Blog | How to Blog a Book

April 17, 2012 By Nina Leave a Comment

There are some great reasons to blog a booklet-length book, and you can easily do so in a month or less. Booklets may be my favorite form of short book. As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, many short books can be printed as booklets. These saddle-stitched (stapled) books come in an assortment of sizes and can be produced most effectively on a booklet press, but I’ve had them done at Kinko’s and Office Depot as well. They tend to be inexpensive to produce, and you can run down and have just a few printed whenever you need them.

You can put a variety of blogged content into a booklet. For instance, you could blog a booklet with:

a series of posts related to a longer book you plan to write
a series of posts related to a workshop, class or webinar you teach
just the introduction or first chapter of your book
content based on an idea you want to test market
information related to a speech you give

You might notice a theme here: Booklets are a great way to produce a short version of a book you plan to write or a product you can sell in conjunction with something else you do.

In the first case—the short version of a book you plan to write, you can actually test market the subject matter to see if there is interest in your book. By blogging a portion of your book, you can track the number of readers you get to those posts. If your traffic increases as you write that series, you know you have a winner. You then also can edit the series into an actual printed booklet and sell it when you go out and speak on the topic. Or simply sell it off your blog or website as an ebook. See how many sales you get. Depending upon the length, you might be able to sell it on CreateSpace. You can upload it to Smashwords.com and make it available for a variety of e-readers. In all these cases, you can see how well it sells, and then, if it does well, proceed with the full-length version.

In the second case, if you teach workshops, webinars, teleseminars, or give talks or speeches, you should be selling products at the back of the room. This gives you an added source of revenue. It also provides another way to test market your idea—both as a talk and a book. The easiest way to get the booklet written is via a series of blog posts on the topic of your speech. When done with the series, which need only be about 10-30 posts, edit the manuscript, have it simply designed with a cover, and then print it up.

Depending upon the length of your booklet, you might be able to design it into an actual print-on-demand book at CreateSpace or with a digital printer. This is a cheap option as well, but then you don’t have a booklet, you have a book. The advantage of a booklet is that you can easily make changes to the document and resend it to the print shop. I just send a PDF to my printer. The next day I pick up as few as one copy. And they may cost as little as $1-2 dollars to print.

In many cases, I’ve been able to design these myself. More recently, I’ve had cover designs done for my booklets. I’ve included the covers here in this post so you can see some of them.

I’m always amazed at how many of these I sell when I speak. I teach a class on how to write a short book fast, and I always sell a ton of my booklets. People buy them as examples of what they can produce on their blogs or simply by writing them the traditional way. I highly recommend blogging booklets, though. You can have one written in 10-30 days with no problem. Try it. Once you’ve completed one, you will want to do it again. I promise. It’s so easy. Let me know how it goes.

If you missed the announcement, you can win a free, signed copy of How to Blog a Book by participating in NaBoBloMo. Here’s how. Write a post a day and get at least a 7,500-word manuscript completed in a month. That’s a 250-word post per day (or a longer post 5 days per week). Here are the rules/requirements: Send in your 7,500-word manuscript with a table of contents, a 50-word pitch, and an overview of the book (synopsis). It must arrive by 12 p.m. 4/30/12 Pacific Time. Email it to me at nina (at) ninaamir (dot) com.

Filed Under: Blogging Short Books Tagged With: blogged books, booklets, NaBoBloMo, National Book Blogging Month

April 12, 2012 By Nina Leave a Comment

Most of the books I edit or coach people to write fall into the prescriptive nonfiction category. This means they offer guidance or direction on a particular topic. They might provide 10 steps for better sex, or 8 ways to better parenting or a guide to getting published, for example. The authors might be experts—or have interviewed experts—on how to lose weight, build a better solar home or get more business leads, for instance. If you can think of a topic, passion or interest, someone is an expert on it. I always say, everyone is an expert on something.

If you offer readers direction on a particular topic and you do so with authority, you can write a prescriptive nonfiction book. Better yet, you can blog such a book in 30 days (or less). If you are joining National Book Blogging Month (NaBoBloMo) just now, on day 12, you have 18 days to come up with 18 ways to do something. You can write a how-to book on anything about which you are an expert. You also can bring in outside resources, such as other experts or research, to support your case.

