Learning the Lingo: A Quick Vocabulary Lesson for the New Author
Like most niches of the creative world, there is a learning curve to joining that community. The language book people speak is often one that can befuddle the new author. Here is a quick rundown of some important terms publishing professionals may say, ask your opinion about, or need you to understand.
image
Manuscript – The manuscript is the document that is your writing. It can be printed on paper, sketched on a napkin, or better yet, typed up in a Word document. When book people talk about a manuscript, they mean the work that will be transformed into a book.
Paginated interior – After your final manuscript is accepted, the next step in the publishing process is layout. The paginated interior is the end product of layout. All of the formatting choices the designer makes to mold your manuscript into a book is part of this. What the author receives to review after the layout process is the paginated interior. At this time, there shouldn’t be any major changes, just minor tweaks to make sentences correct.
Trim size – The trim size of a book is the physical footprint of the book when you look at it straight on. For example, some books are 5 inches wide and 8 inches tall, giving them a trim size of 5×8.
Chicago Manual of Style – The Chicago Manual of Style (CMS) is the industry standard for guidelines on how to present text within books. From formatting footnotes to how to write the name of a film to using commas, the CMS is the book industry’s rule book.
DPI – The dpi of a digital image has to do with the quality of the image. DPI stands for dots per inch and corresponds with how much ink a printer releases. The higher the dpi (that is, the more dots), the better the quality of the printed image, and the better your book will look. When images are going to be used on the cover or interior of a book, the standard dpi required is 300.
Verso and recto – When you open a book, the page on the left is the verso and the page on the right is the recto. This helps book designers determine placement.
Front matter – The front matter of a book consists of the parts, designated by CMS, that go at the beginning. The options are, in order, half-title page, verso of half-title page (blank), title page, copyright page, dedication, epigraph (the little poem or quote at the beginning of some books), table of contents, foreword, preface, acknowledgments, and sometimes the introduction.
Back matter – The back matter of a book is additional content beyond the chaptered sections that add to the reader’s understanding of the material. These sections can include the appendix, notes, glossary, bibliography, and index.
These are just a few terms the beginning author should learn in order to communicate with editors, designers, and other book people!
Copyediting: A Touch of Chicago Manual of Style
One of the drums that we hit constantly around Wheatmark is the “you need professional editing” tom.
Wheatmark offers several different levels of editing for authors. We also have an editorial analysis that will determine what level of editing you really need.
The differences between the editing options can be confusing. In order to better understand them, let’s use a high-end department store as a parallel.
Developmental Editing
The most in-depth level of editing is the developmental edit. Think of the developmental edit as a personal shopper service some department stores offer. The client hires the personal shopper-who keeps track of every season’s best looks-to provide incredible personal service and say, this is what looks good on you and here is your size.
A developmental edit does the same thing. During the developmental edit, a content editor makes comments and suggestions to help the author develop the content of their manuscript. Not a light undertaking, the developmental edit requires several passes, revisions by the author, more content editing, and finally one last copy edit before it goes to layout.
Heavy Copyediting
The next most in-depth level of editing is the heavy copy edit. The heavy copy edit is like a swanky shoe department. It turns a keen eye to organization, sentence structure, grammar, spelling, punctuation, and a myriad of other style issues. Like the shoe department, there are a lot of styles to look at and the salespeople in the shoe department know their inventory the best. They also can suggest fashions that will look good with your footwear choices and make recommendations about which shoes you might prefer based on your current wardrobe.
That level of attention is what you get with the heavy copy edit: gold star service that doesn’t try to restyle you from the ground up, but instead offers you ways to enhance your story.
Medium Copyediting
This is the straightforward copy edit. An editor will check your grammar, spelling, punctuation, and style, and occasionally make adjustments to your sentences. This is like shopping in the men’s or women’s activewear departments. Mostly you get attentive salespeople who will help you find colors and sizes, but don’t get too involved with your personal wardrobe selections.
A medium copy edit will not include in-depth commentary and suggestions. An editor might provide a few comments here and there, but overall they will be putting the final polish on your manuscript without interfering with your story ideas. Just like clothing salespeople, they won’t talk you out of the hideous silk-blend golf shirt with puppies on it that you are buying as a Father’s Day present. They’ll just help you find your dad’s size.
