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Author: Patricia Iyer

Do you have an amazing business success you want to share? Pat Iyer has worked with experts helping them share their knowledge since she first began writing and editing books in 1985. Pat Iyer has written or edited over 800 chapters, books, case studies, articles or online courses. She delights in assisting people to share their expertise by writing a book. Pat serves as a developmental editor and ghostwriter.

Pat built a service business assisting attorneys with cases involving medical issues. After growing that business to a multi-million dollar one, after 25 years, she sold it in 2015 and now devotes her time to mentoring, writing and editing. Get tips for polishing your writing style and gaining business through the material you write: Listen to Writing to Get Business Podcast on the C Suite Radio platform.

Reach her through Patiyer.com|Do you have an amazing business success you want to share? Pat Iyer has worked with experts helping them share their knowledge since she first began writing and editing books in 1985. Pat Iyer has written or edited over 800 chapters, books, case studies, articles or online courses. She delights in assisting people to share their expertise by writing a book. Pat serves as a developmental editor and ghostwriter.

Pat built a service business assisting attorneys with cases involving medical issues. After growing that business to a multi-million dollar one, after 25 years, she sold it in 2015 and now devotes her time to mentoring, writing and editing. Get tips for polishing your writing style and gaining business through the material you write: Listen to Writing to Get Business Podcast on the C Suite Radio platform.

Reach her through Patiyer.com|Do you have an amazing business success you want to share? Pat Iyer has worked with experts helping them share their knowledge since she first began writing and editing books in 1985. Pat Iyer has written or edited over 800 chapters, books, case studies, articles or online courses. She delights in assisting people to share their expertise by writing a book. Pat serves as a developmental editor and ghostwriter.

Pat built a service business assisting attorneys with cases involving medical issues. After growing that business to a multi-million dollar one, after 25 years, she sold it in 2015 and now devotes her time to mentoring, writing and editing. Get tips for polishing your writing style and gaining business through the material you write: Listen to Writing to Get Business Podcast on the C Suite Radio platform.

Reach her through Patiyer.com

Categories
Best Practices Growth Personal Development

Getting to Know Your Ideal Reader

One of the best-known methods for writing a book that reaches your ideal audience is to imagine you are writing for one person who represents the audience you want to meet.

If you want to write a book that will help women entrepreneurs, you might envision a woman in her forties. She is divorced. Her two children are in college. She has recently downsized her living space. She’s reached a dead-end place in her corporate job. She has an idea/product/service that she wants to market.

Interview Her

Keeping this person in mind will help you focus on relevant material for your book. You can take this a step further.

Imagine that you’re this woman’s business coach. Think about the kinds of questions she might. These questions will vary, based on the particular focus of your book. Here are some samples:

Practical Questions

  • How do I get start-up financing?
  • What kind of legal entity should my business be?
  • Should I keep my current job and start the new business in my spare time?
  • Can I (do I have to) do it all on my own?
  • If I take on a partner, what do I need to consider?

Motivational Questions

  • How do I develop the will and stamina to persist?
  • What professional organizations should I join?
  • What can I do to keep my dream alive?
  • What are good sources for creative inspiration?
  • How do I keep my life in balance?

Fill in the Picture

Once you’ve completed the list of questions, write down your best answers. As you do so, imagine that you’re speaking directly with this woman. Listen for the additional questions your answers elicit. Write them down, too.

If you have chosen your questions well, this process will give you the foundation for a book.

As you write it, continue to keep your ideal reader in mind. Pause from time to time, and ask her, “Does that answer your question?” Don’t be surprised if she answers you. You may discover that you’re engaging in an ongoing dialogue with her.

You will need to have more material in your book. You will probably want to interview successful women entrepreneurs and include other success stories you’ve discovered in your research.

Here again, your ideal reader can help you. When you choose among stories, ask her, “Does this inspire you? Does it provide practical information?”

She will probably become real for you. You’ll miss her when you’ve finished your book. However, you will have your reward. Her counterparts will read your book and say to themselves, “How did this author know exactly what I needed to read?”

You’ll know why—and it would be a nice touch if you dedicate your book to her.