Here are a few ideas for prescriptive nonfiction books—all of which you could blog before month’s end:

A how-to book (How to Write a Better Blog in a Week)
A handbook (The Dog Owner’s Handbook)
A guide book (A Guide to Pet Ownership)
A rule book (18 Rules for a Perfect Marriage)
A step book (18 Steps to Writing a Business Plan)

Now, how to get these books blogged before the month is over? Simple.

Pick a topic.
- Ask yourself what you are an expert in or an authority on.
- Ask yourself what problem you could solve for people in that area or subject or what question you could answer for them.
- Ask yourself what you could teach people to do in that area of expertise.
Decide on the structure of your book.
- Can you offer a certain number of rules or steps? If so, how many?
- Would this subject be better tackled as a guide or a handbook of some sort? In this case, you would be writing chapters on certain topics or answering a variety of questions, maybe one per chapter.
- Might you want to approach it as how-to book broken down into a system of some sort, much like steps?
Break that structure down into a daily writing guide.
- You need to finish in 30 days (or less), so figure out how many steps, or rules or chapters you must complete per day.
Write one post or more per day, depending upon how much time you have, and publish as many as necessary per day to get the project done by month’s end.

That’s it! You will be done blogging your prescriptive nonfiction book in 30 days or less. When finished, pick a publishing option for your blogged book. You can pursue traditional publishing or self-publishing avenues. If you take the latter option, the type of printing you choose will depend upon the length of your book. You can do an ebook, of course, and a printed book. If it is short, you can even produce it as a booklet on a booklet press inexpensively. (These are saddle stitched, or stapled.) Don’t forget to opt for professional editing and design. This ensures you end up with a professional-quality book.

If you missed the announcement, you can win a free, signed copy of How to Blog a Book by participating in NaBoBloMo. Here’s how. Write a post a day and get at least a 7,500-word manuscript completed in a month. That’s a 250-word post per day (or a longer post 5 days per week). Here are the rules/requirements: Send in your 7,500-word manuscript with a table of contents, a 50-word pitch, and an overview of the book (synopsis). It must arrive by 12 p.m. 4/30/12 Pacific Time. Email it to me at nina (at) ninaamir (dot) com.

Filed Under: Blogging Short Books, National Book Blogging Month Tagged With: blogging a book, NaBoBloMo, National Book Blogging Month, prescriptive nonfiction

April 10, 2012 By Nina Leave a Comment

I love producing short books fast, and I often teach workshops on this topic. Writers get very excited about becoming a published author in under a month. What better time to try writing and publishing a short book fast than during what I have decided to call National Book Blogging Month (NaBoBloMo). As I said at the beginning of the month, the challenge is to blog a book in a month. You can even still do that if you are starting now.

If you are like me, sometimes it’s impossible to find the time or the energy to write long—long posts or long books. You want to write a book, but turning out 200-250 pages seems like too big a project to tackle. You might find this especially true when you want to get something done in, say, 30 days, like during NaBoBLoMo. Rather than have this stop you from even starting, begin a smaller book project.

Short books can be anywhere from 16 to 100 pages in length. Fast and much less intimidating to produce, you even can create them out of repurposed material, such as blog posts, e-zine articles or sections of books. But it’s easier to just blog them from scratch. Today, let’s look at how to blog the easiest short book of them all: a tip book. This is something you easily still can blog over the next 20 days if you are just joining NaBoBloMo, for instance.

A tip book usually features a list of 10-101 tips. Normally, you find one per page, but I’ve seen some tip books that are just long lists of tips with many per page. Each tip might be just a sentence long or you can include a paragraph or two of explanation. This determines the how many are included on the page. I prefer the type that has a tip highlighted at the top of the page with a brief explanation.

Writing a tip book is pretty simple. Just compose a list of tips about something you know a lot about. To start, pick a topic. to do so, ask yourself:

In what area or subject am I an expert?
What problem have I solved?

Can you tell people 20 ways to keep a gophers from eating their plants or offer 50 tips for baking better muffins? Do you know 30 ways to save money on taxes or 100 ways to generate more business leads? If so, you’re an expert on that topic and can write a tip book. For example, you might write 50 Tips for Faster Housecleaning, 101 Tips for Baking Better Bread or 99 Tips for Sewing Sensational Prom Dresses.

If you prefer, you can create a step book, such as 20 Steps Toward Better Child Rearing or 50 Steps for a Better Blog. You can also call your tips or steps “ways,” as in 10 Ways to Help Your ADHD Child.