Light Copyediting
The last level of copyediting to talk about today is the light copy edit. For starters, light copyediting is only available to manuscripts that have been designated acceptable for that service through the Editorial Analysis. In terms of detail, the light copy edit is akin to shopping on the department store’s website-you get mostly the same items as in the store, but because you don’t need as much attention, you can easily buy online. The light copy edit offers all the same services as the regular copy edit, but the work will not be as extensive because your manuscript is fairly clean.
Interested in getting started with an Editorial Analysis? Just fill out the Project Assessment Form about your book to get started.
Cover Design for Maximum Impact: Title Length
A book title’s length can have a big impact on the quality of the cover.
Many authors try to pack as much information as possible into their titles. It’s an understandable instinct. The cover is the first thing potential readers will see, so you want to tell them exactly what wonders await them if they peek inside. Also, the more words you use, the wittier you can be. Right?
Nope.
Here’s the problem. Say you’ve written a detailed historical record about keyboards-the kind you find on typewriters and laptops.
You’ve decided to call it The Quick Brown Fox Jumps over the Lazy Dog: A History of Keyboard Interface from QWERTY to DVORAK. You’re very proud of this title. It’s cute and clever and gets your general concept across.
It’s also unlikely to draw the eye when crammed into a relatively small space-see the first image above.
Think it’s not that bad? Try the Amazon.com-sized thumbnail directly below it. A little crowded, yes?
If you’re selling your book primarily or exclusively online, like most independently published authors, the thumbnail is the first glimpse your readers will get. It is this image that compels them to look closer … or look elsewhere.
As much as you like your original idea, maybe you should think of scaling back. Simplifying. How about QWERTY: A History of Keyboard Interface?
Ta da! Witty! Pretty!
Again, you can really see what a difference this makes for the thumbnail version.
When the elements on the tiny image have room to breathe, the image as a whole becomes more accessible. Without knowing why, your potential readers will feel more inclined to click on it and take a closer look.
Which is exactly what you want them to do.
Should You Use Your Middle Initial On Your Book’s Cover?
Should you use your middle initial on your book’s cover?
Don’t! Unless … well, read on:
Let’s say your name is Francine Lambert (I just made this up.) All your friends, relatives, and people you come in contact with know you as Francine Lambert. You introduce yourself at events as Francine Lambert. Basically, you are … Francine Lambert.
You write a self-help book on how to save money in a tough economy and it’s time for your publisher to put your name on the cover and into the necessary bibliographic databases. “How would you like your name appear on your book’s cover?” the publisher asks.
You’ve decided you will not use a pen name or pseudonym, which is wise in your case. However, after you blurt out “Francine Lambert” you pause and say, “Actually, make that Francine J.Lambert.” You believe your name with a middle initial looks and sounds more authoritative on your book cover. And you’re right … but you’re making a big mistake!
As we’ve seen, people know you as Francine Lambert, not as Francine J. Lambert. When you’ve pitched your book to an audience or even just to friends, they will go online to look for your book. Instead of looking for the title of your book (which they may have forgotten), they will search on your name. They will search on the name they know and remember, which is Francine Lambert, but all online databases associate your book with the name Francine J. Lambert. Will your book show up on these searches? Yes, but it will not score nearly as well in generic Google search results as it should!
Therefore, don’t use your middle initial on your book cover unless you have to.
When should you use your middle initial? I recommend it in two cases:
- You share a name with another author or famous person. Your middle initial will distinguish you and your book from the other author’s books. Online bookstore databases sometimes have a hard time distinguishing between two authors by the exact same name. One of our authors, John Lock, actually goes by J. D. Lock.
- You have a very common (i.e., popular) name, like Mary Smith or Paul Brown. I suppose for this reason Michael W. Smith doesn’t perform under the name Mike Smith. And that is the reason why someone known to all his friends as David Scott publishes under his full name, David Meerman Scott. You can get away with it, mind you, just ask Will Smith!