The links below will give you further insights into getting to know your ideal reader.

How to Find Your Ideal Reader (and why you should get to know them ASAP)

Your Ideal Reader

Pat Iyer is a book coach who works with authors to plan their books so that they are laser targeted on their ideal reader. Reach Pat through her website at http://patiyer.com.

 

 

 

 

Categories
Best Practices Growth Personal Development

Why You Should Write a Book Proposal—Even If You Plan to Self-Publish

 

You may be thinking “Why do I need a book proposal? I don’t plan to submit it to a publishing company. I’m publishing it independently.”

Book proposals serve a valuable purpose for authors, agents, and acquisitions editors at publishing houses. The author prepares a detailed summary of the book’s essence, provides a chapter outline and usually one to three sample chapters, describes his or her platform, i.e. authority, reputation, social media presence, and other elements, and summarizes his or her marketing plan. Authors often submit a book proposal to agents or editors prior to writing or completion of the book.

Most of the elements of a traditional book proposal can serve a different and equally important purpose for you as a future self-publishing author.

The Purpose of a Synopsis

A synopsis can help you plan what to put in your book. It gives you the opportunity to look at the big picture of what you intend to write.

Once you have your general concept in mind, you can make sure that someone else hasn’t already written a book that too closely mirrors what you intend.

Search on Amazon. If, for example, you want to write a book that demonstrates the value of women having prominence in the C-Suite, you might search for “women leaders management.” (By the way, this subject seems to be wide open for development.)

I recommend that you further research any titles you find, and if they look genuinely interesting, you can read samples and decide if they’re worth buying. In the course of your research, you may find your book idea has a unique slant on the subject. Learning that someone has said what you want to say may spur you to find a different original focus.

A Book Must Have a Structure

If you are thinking about writing a book, you may feel overwhelmed by the swirl of ideas in your mind. You can think of dozens of subjects that could go into your manuscript, but how do they all fit together? How do you narrow down your subject matter so that the reader isn’t as overwhelmed as you are at this moment?

Writing a proposal will help you to not only define but to organize your book. Its basic structure provides a format into which you can put your ideas into separate categories that will turn into chapters.

Briefly summarize what you want to include in each chapter, and put it aside. Come back a day or two later and read it carefully. How do the chapter topics flow? Would a different order make your points more fluidly?

At this stage of planning your book, you have the greatest flexibility. You can order and reorder, experimenting until you have a structure that will guide the reader to an understanding of what you want to say. Don’t stop until you’re satisfied that one chapter builds on the previous one in an organic way and that the conclusion ties it all together.

You Will Write Much More Easily

Writing a nonfiction book without a synopsis and chapter outline is like traveling in a foreign country without a map. You may find your way to your destination. You may also get very lost.

At worst, you will decide to abandon the journey.

The combined guidance of a synopsis and chapter outline will save you from the question: “What do I write next?” You know what your next subject will be, and that writing goes much more smoothly.

By doing the advance work, you greatly increase your chances of realizing your dream of having a published book.

Here’s more detailed information on why you should write a book proposal for yourself and what to include.

You can find much information about how to write a book proposal on the Internet. Here are two starter sites. Both of them are written with an agent or editor in mind, but the basics of the actual writing apply to writing a book proposal for any purpose.

https://thecreativeindependent.com/guides/how-to-write-a-book-proposal/

https://www.janefriedman.com/start-here-how-to-write-a-book-proposal/

Pat Iyer is a book coach who helps authors gain momentum, plan their books, and get them done. Reach her through patiyer.com.

Categories
Best Practices Growth Personal Development

Know When To Stop

No matter what you’re writing, if you get carried away by your own words, you’ll lose your audience.

Mark Twain told a story about sitting in church one day. The preacher was giving an inspiring sermon on the subject of a worthy cause.

He was asking the members of the congregation to contribute, and Mark Twain was so moved by the quality of the preacher’s words that he decided to contribute the $400 he had in his pocket. However, the preacher went on. And on. The longer he preached, the more Twain reduced the amount he intended to donate.

By the time the sermon ended and the collection plate was passed, he stole a dime from it.