If you create a simple design even in Microsoft Word and a nice cover, a printer with a booklet press or Kinko’s can print this very inexpensively for you using saddle stitching (staples). Depending upon the page count and size of the book, you might even be able to produce these as print on demand (POD) books; if you design it as a small-sized book your page count will go up and your can produce a normal perfect-bound paper back book.

Blogging a tip book will only take you as long as the number of tips (or steps or ways) you choose to include. 50 tips, 50 days—unless you publish more posts per day or more tips per post.

If you missed the announcement, you can win a free, signed copy of How to Blog a Book by participating in NaBoBloMo. Here’s how. Write a post a day and get at least a 7,500-word manuscript completed in a month. That’s a 250-word post per day (or a longer post 5 days per week). Here are the rules/requirements: Send in your 7,500-word manuscript with a table of contents, a 50-word pitch, and an overview of the book (synopsis). It must arrive by 12 p.m. 4/30/12 Pacific Time. Email it to me at nina (at) ninaamir (dot) com.

Filed Under: Blogging Short Books, Blogs Turned Into Books Tagged With: NaBoBloMo, National Book Blogging Month, short books, tip book

April 5, 2012 By Nina Leave a Comment

When you blog a book, your intention should be to blog a good book. You may be writing fast, producing content in as little as 30 minutes a day. You are creating the first draft of your manuscript. However, that doesn’t mean the writing should be bad. It should be good, as should the content. That’s how you attract readers.

I’ve sometimes criticized the principle behind National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), which encourages participants to write anything, even mumbo jumbo, as long as they end up with 50,000 words by month’s end. That’s not my goal with National Book Blogging Month (NaBoBloMo), nor has it ever been my goal with Write Nonfiction in November (WNFIN), also known as National Nonfiction Writing Month (NaNonFicWriMo).

Learning to turn out great content quickly is a great skill to have. I know this, since I was trained as a journalist. You can create the habit of turning out good content fast, and most bloggers do, indeed, create this habit, just like good journalists.

First, make decisions about what you will write. As I mentioned in yesterday’s post, you need to decide on the topic of your book and its structure. Once you also have a content plan (see this post on mind mapping) or an outline, you should easily be able to sit down each day and make a decision about what you will write about and what will be included in your post. You need to decide:

What is important and what isn’t?
Does this add value for my readers?
Do I need more information?
How will I start and end the post?
What links or resources might I want to include?

Once you’ve answered these questions, it’s time to start writing. Try not to let your inner critic slow you down. Some writers do best with a timed writing or by writing as fast as possible until they are done. Others edit as they go, but this can make the writing go more slowly.

Here’s a checklist for producing well-written copy:

Don’t write more words than you need.
Write an attention-getting first sentence.
Use the active voice as much as possible.
Vary the length of your sentences.
Cut out unnecessary words.
Write simply—like you would speak.
Don’t try to use large words to sound smart.
Write short paragraphs.
Finish with a call to action.
Reread your post looking for each of these items; then correct them.

Proofreading is also good, of course. Many of us don’t have proofreaders on hand to help with this task. I like to look at my blog posts in preview mode. This helps me catch some bloopers before I hit “publish.”

Have you been blogging your book? You should have five posts up by now. Let me know how it’s going.

Filed Under: Blogging Short Books, National Book Blogging Month, Writing Posts/Chapters Tagged With: blog a book in a month, blog fast, Blogging Month, National Book, write fast

April 3, 2012 By Nina Leave a Comment

It’s spring. As the natural world seems to give birth to new blooms, leaves and flowers, it’s time to give birth to a new book—to bring that idea inside you into the world on your blog. That’s right. This month we are focusing on blogging a book in 30 days. Call April National Book Blogging Month (NaBoBloMo). Time to get spring fever for a blogged book.

Yes, we have missed three days already, but that also means this is not an April Fool’s day joke. I warned you at the end of last month it was coming…

Okay. How to start. First, you need to know what you are writing. Let’s not start with your magnum opus, although you can blog that, too, and you should. I don’t suggest this month, though, because you won’t gain many enough followers in 30 days to get discovered by an agent or acquisitions editor. You will, however, gain some new readers, I’m sure. And you will get a book written. That’s cool and builds platform; plus it gives you a way to monetize your blog. But what I’m talking about this month is blogging a book fast. That means blogging a short book, like I did last month when I blogged about how to book a blog. Basically, I blogged about 6,000 words of a first draft minus an intro, conclusion and one or two extra chapters.

Here are a few ideas for short books.