One last thing: If you actually go by the nickname Fran but you decide to put your full name, Francine, on your book cover, you should start introducing yourself to new friends and audiences as Francine (what’s on your book), and not as Fran. Why? So people who know you could find your book more easily. I have seen one of our authors interviewed on prime-time network TV. The celebrity interviewer identified him by his nickname, and so did the caption on the screen (let’s say the name was “Jack Jones”). However, his book cover, Amazon, and every single online database identifies him under his full name, including his middle initial (let’s say the name on his book is “John Q. Jones”).
Nobody who saw the interview will know that the author of the book by “Jack Jones” is actually “John Q. Jones”. Fortunately, the book has a very unique and memorable title.
For book marketing purposes, you shouldn’t use your middle initial or full legal name on your book’s cover. If you do, then it’s best for your book if you start calling yourself that way!
Amazon Rankings Explained
For many authors, checking their Amazon ranking is an addictive daily activity.
For others, it’s a confusing statistic they don’t understand (which is probably why they have time to do things like shower. When you understand it, it can become an obsessive hobby that causes you to forsake all other daily activities).
So here it is, the meaning of your Amazon rank, plain and simple:
Your rank is how many books on Amazon are selling more copies than yours.
Let’s break what this means down a bit.
Your book is ranked 14,000.
This means that there are 14,000 other titles on Amazon that have sold more copies than you.
But is that a good number?
Absolutely. There are a bajillion titles on Amazon and there are more and more listings added every day. If there are only 14,000 titles selling more copies than you, that’s a gold star for you!
How can other books have the same rank as my book?
Because there are ALSO 14,000 more titles selling more copies than it. It isn’t like class rank where there are 300 students and you are ranked 20th in your class because 19 other students have better grades than you. This is where many authors get confused. Amazon calling your position in the “how many titles are selling more than yours” platform a RANK is misleading a bit. I’m guessing they just couldn’t think of a better term (or Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon, is just trying to confuse us all and make us write blogs about it).
Why does my rank fluctuate?
To drive you crazy of course! OK, not really. The rank is generated by a system that is constantly calculating it. However, your rank is reported to you by a system that is not constantly updating you with information that is usable. One minute your book rank is 1,000,000 the next 500,000. So it will change and it won’t make much sense.
How do I know what my rank is then?
Try not to be too fanatical about checking your rank. Think of it like you would a diet where you track weight loss: you want to take an average of a few days because the constant fluctuations can give you a misread of the reality.
If my rank jumps by 100,000, does this mean I’ve sold a bunch of books in a spurt?
No. Sorry. What it means is that you maybe sold 2 books and the 50,000 titles you were behind sold none. There are really a supermillion amount of titles on Amazon. Many of those titles don’t sell. Not a copy. So when you just get started, your one book sale can skyrocket your ranking far and away from those duds. Try not to get too excited about the rank. Focus on the amazingness that you sold a book despite all the competition on Amazon!
So, if I can’t really use rank as an indicator, how can I determine success?
Rank is a good thing to watch because it gives you something you can see to help you determine if your marketing efforts are working … over time. What should you really look at? Book sales. You should be selling more books this month than you did last month. And so on and so on so that you are always making progress … even if it just one book at a time!
What Is an Editorial Analysis and Why Do You Need One?
One of the first steps many of our author manuscripts go through is an Editorial Analysis (for those who want to geek out Wheatmark-style, we call it an EA around the office).
What is an Editorial Analysis and why do you need one?
An Editorial Analysis helps determine what the likely usability of an author’s book, in its current form, will be by identifying its strengths and weaknesses.
The EA is designed to determine if the book is written in a way that will speak to its intended readership, if the book is written with excellent English usage, proper grammar, punctuation, and if it is written in an organized manner. It also looks at how well the book follows Chicago Manual of Style (CMS) formatting. Successful, correctly done books are formatted to a particular style that dictates how parts of the book are formatted, including even how commas are used and where the preface goes.
By having an Editorial Analysis done on your manuscript, it is easy to determine how much more work should be done on the book before it goes to layout. The EA will tell the author what level of copyediting they should have: if they need a light copy edit or maybe a more intensive developmental edit. All which should be done before your book designer begins styling your pages for print.