I don’t know how true this story is, especially since Mark Twain was known for spinning tales. In the Tik Tok generation and the shortened attention-span world, its moral still applies: Keep it short.

Short is Sweet

We can’t figure out how to make our writing more succinct unless we understand what makes it too long. The following suggestion applies to all written forms: emails, memos, reports, speeches, articles, and books.

We fall in love with our own words.

Words can be magic, and we get lost in their spell. We may get excited about how one idea gives birth to another, and we want to write down all of them because they make such compelling sense in our own heads.

This rapture can have a dark side. Sometimes people think what they have to say is more important than what others want to say. They ignore time or word count limits. Unfortunately, the longer they talk or write, the less attention people pay to them.

We repeat ourselves.

Sometimes this is necessary. If you’re explaining a complex concept, you may need to use a range of approaches. The key here is to choose these explanations and express them in the simplest terms. Try them out on people who aren’t familiar with the subject. If they have “Aha” moments, you’ve done a good job.

In addition, check your text to see if you repeat the same words or phrases over and over again. Everyone has special fondness for particular words. We use them frequently without realizing it. Watch out for clichés. They trigger the inattention button.

We fail to zero in on the topic.

If you’re going to write or speak on the subject of the challenges that women entrepreneurs face during this pandemic, do not precede this with a detailed history of women entrepreneurialism. You may need to refer to this history for comparative purposes, but keep it brief.

We don’t do a sound editing job.

In a first draft, any of the previous errors can weaken what one has written. You can save a lot of time if you catch them prior to the editing stage, but if you didn’t, now you need to tighten up your writing and ruthlessly edit it. Put the edited version aside for a day or so, and then return to it.

  1. Is it succinct?
  2. Does it say what it needs to say?
  3. Is it engaging?
  4. Is anyone going to steal a dime from the collection plate?

For some additional specific suggestions, see How to Harness the Power of Brevity in Your Writing. 

Pat Iyer is an editor who delights in working with authors to streamline their writing. Contact her for help by using the contact form: patiyer.com/contact.

Categories
Best Practices Growth Personal Development

If Your Company Uses Instruction Manuals for Its Products, You Must Read This

Too many businesses don’t give enough attention to what may be their most important documents.

Entering Appliance Hell

I recently bought an appliance. (I’m not naming either the specific appliance or the company from which I bought it.)

Before buying it, I had already read the dreaded phrase, “Some assembly required.” You probably know this really means, “Abandon hope all ye who purchase this product.”

Unless you have an engineering degree or a very skilled friend, you are doomed. I took a deep breath and bought it anyway.

The appliance arrived on the day projected, which I considered a hopeful sign. Still, I opened the instruction manual with trepidation which proved to be well warranted.

Eighty percent of the manual consisted of colorful drawings that showed various pieces connected but not exactly how they had arrived at this happy juncture. None of these pieces were numerically or alphabetically labeled or even named.

Basically, I had to figure out how the big squiggly piece connected to the narrow, sharp-edged one. The drawings did not reveal (nor did the text) that the assembler needed to press hidden bars.

Given this lack of identification, I realized with a fast-sinking heart that the manual wasn’t going to have the usual step-by-step guide, the kind that says: “1. Attach Part A to Part B.”

I eventually had to go online and watch videos on YouTube to learn how to assemble the appliance. The videos, not made by the company, were moderately helpful. With some difficulty, I managed to identify different parts and even assemble the machine without shedding blood. (This has not always been the case.) However, when I turned it on, I was greeted with deafening silence.

Then It Got Ugly

I turned to the laughably-named troubleshooting section. This was printed in approximately 8 point type. If you don’t know what that looks like:

If you can read this, you’re fortunate.

Note that it was typeset in gray type.

As a senior citizen, I felt profoundly insulted. I have friends in my age group whose eyesight gives them much greater reading challenges than I experience.

Consider this: One reason for the popularity of electronic reading devices is that you can enlarge the type. However, I also believe that people considerably younger than me would have had trouble reading this manual.

The worst thing about the design was that the manual had two BLANK pages. Any competent designer knows how to make the most of available space. Utilizing these two empty pages would have allowed the designer to enlarge the overall type size and produce a readable manual.

