My First Book Debuts

more secrets to book title writing

or, why the rules have changed

Today, I refer you to one of my favorite services—Visual Thesaurus—to read my homepage article on the secrets of writing a tantalizing title for your book. This article is an expanded version of a blog I wrote last month. Enjoy!

PS: You need to be a subscriber to read the entire article, but the service is about $14.00 for the year, which provides access throughout the site and the "visual thesaurus" tool. It's well worth it, and I get nothing for saying that!

your book's on sale

the importance of choosing a unique title

One of the coolest things about being an author is seeing your book sold in major retailers and bookstores.  You can imagine my surprise this morning when I googled my book's titled, Act Early Against Autism," and found that you can pre-order it on Walmart. What a thrill!

And, you can pre-order on Amazon.com for the already reduced price of $10.17—a $4.78 savings off the cover price of $19.95. Thank goodness, it qualified for FREE Super Saver Shipping! (Pssst. Get it on Walmart; it's only $9.76 but you pay 97 cents in shipping!!)

What prompted me to google my book's title is remembering the advice of David Meerman Scott, author of The New Rules of Marketing and PR, when he said that it is crucial to come up with a book title that is unique so that it lands at the top of the heap in search results.

When my editor and I agreed on my book's new title, I googled it, and nothing came up.

I immediately grabbed the domain name, as well as a few related ones, to secure my space in cyberspace. Don't forget your name, and its misspellings. Luckily, my husband had registered our last name years ago, so I not only had lytel.com but now jaynelytel.com.

A month later, I googled again and found my book title in a Penguin catalogue for new releases, and my editor had mentioned me in a MediaBistro.com interview as being a well-positioned author.

Today, I now have 193 hits on Google. Yahoo!

All this validates Scott's advice: It's worth the effort to come up with a unique name that you, and only you, own on the Internet.

writing your own press release

how to do it right

When your book comes out, you'll want to promote it. But, don't send out a press release without clearing it with your publisher first. First, you should have had a meeting with your publisher and/or editor about five months before your book hits the bookstores. If you haven't, then find out why. Five months is about the average lead time for planning a promotional campaign.

There are, however, steps you can take to get on the promotion bandwagon. You can promote your author's website, which is something you do have control over. Write a short release—really just a paragraph—and include (very important) a link back to your website.

Here are some places to start: PRWeb (not to be confused with PR Newswire), and Marketwire (formerly Internetwire).

Resisting your editor's advice

how hard should you push back

First, I've just committed one of the mortal sins of blogging—not posting every day, or at least three times a week. Frankly, I don't know how others do it without a staff. I'm slaving to finish my book edits, designing my author's website, laying the foundation for my foundation—and taking care of three boys, my husband, an 8-year-old and a soon-to-be-10-year-old.

But, I'm back, and before I offer today's tip, let me share some good news. My manuscript was accepted last week, so the presses will be rolling soon. I'm relieved, and though I expect more questions from my editor, the last set were rather painless, compared to the monumental self-editing job I had to do the last time, which brings me to today's topic: How much should you resist your editor's edits?

You absolutely cannot fall in love with your writing, or you won't be able to get past deleting copy that you think is just the greatest prose. Your editor's job is to frame your book. For readers to keep turning pages, he or she needs words of engagement, and that is accomplished by how your frame each chapter. For me, I had to eliminate the running memoir and instead open up with a strong vignette that tied back to the advice at the end of each chapter.

At first, I grumbled, but I defered. She's done this like a gazillion times before. Nonetheless, I got my agent involved. That's what your agent is for, to mediate difference. On the one hand, I wanted to be done. I've been working on this book for two years. Another part of me, the practical part, realized that editors are under pressure from not only their bosses but from the marketing and sales departments. So, sometimes what you had outlined in your book proposal will change.

That's what happened to me. In the end, my editor made my book stronger, and I'm thankful for that. Hey, we all want to sell as many books as possible, right?

planning your book launch

how to create an author's website

The work of an author seems never-ending. This weekend, I got sidetracked finishing my book edits with constructing my author's website. At first, I proclaimed, "I just want a simple 3-page website." By Sunday evening, it grew into a 20-page site. I've been working like a madwoman to get this done even though my book isn't coming out until March 28.

It all has to do with planning. In Keith Ferazzi's book, Never Eat Alone, he quotes Robert H. Schuller: "Spectacular achievement is always preceded by spectacular preparation." I couldn't agree more.

I think author's overlook the planning stage when it comes to the marketing, promotion and even writing of their book. But this is as vital as a structural edit.

Building an author's website is a given. You absolutely must have one, even if it is only three pages. When people hear about your book, you can bet that they're going to Google you to learn more. If you're not on the Web in a meaningful way, you've missed an opportunity to sell more books or educate readers more about your passion.

Most author's websites are pretty boring and replicate the front and back flap of their book. These standard elements are good. The rest include:

• Book cover image
• Button to buy the book
• Book description, including price, format
• Praise for the book (your jacket blurbs)
• Read an Excerpt
• Table of Contents
• Author's photo
• Author's bio
• Contact me

For a really spiffy website, you should include features that "complement" the book. For example, on my author's site, I've borrowed a technique from movie producers. I've added "Act Early Outtakes," a chapter that was jettisoned from the original manuscript but is illluminating nonetheless. It includes a slideshow of my early years.

Another feature on my under-construction site is "Act Early Extras." This feature supplements my story about Leo, my son. You can listen to secret conversations I record of him or view a slideshow of his artwork. [To add this interactivity to my site, I just love WidgetBox. I'll give you the nitty-gritty on the tools in another post.]

Remember, your author's site is about your personality. Let it shine through.

my surprise

odd writing habits

Writing a book is not like cramming for an exam. It's not an all-nighter. You need to pace yourself.

For me, that's literal. I run and write.

It looks odd, and I always curl my fingers around my Olympus V-10 digital voice recorder so no one sees. I hope they think I'm holding my iPod. As I run (and this gets trickier the later in the day because there are more people around, and I get self-conscious), I put the recorder to my mouth and begin emoting words. If the sidewalk gets too crowded, I run in the alleys.

If you know anything about speech-language pathology, you know that movement jars a body's vestibular system, which is in the inner ear and includes the snail-shaped cochlea, contributes to a person's awareness about his body and language development. That's why they put kids in therapy swings and try to get them to talk. It works with adults, too.

I also run and write because I have so little time during the regular day to focus on this art—work, kids, general self-care take up the rest of my day, which begins at 4:30 a.m. I'm so used to getting up that early that I can't sleep in, and I don't know what that means anymore.

Whatever you do to stay the course to finishing your writing project, the best advice I can give is to stick with it. If you write 250 words a day at the end of a month you'll have written 7,500 words. Aim for a book length of 60,000 words, and you'll be done in a year (not counting all the rewrites).

NEXT MONDAY: What should an author's website include