The Reason You Need An EA and Why You Should Listen
Successful authors have several things going for them. The first step to being a successful author is having an excellent book. This is an area to not let hubris get in the way (and quite often it does). Here are the most frequent excuses we hear for not having a completed EA done and for not listening and acting on the results:
- I’ve already edited my book, it’s fine.
- I had my friend, who is an English teacher, proofread it already.
- No one cares if the commas are CMS formatted.
- Readers will know what I mean. They aren’t stupid.
- I don’t want to spend the money.
First of all, an EA comes with nearly every package that Wheatmark offers, and, if you have one done before committing to a package, that cost will be deducted from your final sign-up fee. The cost of copyediting is more, but the final product will be worth it. It would be a shame to spend money on publishing a book, only to have it not perform because of some elements that could easily have been fixed for a few dollars more.
Two, you and your friend the English teacher are not professional book editors. It isn’t a reflection on your skills, it’s a reflection on how well-trained professional book editors are. They read tons of pages a year and are trained to know what to look for, how to look for it, and how to expertly make the correction.
And thirdly, your readers do actually care about the commas. They may not be fully aware of it, but it will bother them as they scan lines if they have been done incorrectly. Book readers have been trained for decades to expect certain guidelines to be followed and when you ignore that expectation, you frustrate them. It slows them down. Which is also why, just because you think your readers will understand a muddled concept in your book, it will be a hindrance. It will slow your readers down. Slow them down too much and they’ll stop reading the book entirely.
You’ve taken the time and energy to write a book you would like to be a success. Don’t sell it short by not using the resources available to help it be the most excellent book possible!
Brick vs. Click
Brick-and-mortar bookstores are the obvious place to start selling your book, right? Wrong! On top of the problems that publishers bemoan, including heavy discounts, substantial returns, lack of pricing flexibility, and stiff on-shelf competition, brick-and-mortar bookstores are a shrinking sales channel. Brick-and-mortar bookstores now account for less than half of all books sold. And each year sees a further decline in their share of the total book market, a trend which is accelerating!
Luckily, there are plenty of opportunities in other, growing, sales channels. We at Wheatmark recommend that you, the independent author, focus all of your marketing efforts on these channels, particularly the online bookstore channel. Each year online bookstores grab a larger share of the total book market. And, online bookstores are perfect for the independently published book. They offer a level playing field—your book gets equal “shelf placement” with the titles from major publishers. Many publishing houses are slow to take advantage of the cornucopia of marketing opportunities available to target online bookstore shoppers. What an incredible opportunity for the independent author!
Please, take our hard-learned advice and develop a track record of sales elsewhere before trying to tackle the difficult brick-and-mortar bookstore market.
Endorsements: Pros and cons for the self-published book
Many self-published authors fret over not having endorsements for their book. Do you really need endorsements for your book to sell?
It depends.
An endorsement is only as good as the person who wrote it. If the endorsement is from your neighbor whose only claim to fame is the endorsement on your book, it won’t provide the goals of the endorsement.
The goals of endorsements are three-fold.
First off, they establish credibility to buyers saying, “Someone else has read this book.”
Secondly, they offer insight into the quality of the book. For example, one Wheatmark title, The Big Gamble: Are You Investing or Speculating has an endorsement by Donald Trump. Yes, that Donald Trump. If The Donald likes it and thinks the book is of value, there is a pretty safe bet that you will not be taking a gamble purchasing it.
Finally, an endorsement is great for comparing your taste to someone else’s. Wheatmark recently released The Big Girls Club where an endorser says that at “one minute I was laughing and the next I was crying,” which backs up the book’s claim to be Sex in the City meets Eckhart Tolle. If you think Sex in the City is a funny but emotional show about women, then you might enjoy the way The Big Girls Club is written.
If an endorsement isn’t by a respected leader of the industry you are trying to tap— a professor, journalist, fellow author, etc.—then the endorsement won’t have the professional weight to add the credibility you need.
Endorsements, when effective, can be a useful tool when selling your book. However, they are not the most important.
For self-published authors, getting quality endorsements can be difficult and expensive. Sending review copies to reviewers and authors who don’t end up endorsing your book can get expensive and emotionally difficult.