I finally got my appliance to work by hitting it. I’ve found this to be a proven method of repair.

Will I ever buy from this company again? No. I did write a letter of complaint.

A Twofold Dilemma

In an instruction manual, you consider both the information and the design.

Before the text goes to a designer, make sure that it provides the necessary information in an accessible way. Don’t rely on only your evaluation. Test the clarity of the information by having a range of potential users applying it.

When it comes to the design element, I have a caveat. One of the worst results of desktop publishing was that too many people decided they were designers. They weren’t. They still aren’t.

It’s like designing a book cover. You can have the programs and fool around with typefaces and images, but do you have the technical expertise and artistic eye to know whether you’ve designed a compelling cover?

I don’t. I hire a professional. I recommend that you do, too. When you do, ask to see instruction manuals they’ve designed. Make sure you like the way they look and that they present the information within usefully.

There seems to be an unwritten rule that the foldout instruction manual needs to be tiny. I cannot for figure out why the Instruction manual or sheet cannot be as large as the package containing the Item. This will allow the purchaser to read the print without using a magnifying glass, enlarging the paper on a copier, or using a phone camera/

You can make this process easier by studying instruction manuals. If you have some familiarity with their design, you can confer more effectively with the designer you choose. Below, I provide two resources that show examples of manual design.

https://www.userfocus.co.uk/articles/usermanuals.html

https://www.pinterest.com/aangel84311/instruction-manual-design/

When you get the designed manual, go over it again. Make sure that the type is readable (without effort), that the illustrations actually illustrate, and that the overall presentation will help the end consumer to assemble and easily use the appliance.

Again, get other opinions about this.

If you follow all these steps, congratulations. You’ve done one of the most important things you can to encourage return business.

Pat Iyer is one of the original 100 C Suite Network Contributors and an editor and ghostwriter. Reach her at patiyer.com/contact.

Categories
Best Practices Growth Industries Personal Development

Don’t Let Publishing Scammers Rob You

Predators take advantage of would-be authors with false promises of publishing and big profits. Because scammers are always getting exposed, they constantly devise new methods to deceive.

You need to know about these new theft attempts.

The 2020 Hit Parade of Scams

Author Anne R. Allen wrote in her blog in February, 2020 about emerging scam trends. I briefly describe those most likely to affect you. There are 6 more In Anne’s blog.

  1. Posing as a Legitimate Agent. A scammer exploited the reputation of the highly respected Donald Maass Literary Agency by masquerading as one of the agency’s best-known agents to sell literary representation and marketing.
  2. Charging for Interviews. In 2018, warnings went out about people who charged for bogus radio interviews. Now so-called magazines are employing the same practices. The interviews cost thousands, and the printed result is more like a flyer. You should never pay for an interview.
  3. Book Fair Placement. A book fair is really a form of an industry conference. Big Five publishers aren’t browsing for the latest and greatest indie book. They’re conferring with each other about the state of the publishing business. Do not waste money on this.
  4. So-called Self-Assisted Publishing Companies. They don’t help. All they do is publish your book. They do not promote or distribute it. They take your money and send you several cartons of high-priced books. You can arrange for the POD publication of your books for a much lower price.

In this context, Anne also notes that you should mistrust any offer from a company that focuses on print books only. That’s where they’re making their money.

Read this article in full at https://annerallen.com/2020/02/new-publishing-scams-2020/

This, by the way, is an excellent author’s blog to follow.

“I just loved your book. What was the title again?”

Writers Beware® is part of the Science Fiction Writers Association (http://www.sfwa.org). Anne Crispin and Victoria Strauss, both respected and successful authors, follow the latest in scams against authors.

In December, 2020, Victoria Strauss published detailed descriptions of two very active scamming organizations. The blog post also lists what you should look for if you want to research an offer that comes into your email. Read the post here. https://accrispin.blogspot.com/2020/12/attack-of-fake-literary-agencies-west.html

Not long ago I got an email with the title of one of my books as the subject line. The writer (who was with a publishing company) claimed to love that book, and asked me to call. I did.

