) or ASIN (if you have an ebook that doesn’t have an ISBN, use this). You can find this number on your book’s detail page at Amazon.

The short link has the form http://amazon.com/dp/ISBN (or use ASIN in place of ISBN). Obviously, you have to put the ISBN number in place of the letters I-S-B-N at the end. 🙂

For example, the short variation of the above link is:

http://amazon.com/dp/1480250201

That’s much shorter (and I didn’t even have to use text in place of the url to make it short).

Actually, you can make it even shorter than this. Use amzn instead of amazon and remove the /dp:

http://amzn.com/1480250201

But it’s not much shorter, is it? When you use amazon, people can see they’re being directed to a site that they (hopefully) trust, but when you use amzn instead, it might arouse suspicion (well, it shouldn’t, but it probably will).

Every day, I come across many links that authors have posted to their books, which use the long form instead of the short form. You may have noticed this, too. The easiest way to spread the word is to use the short link yourself whenever you post a link to your books. Somebody may notice and try this out with their own book.

Just think about how much we’re inconveniencing those poor little electrons when we make the link longer that it needs to be. J/K. 🙂

Publishing Resources

I started this blog to provide free help with writing, publishing, and marketing. You can find many free articles on publishing and marketing by clicking one of the following links:

Chris McMullen, Author of A Detailed Guide to Self-Publishing with Amazon and Other Online Booksellers

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Feb 20 2013

Indie Author ‘Uh-Oh!’ Moments

(1) Spelling or grammar mistake in the title (whoops!)

(2) Used image placeholder (had no cover)

(3) Published an ebook without checking the preview (surprise!)

(4) Sued over copyright infringement for internet photos (they’re not free?)

(5) Got in a lengthy argument with a reviewer (sure showed the world)

(6) Used Google’s automatic translator (won’t understand the bad reviews)

(7) Didn’t read any formatting guides (it looked perfect on the monitor)

(8) Blurry paperback cover (used free 96 DPI picture from Google)

(9) Used Comic Sans (look out for the font police)

(10) Sued for using lyrics in book (they’re just 20 words out of 60,000)

(11) Didn’t report royalties to IRS (wasn’t much to report)

(12) Reviewed his/her own book ten times (multiple personalities?)

(13) Used the same author page for young adult and erotica (umm)

(14) Ragged right, strange line and paragraph spacing (used Word’s defaults)

(15) Crazy search results (used “harry,potter,twilight,lady,gaga” for keywords)

(16) Drew cover illustration with crayons (nice book to hang on fridge)

(17) ENTIRE BOOK WRITTEN IN CAPS (loud and clear)

(18) Misspelled author’s name (identity crisis)

(19) Forgot to change page headers for second book (head-smack)

(20) Tried to sell to local bookstore, but forgot to bring books (uh-oh)

Fortunately, most indie authors don’t make such outrageous mistakes. But a few do. We often focus on the few who make the worst mistakes, rather than the majority who only make minor mistakes. Of course, the bigger the mistake, the greater the entertainment.

Let’s remember what challenges face the self-published author. Writing a few hundred pages is an accomplishment in itself, but it’s only the beginning. There is proofreading, which is different from editing and formatting. Then there is the art of writing itself. Add to this the challenge of designing a cover, making illustrations, writing a blurb, publishing, marketing, and public relations.

While it may be fun to laugh at the sillier mistakes, perhaps we should also silently acknowledge the many indie authors who have managed to publish their work with only minor mistakes. Congratulations to all of you! 🙂

Chris McMullen, self-published author of A Detailed Guide to Self-Publishing with Amazon and Other Online Booksellers

Feb 19 2013

All Books Go to Heaven

Anne’s book proposal was accepted by a small publisher. They printed and distributed 500 copies, and that was the end of it. But those books found readers, and some of those readers enjoyed the story.

Bill wrote a book that didn’t quite fit into a well-defined category, and so it went largely unnoticed. Still, a few strangers appreciated the novel concept.

Cara published a controversial book. Several non-readers stoned her book with bad reviews. Yet many people who opposed the opinions of the stoners still read the book supported it.

Dave made a simple, humble cover for his book, which didn’t attract much attention. However, those who read it learned some valuable lessons.

Erin’s writing had some grammatical mistakes, but she couldn’t afford an editor. Still, those who read the book were amazed by the vivid characterization.

Finn felt personally attacked by a negative review and couldn’t refrain from commenting on it. Unfortunately, this attracted a mob of negative reviews. Sales continued, albeit much less frequently, and many of the customers experienced very passionate emotions while reading it.

Gwen didn’t realize that her book was selling for twice the average price of similar books. Yet the brave customers who invested in her book found it very useful.

Hank’s title didn’t seem to fit the genre. But his readers laughed several times during the book.

Inga couldn’t find the courage to share her work with the whole world. However, her family cherished it wholeheartedly.