A tip book
A how-to book
A handbook
A guide book
A book of quotations with your comments
A travel guide
A gift book
A book of rules or steps
A book of meditations

Now, come up with a structure for your blogged book. Figure out if you will have any special features in your book, like quotations, interviews, sidebars, tips. You might look at other similar (printed or electronic) books to see what types of features they have or what structure they have used.

Obviously, you will be blogging your book in a month, so you need at least 20 or 25 posts. (I’m leaving a few days off for editing the finished manuscript.) Decide out how many words you want your book to have, or how many pages. Now do the math. How many words on each completed printed or ebook page? How many words do you need to write per day? How much time do you need for this? Create a schedule.

Last, map out your content. You can do this with a mind map. I’ve explained how to do so previously in this post. Or you can just create a table of contents and break it down into subheadings, which will be your blog post titles. That’s pretty simple.

Now that you have a content plan, start writing at fever pitch! Have a book written before summer. You can do it by simply writing a post a day.

Tell me what book you are going to blog this month.

My birthday is on April 5^th. Want to give me a birthday present?
Nominate this blog for the TOP TEN BLOGS FOR BLOGGERS CONTEST 2012.
Doing so is easy.
Just click here, and then leave a comment with
the URL to this blog (http://www.howtoblogabook.com) and
a reason or two why you think How to Blog a Book should win the contest.
Nominations end April 9th.
Thanks so much for your support.

Filed Under: Blogging Short Books, National Book Blogging Month Tagged With: blog a book, book blogging, write a book fast, write a book in 30 days

March 29, 2012 By Nina 1 Comment

Once your booked blog has been professionally edited, you must decide how you will publish it. You have a variety of options for turning your blogged book manuscript into an actual book.

Traditional Publishing

If you’ve come this far—spending time and money on professional editing services, you have likely decided not to go the traditionally publishing route. However, nothing stops you from changing your mind and deciding you want to see what an agent or acquisitions editor might say about your booked blog manuscript. In fact, I usually advise people who have a small but nagging desire to have a publisher back their project at least to give it a try. At this point, go ahead and write that query letter and proposal, have these professionally edited by a book proposal editor, and send them off. See what happens.

You will want to send the query off to an agent first if you plan on approaching mid-sized to large publishing houses. Small publishing houses take unagented work in most cases; some mid-sized houses do as well. However, an agent can prove helpful in all cases. I see mine as my business partner; she looks out for my best interests when it comes to my contract.

The advantage of traditional publishing remains the same as always:

a bit of clout or credibility (someone has put their money behind you)
some money up front for your work (not a lot in most cases, but something)
help funding the design of your book and the printing
help funding the editing (although you’ve already done that)
a little bit of help with promotion
some distribution into stores
a business partner

The disadvantage, of course, is that you earn a lower—much lower—percentage on each book sale. You also lose control over your book; the publisher, editorial staff and design team will make the decisions about your book. And you will likely not be able to publish anything else on a topic similar to your book until your publisher has decided not to take on that project as well. (This is called “first right of refusal” and is a clause in most contracts.)

Self-Publishing

If you don’t want to do all the things that go with self-publishing, though—like hiring a designer (or an editor, if you didn’t already do that), figuring out how to get your book printed, purchasing an ISBN, getting your book converted into an ebook format, handling distribution, etc., traditional publishing may be the best route for you. If this stuff doesn’t bother you, or it actually turns you on, maybe you want to go the indie publishing route.

I make no claims to be THE expert on self-publishing. My expertise lies in helping you get your book written. That said, I have self-published a few short books, one of which was a blogged book. It’s not too difficult, but it does take time, effort and attention to detail. You have to be a good manager. The advantages of being a self-publisher are:

You have total control over the process and your work.
You get to choose your cover and interior design.
You get to choose your book title.
You earn more per book.
You can choose more creative ways to promote you book, like giving away books for free.
You have the freedom to write and publish what you want when you want.
You can bring a book to market quickly.

If you choose this route, you can produce a print-on-demand (POD) book, a fairly inexpensive option that allows you to print just one book at a time in many cases or none at all. Many authors today are using Amazon’s CreateSpace to do this; I have used them, but I was not that happy with the quality of their books as compared to a digital printer I used previously. You can also use Lightning Source, a well-respected and well-established POD printer that has been around a long time. However, their services do cost more.