They wanted to publish my latest book. I asked for them to describe what they would do for me. There was nothing they offered that I could not do for myself. They’ve contacted me again since that call, seemingly forgetful that we already spoke.

If you get any unsolicited offer from someone who wants to publish your book, your safest bet is probably to delete the email. If you think it might be legitimate, check it out thoroughly, both through using the methods described by Victoria Strauss or by researching the company on Writers Beware®.

The most important message I can leave you with is that legitimate agents and publishers rarely solicit manuscripts unless they have some familiarity with you. If they heard you speak or read an article you wrote, they will always preface their offer with a specific reference.

However, this is not likely to happen. Agents and publishers are buried in unsolicited manuscripts. They don’t need to solicit them.

The bottom line in the sad story of scammers preying on unsuspecting authors is: If it seems too good to be true, it probably is.

Pat Iyer Is an editor, author of 49 books, ghostwriter, and book coach. Chat with her about your ideas for a book, or need for an editor, by using the link of patiyer.com/contact. She promises to not try to sell you a pallet of books.

Categories
Best Practices Growth Leadership Personal Development

Write a Business Plan That Will Improve Your Business

 

  • Do you feel that your business is stagnating? Or are you reeling from changes?
  • Are you and your employees failing to come up with fresh, innovative ideas to improve it or respond to marketplace changes?
  • Are the ideas you do have not leading you in a useful direction?

It may be that you’ve lost or need to refresh your vision.

You Had It Once

Entrepreneurs are people with visions. They identify a need in their area of the business or service industries and are inspired to make a unique contribution to answer this need. This vision inspires those who successfully navigate the first rocky period of their businesses and guides them to greater accomplishments. Changes in circumstances, in markets, and in personnel require refining the vision.

A similar vision often motivates those hired by large companies as innovators. They have exciting ideas about how to transform their niche and are eager to put them into practice.

Practical and technical problems may smother an entrepreneurial vision. Many factors including chain-of-command problems, personnel issues, and the resistance of conservative administrators may stifle an innovator’s enthusiasm.

When that happens, the entrepreneur or innovator needs to return to the drawing board, or, in this case, the writing board.

You Can Recreate Your Vision

Without a compelling vision of where you want to go, you can’t write a practical business plan that will guide you to that goal. In order to have a “what,” you need to have a “why.”

Quest stories are very popular in mythology and fiction. The heroes have burning purposes that enable them to overcome major obstacles and a clear vision of their version of the Holy Grail.

To get yourself into quest mode, you have to write down your vision. You can read a written version as often as daily to renew your enthusiasm and determination to realize your quest.

As an editor and ghostwriter, I might write: “I do this work to help my clients realize the power of their stories and their voices. I am committed to helping them bring their stories to life and to print so that others will benefit from reading it.”

That’s a brief vision statement. It has lots of room for enlargement and enhanced detail. For example, I might add that I network with those in my field and in building structures for mutual support. Based on that addition, I can take practical steps to do this networking. I can list specific actions and a time frame.

You can envision, as well. You could write a scene in which you imagine meeting someone (you don’t have to be specific) who helps you with an aspect of your quest.

Vision Boards

The idea of making vision boards used to belong to the spiritual fringe, but it’s gone mainstream, as this article from The Oprah Magazine demonstrates.

If you don’t want to deal with glue and scissors, you can design your vision board virtually. This URL has links to websites and vision-board-building apps.

Basically, identify the key elements of your vision—this is one reason why it’s so important to put that vision in writing—and find images and text, including inspiring quotations, and assemble them in a design that’s compelling for you. Engaging in such a project not only brings your vision to life, you may come across images and ideas that give more breadth to your vision and provide you with new pathways to your goal.

Share

Whether you are an entrepreneur or a key player in a corporation, engage your team in your vision and have them co-create it. If it’s their vision, too, they will work effectively to make it happen.

Business plans are great on paper and even greater when the team works together to achieve them.

Is writing a book part of your vision for your business, for sharing your hard earned Insights? Let’s talk. Contact me through patiyer.com/contact and let’s explore how to turn your vision into a reality.

Categories
Best Practices Growth Personal Development

Are You Worried About Having Your Book Manuscript Critiqued?