John wrote his book in Pig Latin, which deterred many potential customers. But some readers who spoke Pig Latin fluently enjoyed the chance to apply their knowledge.

A book doesn’t have to be a bestseller, or have a fantastic cover, or be traditionally published, or have hundreds of five-star reviews, or be written with Pulitzer-Prize style, or be praised by a major newspaper – in order to be a good book. A book can humbly achieve a much milder form of success and still be a good book.

A book is something that an author is sharing with the world. The book may share experience, it may share powerful emotions, it may share vivid characters, it may share a great plot, it may share helpful instructions, it may share much creativity – there are so many wonderful things that a book can share. A reader somewhere just needs to appreciate something that the book is sharing, and that book will go to Book Heaven.

The better the writing and editing, the better the sharing. The better the cover, blurb, and marketing, the more people the book is shared with. There are ways to increase and improve the sharing.

Writers do the sharing, with hopes of readers who will do the caring.

The better the sharing, the more the caring.

Share a few books. Care for many books. But try not to scare them.

All of the people described in this blog post are fictional characters. Any resemblance to real authors or books is purely coincidental.

Chris McMullen, self-published author of A Detailed Guide to Self-Publishing with Amazon and Other Online Booksellers

Feb 18 2013

Book Fashion – Judging a Book’s Clothing

Would you show up to an interview wearing sandals, a Hawaiian button-down shirt, and sunglasses? Would you go to the beach in a tuxedo?

The answers to these questions might seem pretty obvious, yet several books are actually dressed for the wrong occasion. The cover and title are the book’s packaging.

If you’re shopping for cereal, you’re far more likely to pick up a box that catches your eye if it has a picture of cereal in a bowl and includes the word CEREAL somewhere on the box. If you see a box in the cereal aisle that has a picture of a breakfast bar on it, or if it has the word BAR in large letters, you’re probably not going to pick this up if you really want cereal.

When an action thriller has a cover that looks like a romance or the title sounds like a whodunit, it’s like trying to sell cereal inside a box of oatmeal.

It probably still seems pretty obvious, yet it’s also pretty common for the title or cover not to reflect the true nature of the book. Many indie authors, especially, tend to make this mistake. It’s an easy mistake to make. It’s not as obvious as putting cereal in an oatmeal box, but the effect is roughly the same.

How do you know what the package is supposed to look like? Check out the bestsellers in a given genre. Those are the types of covers that readers are accustomed to seeing. Putting the right outfit on the book doesn’t mean copying the cover concept from another book. It does, however, mean taking the time to do some research to explore what features are indicative of the genre.

A couple on a cover often signifies romance, for example. Yet even here it gets a little tricky. A romance author who wants to use sex appeal on the cover has to be careful not to make the cover look like erotica. On the other side, a young adult romance cover will look somewhat different from an adult romance cover.

The title should also be appropriate for the genre. If the cover says, “I’m a mystery, come solve my puzzle,” while the title says, “I’m a romance, let me add some spice to your life,” this mixed message can greatly deter sales.

Once the packaging makes you pick up a product, you start to explore the details. You might check out the ingredients or read the product description, for example. The table of contents specifies the book’s ingredients, the blurb is the product description, and the Look Inside offers a sample.

The blurb and Look Inside must reinforce what the cover and title suggest the book is about. Otherwise, it’s like wearing flip flops and a suit together.

Don’t confuse your potential readers. Don’t settle for a cover just because it looks nice, or a title just because it sounds good.

Print out your cover, hide the title, and show it to different people who have no idea that you wrote a book. Ask them what type of book they think it is.

Show people your title (nothing else – so these can’t be the same people who saw your cover) and ask them what they expect the book to be about.

Now get new people to read your description all by itself, and see what they say.

If you’re getting mixed messages, this may have a very significant impact on sales.

It’s not the fashion police you should be worried about if your book is caught wearing the wrong outfit, if the colors clash, or if your book doesn’t accessorize properly. It’s the potential sales that you may lose that should get your attention.

I could have titled this blog post, “All about Bikinis.” This blog may have had many more views if I had done that, but then nobody would have ever reached the end of this blog (except those few who may have been so desperate to find the product that had been advertised).

Chris McMullen

— A Detailed Guide to Self-Publishing with Amazon and Other Online Booksellers

— Formatting Pages for Publishing on Amazon with CreateSpace

Feb 16 2013

How to Cook a Book

Ingredients:

26 letters, uppercase and lowercase (A to Z and a to z)

22 punctuation characters { [ ( , ; : . ! ? – – — “ ” ‘ ’ ~ * / ) ] }

12 keys (Enter Backspace Ctrl Shift CapsLk Tab Esc Home End PgUp PgDn Delete)

10 digits (0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9)

10 fingers (2 thumbs 2 index fingers 2 middle fingers 2 ring fingers 2 pinkies)

8 opinions (great good okay neutral unsure poor bad awful)

7 days (Sunday Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday)

6 degrees of separation

4 arrows (right left up down)

2 genders (male female)

2 cents

1 word processor

1 keyboard

1 dictionary

1 thesaurus

1 mouse

1 pillow

1 editor

1 mind

1 heart

1 soul

 

Recipe:

Blend heart with experience.

