My First Book Debuts

Pitching Yourself Starts with a Great Press Release

Autism Super Mom Saves Son in Compelling New Penguin Release

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!

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.

digging for information

rich resources for online research

The Web is a haven for conducting research for your book, be it fiction or nonfiction. But knowing how to search for information is equally important as knowing where to search.

Knowing where to search is certainly the easier part of the equation to solve. For brute searches using keywords, I prefer Google, but there are niche search engines. Under speciality search engines, for example, you'll find a link to medical search engines, such as Health on the Net.

As you retrieve information from specific sites, always pay attention to the source of the information, as misinformation abounds on the Internet. Sometimes, the information is dated, so look for a date. If its not posted, you may have to follow up with a phone call.

Let's pause and talk about how to search. If you're entering more than one keyword, put quotes around the keyword phrase, which should force a search engine to retrieve results using that exact phrase. This works with Google.

Some search engines, such as AltaVista, let you eliminate words from your search if you put a minus sign before a word. This technique helps filter results. Another tip: If you don't know the meaning of a word, you can simply type the word after you enter define: in Google's search field (don't put a space after the colon and the word you want to define). Example: define:amygdala

Google will return links to sites that define the word. I use these basic keyword search techniques the most. For more on search engines and how they work, head over to Danny Sullivan's Search Engine Watch, which is a leading sources of information on this topic.

Getting back to where to search. If you need to talk to an expert, ProfNet, a service of PR Newswire, allows journalists to blast out a free query to experts that are part of the ProfNet service.

There are also a growing number of fee-based services to find the full text of articles, which I found very useful. I particularly like HighBeam Research. For $79 a year, I get access to full-text articles from mainstream newspapers, magazines and professional journals, transcripts, books and so on.

I'm also a subscriber to Newspaper Archive. That also cost about $79 a year for full access to PDFs of newspapers, mainly middle market, such as The Syracuse Post. For that price, you're not going to get current issues of The New York Times, only those dated from 1857 to 1909.

These two services also offer "alerts," which means you can specify keywords and be alerted via email every time your chosen words appear in the news or press release. When it does, you get a link to the article or release.

To keep up with fresh news, I follow blogs in my area of interest. These days blogs and specialized eNewsletters break news, often much faster than the paper press. For example, the news about the strained relationship between Autism Speaks cofounder Bob Wright (who, BTW, is endorsing my book) and his daughter over whether mercury in vaccines causes autism rippled through cyberspace a week before it hit the mainstream press. To find a blog that covers your interest, use Technorati.

You also might consider creating your own clipping service to keep up to date on your interests.

MONDAY: who is kevin trudeau? (and why should you care)