You think your book manuscript is wonderful—or you think it’s awful. Wherever you fall on the spectrum of confidence in what you’ve written, you need feedback.

Does that sound like frightening news? It’s your book. You care about it. You may have suffered and struggled through writing it. How can you trust someone else to competently and fairly judge it?

It’s because that other people aren’t emotionally invested in your writing that they can read it with objectivity and fairness. You need that kind of reading.

The Dreaded Red Pencil

While that pencil may be electronic these days, some of us remember when it was literal. We’d turn in school papers and get them back riddled with circled words or phrases, underlining, marginal comments, and exclamation points. It may have been an overwhelming and discouraging sight.

The sad truth is that many teachers, underpaid and overworked, had little interest in encouraging hopeful writers. They plowed through piles of papers, usually at night, with the sole intention of finishing them before they fell asleep at their desks. They didn’t worry about breaking your heart and helping to establish a life-long fear of criticism.

If you’re not sure that teacher’s criticisms have lasting impact on students, read this.

When feelings of self-doubt arise, remind yourself, “I am no longer eight years old.” If you need more self-encouragement, make a list of what you do well.

Because sensitivity to criticism doesn’t vanish overnight, give special thought to choosing your beta readers.

Who Should Read Your Book: The Beta Reader

Some people claim that no one who cares about you should critique your book because they’ll be too nice. You need a tough, no holds-barred critic.

If you’re feeling vulnerable even before you ask someone to read your work, a tough critic is exactly what you need to keep yourself from ever writing again. You’re not copping out by asking someone nice to read your manuscript.

A friend may say the same thing a stranger will, but they’ll wrap up the truth in a much more sympathetic package, and you’ll be better able to take in what they say and make the needed changes.

In “Why Use Family and Friends as Beta Readers?”, Paul Kilpatrick elaborates on this theme.

Small Humiliations Now Can Prevent Bigger Ones Later On

Be aware that even a critique couched in kind language can sting. When that happens, think of this analogy. You might feel embarrassed if a friend tells you that you have a stain on your garment. You’ll feel much more embarrassed if no one tells you, and you go on a stage to speak in front of hundreds of people.

Beta readers perform the invaluable service of pointing out aspects of your work you can fix before publishing it. If you give them an outline or a first draft, their recommendations can make writing the second draft or doing revisions much easier. This will boost your self-confidence and make you more calm about receiving a new round of critiques.

You Can Return the Favor

Someone who does a beta reading for you may ask you to reciprocate. This is a common and mutually productive practice among authors. I recommend that you welcome this opportunity. You’ll have an invaluable chance to see how another person’s writing mind works. You’ll probably learn something.

And consider what one of my Writing to get Business Podcast authors did. John Saunders asked about 250 people to serve as beta readers. They committed a small sum to buy the book. John gained advance money he used to pay for the publishing and he had a core of people who helped him launch the book.

Best of all, as you thoughtfully evaluate someone else’s reading, you’ll find yourself wanting to be helpful and to make useful critiques. You’ll realize that beta readers aren’t out to get you. They’re not that teacher who waved the deadly red pencil. As you learn to willingly (gladly will come) their recommendations, you will become a better writer.

Pat Iyer is a book coach and editor. Blind reviewers and beta readers gave her valuable feedback on many of her 49 books.  Connect with Pat on her website at patiyer.com and request a free consult by using the contact form.

Categories
Best Practices Growth Personal Development

Book Design: An Inside Job

Writing Your Book is Only the First Step

https://www.steubenpress.com/blog/posts/124-what-a-book-designer-wants-self-published-authors-to-know

I’ve published nearly 50 books and had a role in designing many books I’ve ghostwritten and/or edited. From this experience, I know that the interior design of a book plays a huge role. It can even determine whether a reader will close your book and never read it again.

Some self-published authors want to do everything, including design. If you’re among them, you need to know as much as you can about this vital area. If you’ve decided to turn design over to a professional, know enough to evaluate the designer’s choices.

I also recommend that you look at a lot of book interiors. See what design styles appeal to you.

This blog post won’t answer all your questions about interior design, but it will provide some essential basics.

