The Optimal Word Count for Novels and How to Cut Words
The optimal word count for novels is no more than 100,000 words, so knowing how to cut words from a too-long manuscript is an important skill for authors to develop. If you can cut back your word count to around 100,000 words, you’ll save yourself a lot of money in editing, and publishers won’t automatically reject your book because it’s too long. Preferred word counts Most mainstream publishers wouldn’t accept a book over 100,000 words unless it was part of a very successful series. Mainstream publishers have preferred word counts for a reason. One of the reasons has to do with the economics of producing a print book against the amount you could reasonably charge readers, but the other, more important reason for digital publishers (where the word count can be anything), is that it’s extremely rare for authors to be able to hold readers for more than the recommended word…
How to Handle Rejection by a publisher
Rejection by a publisher usually leaves us feeling down and may set us into a spiral of self doubt or anger that can be painful and self-defeating. It’s helpful to know how to handle rejection by a publisher or agent in a more positive way. Everyone faces rejection or failure sometimes. It could be a girl saying’ no’ when you ask her out, failing an exam, not passing an audition, not getting into the team, burning a cake or loosing a game. Whatever it is, the feeling is the same, more intense for some things, but basically the same, and not a pleasant feeling. Artists of all kinds get rejected more than most. It’s a fact of life for people in their professions. As a performer, every time I went for an audition, I faced rejection, and rejection is what I got more often than not. This is normal. You…
How to approach book publishers and agents
If you’ve written your book, want it published and don’t want to do the publishing work yourself, then you’ll be contacting agents and/or publishers. Self-publishing service providers aren’t selective, so if you’re happy to self-publish with someone else doing the work, then you just contact a self-publishing company and go from there; you don’t have to present your book well in order to get them to want to read it. But hybrid publishers, like my company AIA Publishing, are selective. Although the publishing process is author funded, hybrid publishers don’t publish just anything, and so you’ll have to submit a query and see if they think your book is good enough for them to publish, just as you do with an agent or mainstream/legacy publisher. I started in the literary business as an author, and I researched how to write a good query letter and best practices to maximise my…
Good Writing is More Than Good Grammar
Good grammar does not always equal good writing. We must find a balance between the precision afforded by correct grammar and the nuances of the author and characters’ voices. Sometimes they are the same, sometimes they aren’t. Look at the dialogue in Huckleberry Finn. Many people don’t speak in correct grammar, and for some characters, to use perfect grammar would seem unnatural and unbelievable. For instance a non-native English speaker speaking English. Good grammar is important, don’t get me wrong, it’s just that good writing is more than good grammar. It’s easy to lose sight of the writing because we’re too busy looking at the grammar and punctuation. The old saying that expresses this is: you can’t see the forest for the trees. This is why a copy edit is not enough to ensure that writing is of a professional standard. A copy edit focuses only on the trees. It…
Out Now – Fallout: Recovering from Abuse in Tibetan Buddhism.
Have you heard of the best selling book The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying by Sogyal Rinpoche? Did you know that this man, famous in the Tibetan Buddhist world, has been abusing students for decades? It’s quite a story. Read my latest book to find out what happened when I discovered that my spiritual teacher was seriously abusing his closest students. Become aware of the dark underbelly of some Tibetan Buddhist groups. ‘A compelling account of what can go wrong in religious groups.’ Barbara Scott Emmett, author. Description Fallout is the memoir of one woman’s journey from ignorance of the reports of physical, emotional and sexual abuse by Sogyal Rinpoche, spiritual teacher of the Rigpa Tibetan Buddhist community, to the realisation of the depth of the trauma suffered by survivors, and how certain beliefs and assumptions enables such abuse. It’s also a tribute to the healing power of the What Now? virtual support group, and the…
Writing Style Issues
Some think that writing style issues are irrelevant because an author’s style is a personal choice. Indeed it is a personal choice, though that choice is mostly unconscious. We each express ourselves in a way that sounds right to us, that is in our voice—unless we’re doing a copy-cat of someone else or aiming to write in a particular style for a particular purpose, for instance, a Gothic style or a report. Our style may be similar to another author, of course, but our word choice, what we choose to reveal and focus on, and how we phrase our thoughts will be ours alone. For that reason, as an editor, I try not to do anything that changes an author’s overall style; I aim to strengthen, not weaken their voice. However, stylistic choices that are ‘bad form’ do have to be eradicated if the author wants a truly professional product.…
Book Marketing and the Book I Wasn’t Planning to Write
Several years ago I decided not to write anymore books because I hate book marketing and because I wanted to concentrate on my editing clients. Getting reviews, writing marketing materials, making social media posts, taking out adverts, doing special promotions and so on all took a lot of time, and they weren’t activities I enjoyed or had talent for. The thought of the need to market anything I wrote smothered my inspiration. Until something happened in my life that I had to write about to help me and others examine issues and find closure for a painful period of our lives. The result is my book Fallout: Recovering from Abuse in Tibetan Buddhism. It’s on pre-order now at a special price and will be published on my birthday, the 20th of July. How the book came to be written Over the last couple of years, I wrote a lot of…
How to Use Track Changes in Word
Authors working with editors need to know how to use Track Changes in Word because that’s how your editor shows you what they’ve done. Without it, you’d have to look at the old document and compare it to the edited one to see their changes. It’s a good idea to check the changes they’ve made for two reasons: in case they’ve changed something such that it doesn’t say what you wanted it to say, and so that you learn from their corrections. The Track Changes function allows you to communicate and collaborate with your editor in a way that is difficult to do without using that function – unless you can get together physically, of course. But most editors work remotely these days. You’re no longer stuck with whoever is in your area. Watch the video to see how to use Track Changes in Word Image by Michael Gaida from…
How to set up a Word Document for Book Writing
Do you know how to set up a Word document for book writing? Watch the video for ways to make navigating a long document easy, and to set the formating to suit what editors, agents and publishers prefer
How to Work with Bookmarks in a Word Document – and Comments.
Do you know how to work with bookmarks in a word document? What about comments? If you’re an author and you don’t know, then it’s important that you learn so you can communicate easily with your editor. And being able to do that will make you feel like this: This is the second in a series of posts on how to work with Word to help you communicate with your editor. In the last post, I talked about how to set up your Word document and format your headings so you can see the outline of your manuscript in the Navigation pane. The next post will tell you how to work with Track Changes. The best way to learn is by watching this video, but I also have some notes below that will show you where to find the bookmarks on older versions of Word. Comments Manuscript appraisals are usually…
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Bookmarks Comments Word Documents