You might also choose to print your booked book using offset printing. Doing so is considered “true self-publishing,” but it requires printing large quantities of books. Personally, I find this a high-risk option, and I don’t want to have those books stored in my home somewhere.

Of course, the cheapest option is to get on board with the biggest publishing trend and produce an ebook. By far, this is the most inexpensive self-publishing option, since you really only need a cover design. You can have an interior book design, but it isn’t necessary. You may need someone to help you convert you booked blog manuscript to the right format for uploading, and there are great services available for distributing ebooks, like Amazon’s Kindle or Kindle Select, Smashwords.com and Bookbaby.com.

I can’t stress enough, however, that whatever indie route you take you make sure you get a professionally designed cover. Covers sell books. Although you can get an ebook cover art for as little as $50 (Smashwords.com has a list of people who do ebook conversions and covers.), you might want to research some other options. For instance, Digital Book Launch offers a $200 book cover option, and the company is know for its marketing know how, which is the touch a cover needs to catch the attention of potential readers and then get them to take your book to the register. (And, yes, I am an affiliate for this program because I think it’s an awesome and affordable service for authors.)

Many subsidy or author services companies offer cover and interior design services as well. Beware that these may not be as high quality or unique as what you will get with a book designer who owns his or her own company. (The same holds true for their editorial services; they tend to be rather “light.”) These companies, like BookLocker, iUniverse, Xlibris, PublishAmerica, and Lulu, call themselves publishers, but they are what used to be called vanity presses.

Which brings me to another important point: If you don’t want to go the traditional publishing route, or can’t find an agent or publisher to take on your project, and you don’t want to be an indie publisher, which basically means you become a publisher, a subsidy or author services company might be your saving grace. The offer all the services you need to get your book into print (and sometimes also into ebook format) usually at an affordable price. Just know that the editing and design may not be the best or most unique. And their name will be on the side of your book, but that does not mean they are your publisher; it just means you bought their services. They say they pay you royalties. That’s kind of pushing it in my mind.

Creative Publishing Choices

Now, last, but not least, there are a few more options. Fast Pencil offers some of the same services you can get at a subsidy publishing company, but you can now use your own ISBN. Plus, you can load up your own cover design, and their system has several built-in interior design options, which makes it fairly affordable. They also have an inexpensive ebook conversion program. Additionally, they have a blog-to-book program that will take your blog and convert it into a book, but you will then have to do the editing and design within their technology. (Disclaimer: I am an affiliate for FastPencil; I have been working with them on and off and was waiting for them to develop the option to use your own ISBN. I will be publishing something with them soon now that they have it.)

If you want to build your fan base or author’s platform—gain traffic and unique readers—while trying to get the backing of a traditional publisher, check out PubSlush.com. Unlike popular sites like kickstarter.com, where you submit a project and ask people to preorder your book so you get funded, at PubSlush you post your book project and start asking people to preorder your book, but when you reach 1,000 supporters, guess what? PubSlush publishes your book for you. In other words, when they see that your book has enough reader interest, they put all those preorder to work in the form of editing, design and promotion—all the things a traditional publisher would do for you. So, you get one more round of polishing on your manuscript, professional design, promotional help—and you don’t have to be an indie publisher if you don’t want to be. Pretty nice. You already have a following of readers, so send them on over to PubSlush.

I have probably not covered all the different publishing options available. And new options show up all the time. These will at least get you thinking about how you want to publish your booked blog.

And that ends March and it’s focus on booking a blog. Guess what? In those 30 days, I blogged a short book.

On to April: Blog a Book in 30 Days

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My birthday is on April 5^th. Want to give me a birthday present?
Nominate this blog for the TOP TEN BLOGS FOR BLOGGERS CONTEST 2012.
Doing so is easy.
Just click here, and then leave a comment with
the URL to this blog (http://www.howtoblogabook.com) and
a reason or two why you think How to Blog a Book should win the contest.
Nominations end April 9th.
Thanks so much for your support.

Filed Under: Booking a Blog (Repurposing Content into a Book), Create a POD Book, Create an E-Book, What to Do When You Complete Your Blogged Book Tagged With: book covers, booked blog, ebooks, self-publishing

March 27, 2012 By Nina 9 Comments

Once you have self-edited your booked blog manuscript, send it to a professional editor for another round of developing and polishing (or two or three). After all, that’s what professional editors are: developers and polishers of manuscripts. They make sure the story or content is fully developed—reader friendly and reader ready—and they polish the prose until it shines so brightly that it serves as a beacon to publishers and to readers.