Keep It Clean

R. Hegnauer, who has designed over 250 books, says in “What a Book Designer Wants Self-published Authors to Know,”

“With prose, you want to keep the text clean and easy to read. This isn’t a place for experimentation with fonts. Once the reader notices the font, they’re getting distracted from the content and not really enjoying the book. The reader shouldn’t even notice the style of the text, like if it’s too small or strange.“

Keep It Elegant

Jeremiah Shoaf of typewolf.com, compiled a list of top 10 favorite body text fonts. If you take a look at this, you’ll see the possibilities.

Handy as this list is, I have one disagreement. He shows two sans serif fonts. A sans serif font looks like THIS. It’s straight up and down and it gets boring fast.

For text—as distinct from headings and subheads—always choose a serif font like the one you’re reading.

Another factor in choosing a text font is that some fonts have wider characters than others. The Times Roman family is narrower than Palatino. That means you’ll get more words per printed page.

If you want to end up with more pages, choose a wider font. You can research this, or you can simply try out an average page of your manuscript with different font choices. A designer can also help you here.

Keep It Honest

You’ve probably seen self-published books with very large type and very wide margins. These authors (or, less likely, designers) have decided to blow some air into their books. Maybe they don’t have enough pages for the book to have a spine.

They would do better to write more. A book that has been deceptively designed to look bigger than it is in terms of content gives independently-published books a bad name.

The same is true of the opposite approach: cramming as much type as possible into a book in order to keep the price lower. Such a book looks unattractive and cheap.

I also urge against extra leading, which is the space between text lines. Two to three points of space has been the industry standard for decades. That means if you use 12-point type, which is a highly readable size, the space between lines should be 14 or at most 15 points.

Some self-published authors use double spacing between paragraphs. This happens more commonly in non-fiction books, and its proponents say that it makes the information easier to absorb.

It may, but it may also look like more air blowing into the text to expand it. Putting a half-line of space, 6 or 7 points, between paragraphs is a more subtle way to provide white space.

Other ways to make the text more readable include:

  • Bulleted and numbered lists
  • Frequent subheads with space above and below
  • Boxed quotations that capture important points

Get Feedback

Whether or not you intend to design your book, design a few pages, or ask your designer to design a sample for you. This should include a chapter opening page and two facing pages. If your book will have design elements such as extracts, boxed materials, tables, numbered and/or bulleted lists, design or ask to see samples of these, as well.

Show these pages to friends, and get their feedback. Incorporate their suggestions into any revisions.

Major Caveat: Finalize your design choices before you format your manuscript or have it formatted. Otherwise, you will face either a time-consuming or a costly process.

The time you spend on designing your book marks one more essential stage in preparing it—and you—for success.

Pat Iyer is a book coach, editor and ghostwriter. She works with layout artists to help her clients create an independently published book of which they are proud. Contact her here.   Her website is patiyer.com

Categories
Best Practices Growth Personal Development

 Do You Have to Suffer to Write?

In popular culture, there’s a notion that writing, or the production of any art form, means suffering. You might have seen a movie in which a writer is crouched over a manual typewriter, pounding the keys, with an ashtray full of smoldering cigarette butts beside him. His teeth are clenched, and he squints in agony as he reads what he’s written.

It’s not a tempting image.

We know the legends about tortured artists. Van Gogh immediately comes to mind, as does Sylvia Plath. Some artists turn their lives’ suffering into art, using it as a healing process that may also heal the reader or viewer.

The odds, though, are that you don’t aspire to write a great book or become a great writer. You want to write about how to reach more customers or help a business survive pandemics and other upheavals. You may have gone through some suffering and hard times to arrive at your conclusions, but you’re not Van Gogh, and you don’t want to be.

This article will help to fracture the mystique of tortured artists.

But Writing is Hard Work, Isn’t It?

Maybe. This is a big subject, and I foresee that I’ll write several blogs on how to make writing easier.

Here I’ll make the transition from genuine suffering that arises from one’s life to self-inflicted suffering. Many writers are skilled in this form of torture.

Using the Stick to Write

I know too many writers who believe that beating themselves with a symbolic stick will drive them to goal achievement.

