Problem
I am always travelling and don't have time to meet everybody. My friend calls me for advice on publishing her book on club history - the year when she was president. I previously helped her design the cover and layout for her book of self -published poems. She wanted me to write a Foreword. However, I didn't have time to meet.
Answer
MEETING TIME
Luckily, she didn't have time to meet, either. So I suggested: "I could give you advice by Skype or phone at a later date."
MEETING ON THE PHONE
She replied, "Why not now? It'll only take ten minutes!"
In reality that meant about half an hour on the phone. That was a lot better than meeting 'just for half an hour', which last time took five hours!
WRITING A FOREWORD
So I started giving her advice on the phone. Last time I wrote a foreword, I thought it would be difficult. In reality, it's easy. You just write like you talk. Give your comments. Say them aloud. Type it out. Read it back and correct it.
TYPING UP NOTES
I thought: It's no good my taking notes. I'll lose the notes, forget. I'll be busy packing for a trip. Or unpacking from a trip. By the time I find the notes, I won't be able to read my writing and won't remember enough to reconstruct the sentences. It'll never get done. I'll type it up now, in an email, and send it to her straight away.
TYPING AS YOU TALK
I said, "I want to type it now as we speak, and send it to you. I'll type it out, correct it - and send it to you - later.""
"No," she protested. "
I'll type it as
you speak."
That was a great offer, saved me all the time and anxiety. I could think and speak without having to type.
So I conceded, "All right, I'll tell you what I think. You say if it's all right."
She read me the contents list of the book. I made comments such as: You cover a lot of ground. That would be useful to everybody.
She typed it up in the third person:
"Angela said: 'This book covers a lot of ground. That would be useful to everybody. ...' "
SPELLING CHECK
One of the things I was concerned about was that the words I said would appear correctly spelled. I was glad to receive an email from her almost immediately, thanking me and adding the write-up of my words for me to check.
Learned and Learnt
I notice Grammarly has underlined spelled in red. I looked up 'learnt' and 'learned' and learned that you could spell it both ways. Learned ending in ed is increasingly common.
The only thing wrong with the spelling ending in ed, is that people in Asia read what they see and pronounce the word learn - Ed.
However, I was happy with the foreword. So far, so good.
COVER DESIGN
Next, we discussed the cover. She wanted one of her two books to have a plain cover with just the title.
I was not happy with that. Covers sell. Pictures sell.
PRINT SIZE
However, I was able to give her a suggestion about the print size. I had discovered that when you look for a book on line, it often appears with other books which have similar titles. Your book is shown postage stamp size alongside others. If your book has a tiny font, when reduced from A5 to postage size, the title is too small to read. Even if you can just about make it out, it doesn't have the impact of a short title.
SHORT TITLES HAVE IMPACT.
SHORT TITLES HAVE IMPACT.
SHORT TITLES HAVE IMPACT.
Short titles have impact.
Short titles have impact.
Short titles have impact.
How to create short titles.
How to create short titles.
How to create short titles.
How to create short titles.
HOW TO CHOOSE FONTS.
HOW TO CHOOSE FONTS.
Why you should avoid long titles which can be hard to read and take longer to type.
TEN TIMES
I WAS NEARLY MURDERED IN MEXICO!
WHAT ABOUT THE WORDING OF THE TITLE?
People in marketing and copyright advise you to use tricks to improve the title:
USE NUMBERS
1 For example: The seven habits of highly effective poeple. Or should it be: Seven Habits ... Save three letters by dropping the? Seven Greek Islands. The Top Ten Beaches.
ASK OR ANSWER QUESTIONS
2 How to .... (How to write books which sell.) How to find a houseboat.
EMOTIONS
3 They laughed when I sat down to play. The Hammock House Which Makes Me Happy.
SURPRISES, NEGATIVES & HUMOUR
4 How not to write a novel. Ten holidays from hell to avoid - for people in wheelchairs.
RESEARCH
I suggested: Do a search of your subject and title. See how length of a title appears when the book is small.
SHORTEN TITLES
Let's suppose your title is three words: Learn with love. You could have it as one line. Increase the size until it runs onto two lines.
I was thinking about this as I recently put together a slide show in Keynote (Apple system) and Powerpoint (using both to be shown on any computer in a presentation). The text box was very narrow. I kept losing one word to the line below or losing the entire second line until I expanded the text box. As a result of that experience, I was reminded to advise:
To shorten the title often makes the title more succinct. For example, Learn with love could be changed to Love To Learn. That save two characters. Or shorten to Love Learning. That's alliterative.
FIRST WORD AND WORD SEARCH
But which word do you want to come first, love or learning? Try search love learning and learn to love and find how often you get books on learning and how often you get books on loving. You might need to put the word Learning first.
ALPHABETICAL ORDER
You might find that you want a title starting with a letter earlier in the alphabet to ensure that if books are listed alphabetically, yours appears first. Look at the best selling books and see what kind of title is most effective.
AVOID CONFUSION
You might want to avoid having the same title as a best selling book. When people search for your book they cannot find it They end up buying somebody else's book instead.
Even if my ideas did not apply to her book and title, she had made two gains:
1 She knew how to research rival books to spot what was successful and which she liked when she saw a cover in print.
2 She had a chance to talk through her ideas and get feedback and re-think her own decisions.
SUCCESSFUL PHONE CONFERENCING
We did so much - just on the phone. So don't worry about not being able to meet when travelling. You don't need to worry about expensive phone calls or awkward to arrange conference calls with delayed sound. You can accomplish a lot just by dictating down the phone to each other.
Finish the job in five minutes. Type as you go and send the email for correction. If you could record on a smart phone using Siri, or voice recognition, it might be even better.
Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer. Author of about 20 books. How many? I have so many on the go, I lose track.
Please share links to your favourite posts.
Books by Angela Lansbury
How to be the best man. (Ward Lock / Cassell.)
Wedding Speeches and Toasts.(Ward Lock / Cassell.)
Unforgettable British Weekends.
Poetry Workshop Workbook.
The Tailor and the Spy. (Lulu.)
Larry The Talking Labrador. (Lulu.)
Writing Poetry for fun.