Do not skip this step or skimp here. Don’t become one of the many self-published authors who fail to have their manuscripts professionally edited and end up with a book that does not meet the same quality standards of traditionally published books. If you do so, it likely won’t sell well because it will stick out like a sore thumb as self-published; this fact will be evident in its lack of professional editing.

This also will prove true if you don’t get your book professionally designed. No one will get past the cover of your book without a professional cover design (or a professional interior design). They will pick it up and then put it down without ever even looking inside at one word you have written. If the cover copy is not well written as well, they will not be enticed to read the interior pages.

Types of Editors and Editing

There are three basic types of editors and editing. I’ve combined my own definitions with those of my colleague Sue Collier of Self Publishing Resources. However, these definitions vary from one editor to another. So ask what you are getting. For instance, when I do developmental editing, I do not do line editing. However, I do some of the things listed here under content editing. A few of the things listed under content editing I do when I line edit.

Copy editing or line editors
- Generally strengthen sentence structure and, therefore, writing. They:
  - Correct faulty spelling, grammar and punctuation.
  - Correct poor usage (such as which for that).
  - Check specific cross-references (for ex., tables and illustrations mentioned in the content).
  - Ensure consistency in spelling, hyphenation, numerals, comma usage, and capitalization.
  - Check for proper sequencing (such as alphabetical order) in lists and other displayed material.
  - Record the first references to figures, tables, and other display elements.
Content or substantive editors
- Do all copy or line editing tasks plus:
  - Alter text and headings to achieve parallel structure.
  - Flag or change inappropriate figures of speech.
  - Ensure key terms are handled consistently.
  - Ensure that previews, summaries and end-of-chapter questions reflect content.
  - Track the continuity of plot, setting and character traits for fiction manuscripts.
  - Create queries for the author about discrepancies.
  - Enforce consistent style/tone in a multi-author manuscript.
  - Change passive voice to active voice, if requested.
  - Flag or change ambiguous or incorrect statements in nonfiction manuscripts.
Developmental editors
- In addition to all substantive editing tasks, this type of editor:
  - Ensures everything makes sense, flows, has been included and is in the correct place.
  - Eliminates wordiness, redundancies, triteness and inappropriate jargon.
  - Smoothes transitions and moves sentences or paragraphs to improve readability.
  - Assigns new levels to subheads to achieve logical structure.
  - Suggests—and sometimes implements—additions and deletions.
  - Rewrites, where needed.

Some editors like to edit in phases. Phase I is called the manuscript analysis. They read the whole manuscript and make notes in the margins about what needs to be improved. This is a sketchy developmental edit of sorts. They give the author, first, a general idea of what has to be done to improve the book, and, second, specific recommendations on a chapter-by-chapter basis. This document becomes the blueprint for the work done on the manuscript from that point forward. A writer who wants to learn and improve their own writing will take this document and create a new and improved draft of the manuscript by incorporating the suggestions prior to having the manuscript edited.

Phase II serves as the first round of editing. Typically, this involves developmental editing or a combination of substantive and developmental editing. If a writer chooses to skip the developmental phase of editing, in this phase the editor would a line or copy edit or a full developmental edit as described above, including all areas of editing at once; this is much harder to do from an editor’s standpoint.

Phase III comes into play if the client has chosen a developmental or substantive edit in Phase II. Now a line edit is completed.

That said, Phase II and Phase III involve some back and forth, and if a manuscript has need of major revisions or work, each of these phases could involve several rounds of going from editor to client and back again. It is not unusual for a manuscript to go from editor to client, back to the editor after the client makes additional changes and revisions, back to the client again for more changes and revisions, and then back to the editor again before that phase has been completed.

When the editing is done, it’s time to find a proofreader. Proofreaders provide a different skill than editors. They catch minor errors made during editing—a word not caught by the spell-checker, a second period left unnoticed amongst the changes made, too many spaces between words, possibly even a stray comma that doesn’t fit the style used throughout the book. You may also need an indexer if you have written a nonfiction book.

Choosing an Editor

You do not need to live close to your editor. Most editors work by email, phone or by Skype. The key is to find someone with whom you can work well. How do you do this? Find an editor that suits your style.

Ask yourself what type of person you are? Do you need to be handled gently…coddled? Do you need positive feedback about your work first or all the time? I usually put it this way: Do you want an editor that keeps the gloves on?