They agonize if they didn’t meet their daily minimum word count goal or for skipping a writing session. If they abandon a writing project, they say, “If only I’d stayed with it . . . I’m so undisciplined, lazy . . .”

They can also use the stick during a writing session. “Finish this chapter, or you’ll feel like a failure.” “You have a deadline to meet.” “You told everyone you were writing a book. Finish it, or they’ll know what a failure you are.”

There they are, fulfilling the stereotype of the writer who stares with hatred at the typed page.

The sad thing about this scenario is that many writers probably started out enthusiastically. They ran into trouble. An outline failed to jell. They finished a first draft and realized they left out something important. Someone gave them a discouraging critique.

Maybe they didn’t quit, but the idea that writing was hard work grew in them, and tapping the keys of a computer keyboard became as difficult as pounding those stiff typewriter keys.

“Writing is hard work” became their groove.

Replace the Stick with the Carrot

The most constructive thing you can do if you fall into this negative groove is to stop. Instead of pushing through in a joyless way, think about what you can learn from a mistake or a damaging critique.

Maybe you’ll realize that you should have put the outline aside for a few days or weeks and read more on your subject. You could have shown your proposal to an expert. You could have pretended the critique was for someone else and read it more objectively.

If you decide you need outside help, take a course or hire a writing coach.

Set rewards for yourself: for finishing a chapter, a first draft, for being brave enough to ask someone to read your manuscript.

 Here are 15 specific ways to reward yourself for writing.

And each time you end a writing session, say, “Good job.” Thank yourself for persisting.

You deserve that praise.

Pat Iyer serves entrepreneurs as a writing coach. She loves to help her clients finish their books. Connect with Pat using this contact form.

Categories
Best Practices Growth Personal Development

Write With Your Own Voice

Many beginning writers make one mistake that dooms their books to failure.

They avoid putting themselves into their writing, thinking that an objective, personality-free tone will make them sound more professional. Instead, they end up producing a dry, lifeless manuscript that readers will put aside.

What Does Voice Mean?

Voice isn’t the same as style. Developing your writer’s voice doesn’t mean that you try to develop a unique way of writing like James Joyce or Ernest Hemingway. It means developing the voice that’s uniquely yours.

In “4 Ways to Start Writing Like an Expert,” Tamara Powell writes:

“One of the best writing tips I’ve ever received came from my writing group. A fellow grad student sensed that a member of the group felt he needed to talk about a concept in the same way as its originator, and the student encouraged his friend by saying:

‘Don’t surrender your voice to talk about other people’s ideas on their terms. Tell your story and use it to illuminate the ideas of others.’

As an apprentice in your field, it can be tempting to hide behind the voice and vocabulary of someone more established. And yes, it can be helpful to try others’ techniques while you’re learning, but eventually, you have to start speaking for yourself. If you don’t adopt your own voice, you’ll never add to the ideas of others—you’ll stay stuck trying to sound like everyone else.”

How I Use My Voice

I have never written my autobiography or a memoir, but every book I’ve written has personal anecdotes.

I write about my children and my husband, which tells readers that I, like many of them, have had to juggle family and career.

I describe my challenges in starting and running a successful business. I’m candid about my mistakes, which teaches my readers that missteps don’t have to be fatal.

I share how I felt tense, embarrassed, and vulnerable when opposing lawyers questioned me as an expert witness and what I’ve learned about staying cool under pressure.

Basically, I say, “I’m a human being who has concerns, who fails at times, and who keeps going. So can you.”

Help the Reader to Identify With You

This is the ultimate point of writing in your own voice. You don’t want the reader to think, “This person is an expert. This person never made a wrong move. He/she would never understand what I go through.”

You want that reader to feel that you’ve been through what they are experiencing, that you’ve made mistakes, and that you will no doubt continue to make mistakes.

You want them to feel that you’re on their side and that you’ve written this book to help them through their rough spots.

If you succeed in doing that, you’ll be speaking to them with your voice—loud and clear.

Pat Iyer has written or edited 49 of her own books. As a book coach and editor, she loves to help her clients finish their books – in their voice. Go to PatIyer.com to connect with Pat.