Infuse soul with character.

Combine mind with knowledge.

Mix 1 mind, 1 heart, 1 soul.

Stir occasionally.

Seat mind, heart, and soul at 1 word processor.

Add 1 keyboard and 1 mouse.

Pour in 26 letters (uppercase and lowercase), 22 punctuation characters, 12 keys, 10 digits, 10 fingers, and 4 arrows.

Separate contents with 1 dictionary and 1 thesaurus.

Create protagonist, antagonist, and other characters in 2 genders with 6 degrees of separation.

Remove 5 degrees of separation.

Mix characters thoroughly.

Press Backspace and Delete repeatedly.

Write more.

Edit and revise.

Scream!

Give up.

Resume.

Edit and revise.

Send to 1 editor.

Cry into 1 pillow.

Stir with word processor.

Send back to editor.

Cry into pillow again.

Stir with word processor.

Seek 8 opinions.

Receive 9.

Earn 2 cents for each opinion.

That makes 18 cents.

Cry into pillow.

Edit and revise.

Send back to editor.

Cry into pillow.

Format, format, format.

Send back to editor.

Scream for joy!

Publish.

Promote.

Sell.

Scream for joy!

Promote.

Receive 5-star review.

Scream for joy!

That makes 20 cents.

Promote.

Receive 2-star review.

Cry into pillow.

That makes 22 cents.

Stay away from word processor for 7 days.

Promote.

Receive a compliment from a complete stranger in person.

Cry for joy.

Write next book.

 

Secret Recipe:

3 parts heart, 1 part brain.

40 years life experience.

Mix thoroughly.

Infuse with passion.

Enjoy!

 

Chris McMullen, self-published author of A Detailed Guide to Self-Publishing with Amazon and Other Online Booksellers (and Formatting Pages for Publishing on Amazon with CreateSpace – coming soon)

Feb 16 2013

Those Silly Short Lines

A hyphen or a dash. Short dash, long dash. Those silly short lines.

We all know that the hyphen (-) is used to hy-phen-ate, and we all know that the short line is used to do this, so it should be easy to remember that the short line is a hyphen and the long line is a dash. Yet we sometimes forget. (It really doesn’t help that there are two types of dashes, each different from a hyphen.)

The keyboard just has a hyphen. No dash. You can easily make a dash in Microsoft Word. With Word’s AutoFormat as you type feature turned on, type two hyphens consecutively mid-sentence, like this – and they turn into a dash.

The better way to make the dash is to hold down the Alt button while typing 0150. Why does it matter? If you publish an e-book that you typed in Word, it might make a difference.

The downloadable Kindle previewer (said to be more reliable than the online previewer) with Device set to e-Ink device and Kindle Selected, for example, might show a box in place of a dash made from Word’s AutoFormat feature. Use the Alt method to produce the symbol without AutoFormat. (That’s for those of us who cling to the convenience of Word. The safer way is to learn how to properly modify the HTML.)

The en dash (–) is just one of two common dashes. The other is the em dash (—). Hold down Alt and type 0151 to make the em dash. It’s said to be good form to choose one dash or the other and be consistent.

Well, be as consistent as English allows. Use the en dash for a sequence, as in 42–81 (this time without the space). Give credit to the source of a quote with the em dash, as in the following (this time with the space).

Better to write for yourself and have no public, than to write for the public and have no self. — Cyril Connolly

Here, the em dash indicates a quote (in lieu of quotation marks) and also indicates the author to whom the quote is attributed. (If you want to use a horizontal bar instead of the em dash, you know too much for your own good. Or, at least, for my own good.)

We know that the letter ‘n’ is shorter than the letter ‘m,’ so this should help to remind us that the en dash is shorter than the em dash. We still sometimes forget.

The en dash is used with spaces – like so. The em dash is used without spaces—like this.

When reading e-books, we sometimes see the hyphen used in place of the dash. Was it a mistake? Or was the author playing it safe, worried that an e-reader might not recognize the dash? Or did the author see a box in place of the dash when carefully checking the previewer?

En–ie em—ie miney moe,

Pick a dash by its toe!

If it hyphen-ates,

Let it go!

This blog was brought to you by the following punctuation marks:

Hy-phen

en–dash

em—dash

Chris McMullen, self-published author of A Detailed Guide to Self-Publishing with Amazon and Other Online Booksellers (and Formatting Pages for Publishing on Amazon with CreateSpace – coming soon)