Or do you want an editor that takes the gloves off? Can you handle criticism? Do you want to be told what’s wrong so it can be fixed? Can you take the bad news first? Do you tend to say, “Tell it to me like it is?”

Then find an editor who does the type of editing that you need. First look for an editor in your genre. If you are writing fiction, you need a fiction editor. If you write nonfiction, you need a nonfiction editor. If you write memoir or mystery or fantasy, it’s great to find an editor who specializes in that area.

You’ll also want to check out an editor’s track record. Look for testimonials from past clients. And if possible, test them out. For example, I am usually at the San Francisco Writers Conference working as a book doctor. These are free short consultations. I also offer a short test edit on people’s work when I give an estimate of how long it will take to edit a job. This gives you an idea of my style and how I would edit your work. Other editors should give you the same type of courtesy.

And do get an estimate. Editors charge by the word, by the page and by the hour. I charge by the hour, and that seems most common for the professional editors I know. This can range from $25-$200+ per hour, and you do, as with all things, get what you pay for in most cases. You can estimate the cost of your manuscript editing by figuring out how many pages you have (most pages doubled spaced in Times Roman 12 pt. have between 250-300 words per page) and then assuming most editors will edit between 3-10 pages per hour depending upon the type of editing they are doing and the cleanliness or strength of your writing.

To find good editors, ask fellow writers for recommendations, attend a conference where they have “book doctors,” or contact the Editorial Freelancers Association.

Next time we’ll discuss your publishing options for your booked blog.

Do you want your blogged book or booked blog manuscript
to shine like a beacon to readers and publishers?

Book editors are manuscript developers and polishers.

Call today to find the perfect editor for your
manuscript.
408-353-1943

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Filed Under: Booking a Blog (Repurposing Content into a Book), Editing Your Manuscript, What to Do When You Complete Your Blogged Book Tagged With: blogged book editor, booked blog editor, content editor, copy editing, copy editor, develomental editor, line editor

March 22, 2012 By Nina 3 Comments

Compiling a blogged book manuscript from all those posts you’ve previously written can be a big job—especially if you didn’t do a good job of organizing your blog with categories and tags. If you did, the manuscript may have come together pretty easily. However, as I mentioned in my last post, all you have now is a bunch of posts lumped together into the framework of a book. It’s not a book. It’s hardly a manuscript. Let me explain why.

A true first draft of a book will flow easily from chapter to chapter, section to section, paragraph to paragraph. What you have compiled does not do that…yet. The reason is simple: The posts you previously wrote, while well-written, and published were meant as stand-alone pieces of work. That’s why you now have to create flow. You have to write into the spaces that exist between them. In other words, you have to create transitions between the posts that create the illusion that all that content was written at the same time and belongs together.

In fact, it does belong together. The subjects all can be woven together. But that takes some work. So, let’s talk about that process, which is called revision and editing.

The first part of the process should really be the work you do. You sit down with that manuscript and start reading. Then you look for ways to improve your blog posts and to create that flow between the posts. This can involve:

Removing excessive use of lists.
Adding transitions.
Removing active links (for print books).
Removing mention of previous posts or next posts.
Editing out redundancies or any repetition.
Adding missing information.
Answering questions you feel you left unanswered.
Addressing readers’ comments and questions.
Incorporating readers’ comments and anecdotes.
Checking your grammar and spelling.
Removing blog titles and choosing the ones that work as subtitles.
And more…

When you’ve finished this process, you hopefully have a manuscript—the first draft of your blogged book. Now it’s time to hire a professional book editor.

Do not skip this step. Please. If you do, you will doom your book. This is true whether you plan on getting it traditionally published or self-published, but it is essential for those of you who plan on taking the indie route.

Let me touch on traditional publishing first. If you want to seek out a literary agent, you will need a book proposal. This document, along with your query letter, is, as they say, your first and only chance to make a good impression. Don’t blow it with poorly written or edited or proofread documents. Take your two best chapters (about 25 pages), place them in the proposal, and then have it professionally edited by someone who knows something about book proposals and books. That means do not ask your high school English teacher, your mother, you spouse, or your best friend to do this. Pay good money for a professional book editor and book proposal consultant (yes, like me or someone on my staff—sorry for the ad).

If you are planning to be an indie author, you do not want your book to stand out as self-published. It will if you do two things: (1) fail to have it professionally edited. (2) fail to have it professionally designed. The reason for this is simple. Traditionally published books are both professionally edited and designed. So…to have your book meet the same standards, you need both these things. That means you have to bite the bullet and pay for these professional services. No, they aren’t always cheap, but they are worth it in the long run.