One of the best ways to get the good word out about your book if you don’t have strong endorsements is to ask everyone who has read and liked your book to review it on sites like Amazon.com.
Positive reviews can provide leaps and bounds better leverage for sales than a vague endorsement from your Aunt Ida.
Can Your Readers Find You? Provide Author Contact Info
When you publish your book you are entering a conversation with your readers. Because you are starting a conversation, your readers–your conversation partners–will want to get in touch with you and provide you with valuable feedback that will move this conversation along.
You should add your author contact info to your book so your readers could get in touch with you!
We as book publishers receive lots of requests from readers to pass messages on to our authors, which we do as a courtesy to you. This is proof that your readers need to be able to contact you, otherwise it’s just a one-way conversation.
What should you include as contact info?
The single most important contact information you should include in your book is the link to your website. For example, you could say, “To contact Jane Doe, visit her website at http://www.author-janedoe.info.” Naturally, the website would list either phone, email address (email forms are great!), or even a post office box, depending on what level of information you feel comfortable with. Unless you are selling something, email contact should be enough. If any of your contact information changes later, you won’t need to update your book, just update the info on your website.
You don’t have a website or blog? You should have one, but for now include your email address in your book. If you don’t want to give out your personal AOL email that you use to keep in touch with your family and friends, create a special email address just for your readers. For example, your book would say, “To contact Jane Doe, email her at author_janedoe@hotmail.com” or another email address. (Then think about having your own blog or website.)
Where to include contact info?
The best place to include your website or email info is on the back cover. Everybody looks at the back cover when they read a book. Just in case, do include it on the copyright page as well.
Your readers want to get in touch with you, and it would be rude not to let them!
5 Tips for the Short Story Writer
- Know what constitutes a short story. A short story is about 10,000 words. Much longer and it becomes a different animal. You may be asking, “How many page is that?” The answer is, use your word count. When your story goes to layout, it could be just about any amount of page numbers depending on the interior layout style.
- Limit your scope of time or character. A short story is not a lazy novel. In fact, a short story is often harder to write because it is a small package that must remain within its own confines. You shouldn’t try to tell someone’s life story in a short story unless it is about a fruitfly.
- Try to keep your short story time frame as a snippet. Need some back story? Great! But make sure it doesn’t go on and on and on. Another way to limit your scope is through character selection. If you have too many characters actively involved in the story, you may want to reconsider whether you are writing a short story or a novel written in character sections that intertwine.
- Cut the fat. Again. A short story is not a lazy novel. It requires a deliberateness and sparity of language. Make sure you ruthlessly edit your sentences to distill them down to the most important of words that still grab the essence of the character. This doesn’t mean you need to write simplistic sentences fit for a young reader. It means you need to be selective. Ask yourself, “Does this sentence further the story or give some sense of character or plot?” Because if the answer is no, then cut it. If you find yourself explaining every gesture and action of your character, your writing needs tightening up. Recently I read a story that involved tons of dialogue. In each phrase the speaking character said the name of the character they were talking to. It read something like this (names have been changed):
“Jeffrey, will you take the garbage under the sink in the kitchen up to the Dumpster at the top of the hill?”
“Yes, Kathryn, I will take the garbage under the sink in the kitchen up to the Dumpster at the top of the hill?”
Snore! Not only does it take up a ton of space, it is really boring and makes your characters sound like they have been taken over by an alien robot race that has become self-aware.
- Point of view. Authors often try to switch voices within novels. It doesn’t work well there. It definitely won’t work in a short story. Keep your point of view (or POV for the cool kids) limited to one. Either a narrator or a character. It keeps the story clean, the reader focused, and the story easier to tell.
- Is it a short story? As you write, you may find out that your short story is kind of long. With potential to be even longer. Revisit points 1-4 and if you find that your writing is tight, your time frame is fair, and you’ve written excellent deliberate sentences then what you have on your hands is not a short story. It’s a novel. So you the writer needs to make a decision. Fish or cut bait. If you are committed to the short form, rework the story so that it is an excerpt that can stand alone as a short story. You can always expand on it later. Or, go for it. Write that blasted novel you’ve been thinking about!