Next week I will discuss how to choose an editor and what type of editor you need for your blogged book.

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Do you want your blogged book or booked blog manuscript

to shine like a beacon to readers and publishers?

Book editors are manuscript developers and polishers.

Call today to find the perfect editor for your
manuscript.
408-353-1943

Filed Under: Booking a Blog (Repurposing Content into a Book) Tagged With: booking a blog, editing, first draft, self-publishing

March 20, 2012 By Nina 3 Comments

I’ve written searching through your categories and using tags to find content for your booked blog manuscript. You also can find content in your existing blog post to repurpose into your book in other ways. Some of these require manual work, others more technical savvy.

An old search method, of course, simply requires you put search terms and phrases into your blog’s search engine (provided you have one). This will bring up the blog posts most closely related in topic. You can then pilfer through them to see if anything new comes up that you haven’t already found when looking through your categories or tags. You can use this method alone if you have not used your categories or tags well in the first place.

If you are a Mac user, you can do what LifeHacker blogger and author Gina Trapani did. She used a Mac program called DEVONthink Pro. This program creates a database of web pages, plain notes and word processing documents out of your blog. You then can organize this data into a book outline. Using this program Trapani was able “to suck all 5,000 of Lifehacker’s blog posts into its database immediately” as she worked on her book. Pretty cool.

With that in mind, you might be able to find a coder to extract your blog posts into a data base even if you aren’t a Mac user. It’s amazing what a good coder can do—and for not very much money. Try placing a request on ODesk.com or Elance.com and see what you get back.

When you have finished extracting all those posts from your blog, you will, indeed, have what looks like the makings of a manuscript. Don’t, however, get too excited yet. You still have a lot of work ahead of you.

In fact, now the real work begins. You must edit and revise those posts into a manuscript that shines. Right now all you have is a bunch of posts lumped together into the framework of a book. That said, it’s a great start—probably pretty close to the first draft of your book if you did the planning I suggested here.

<<Previous Post Next Post>>

Do you want your blogged book or booked blog manuscript to
shine like a beacon to readers and publishers?

Book editors are manuscript developers and polishers.

Call today to find the perfect editor for your manuscript.
408-353-1943

Filed Under: Booking a Blog (Repurposing Content into a Book) Tagged With: book a blog, database, repurposing blog posts, search engine, writing a book

March 15, 2012 By Nina 5 Comments

Yesterday I discussed how to use categories to find content for your booked blog. Another great way to find content when you are trying to repurpose your existing blog content into a book involves playing tag…metaphorically speaking, anyway. You use the tag feature of your blog to search out relevant content for your book.

Tags are the search terms and phrases, otherwise known as keywords and keyword phrases, you have used in your posts and then “tagged” your posts with prior to publishing them. This is done in a small box on the page where you actually write your post. If you have done this with each post, you should have an index of sorts for your blog. (If you have not done this, go back and do it for each post…please! It is a huge factor in making your blog search engine friendly.) This will now come in handy, as you will see.

Here’s how you do this if you are using a WordPress blog platform. If you are using a different platform, I’m sure it works in a similar fashion.

Go to “tags” in the WordPress menus. (It’s under “Posts.”)
In the upper right hand corner, you will find a search box. Type in a search term that relates to one of your chapters. For example, if I were booking a blog about scenic design, I might have a chapter on models. So, for that chapter one term I could search for would be “models.” For the chapter on drafting one term I could search for would be “drafting.” Hit “search.”
Once the list is populated, you will find a number in the far right hand corner of the list that tells you how many posts you’ve written that have that particular tag attached to them. Click on that number and a new list will populate—a list of all those posts!
Click on each post.
Copy and past the relevant posts into your manuscript.

Pretty simple.

If you enjoyed this post, or you have been reading and enjoying this blog for a long time, please nominate this blog in the
TOP TEN BLOGS FOR BLOGGERS CONTEST 2012.

Doing so is simple. Just click on this link, and say:

“I’d like to nominate Nina Amir’s blog, How to Blog a Book (http:www.howtoblogabook.com).”

(You can even copy and past that line if you want…) If you want to tell them why you are nominating my blog, that would be super, too. Thanks so much.

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Filed Under: Booking a Blog (Repurposing Content into a Book)