Touchwood Press Blog

Myths & truths about book editing

Published on by Michael McCandlessLeave a comment

Of all the parts of self-publishing that authors should get help with, editing should be your first priority. You don’t have to pay a professional editor, but you do need your book looked at by someone who can be dispassionate and knows their way around a style guide such as the Chicago Manual of Style or the AP Stylebook. This well-written article explores the common myths and the key truths about book editing and editors. Use a wise eye and a cool head to glean what it offers.

Source: 7 Deadly Myths and 3 Inspired Truths About Book Editing

Best tools for my project? There are so many!

Published on by Mike McCandless1 Comment
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Is this your first self-publishing project? Assuming it is, I say, “Keep it simple!” Lucky for us, we can start at the top, as it were, by starting our self-publishing journey in Amazon-land, using Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP). Why lucky? Because Amazon already sells more than 70% of all e-books and can give you access to just about any market or reader audience segment. So, the tool/platform I recommend, especially for starters, is Kindle Direct Publishing.

This doesn’t really answer the question, though, does it? As you already have seen, there are dozens, at least, of tools, platforms, distribution channels, and publishing services providers to choose from. I’m just saying if the leading provider of just about everything is free/cheap and easy to use and you get all its massive marketing machine working for you, why not start there? There’s plenty of time to get deeper into the marketplace and engineer the perfect set of capabilities and resources for you. Whatever you decide, best of luck to ya’!

How do I copyright my book?

Published on by Mike McCandlessLeave a comment

The right to make copies of any creative work belong automatically, naturally, and legally to its creator. There is easy-to-access information about copyright basics available at copyright.gov. Get started on this page. Briefly, you do not need to file a form or pay a fee to claim and hold the copyright to your work. At your first opportunity, you should simply add a copyright notice to your draft manuscript. That is enough to claim your copyright. Make sure that all copies of your work carry your copyright notice. The standard form for this is “Copyright [year] [name of copyright owner].” The copyright symbol (which can be rendered as (c) if you can’t insert the fancier version, ©) isn’t necessary but is normally used. Later, if you want to register your copyrighted work, you can do so starting at copyright.gov.

Writing Starters

Published on by Mike McCandlessLeave a comment

Available now on Amazon in paperback or e-book.

New from Touchwood Press, Writing Starters: Appetizers for Your Brain gives you 52 prompts to inspire your writing. Organized into four 13-Starter volumes, the Writing Starters series probes your Memories, Experiences, Opinions, and Self-Perceptions to help generate new ideas for your novel, memoir, biography, or poetry.

The path to creative writing output is sometimes littered with false starts, failed self-tests, and blocked paths that looked great yesterday. But help is on the way in Writing Starter: Appetizers for Your Brain. These pages contain fuel to feed your little gray cells and get you thinking. They may be just what you need to get your writing out!

A few starters to get you started:

  • Memories: Write a thank you letter to your favorite teacher.
  • Experiences: It was a dark and stormy night. Eek! Provide details.
  • Opinions: Does money really make the world go around?
  • About You: Introvert or Extrovert? Can you relate?

Adding illustrations

Published on by Mike McCandlessLeave a comment

Can I start by uploading a text-only version of an eBook—to KDP, most likely—and later update the book to include the illustrations? This would let me get the story “out there” more quickly. I should only need one more revision pass to get the text ready.

Yes, you can do this, but do you really want to? One great thing about eBooks is you can upload and publish new versions anytime, with some limitations.

In your case, you might decide to make the two books discrete products—a print version and an illustrated version. But take care to make each version a quality product, putting your best foot forward with what you’ve got to offer. If the book is really lacking without the illustrations, wait until you’re ready to include them.

But yes, it is technically possible to upload new and improved versions of your book. Doing this and nothing else will change the deliverable that readers download. Do you really want to deal with readers’ disappointments over needing to “upgrade” their books? Or worse, pay for an upgrade if you sell the illustrated version separately?

Another consideration is that you want to avoid disappointing the buyers of the non-illustrated version once the illustrated version comes out. You might offer the second version free or at a steep discount. It’s all about building and taking care of your readers and your brand.

So, this is a win-lose situation most of the time.

Self-publishing reads

Published on by Mike McCandlessLeave a comment

Get some help and learning from the folks who track with the latest in self-publishing news about people, tools, and technologies. How much time is enough to stay current? You need to be selective. I follow these experts:

  • Mark Dawson: The Self Publishing Formula and Self Publishing Show podcast. Lawyer turned best-seller author, Mark and his partner and former BBC producer James Blatch produce a best-in-class podcast worth a weekly hour. 
  • Joanna Penn is, fair to say, the fount of everything worth knowing about self-publishing with her books, courses, Kickstarters, and podcast.
  • The Independent Book Publishers Association: professional association for self-publishers and small presses. A great community for engaging with publishing peers.
  • Jane Friedman: author, speaker, teacher, and professional publishing veteran Jane has long reported on the publishing industry via her newsletters and courses. A quality read/listen from an insider.  

Is there a poetry template available somewhere for Word?

Published on by Mike McCandless1 Comment

I haven’t come across one. Poetry, by its nature, lends itself to create structure and layout, that would defy templatizing. If your poetry is relatively simple and straightforward, break the lines where it feels good to break them. Don’t agonize over punctuation, but use it to give the reader the pacing you think the poem calls for. Exercise your creativity.

Can I continue to edit, improve, or add to content I’ve already published?

Published on by Mike McCandlessLeave a comment

Yes, you can.

This is one of the great things about the Amazon KDP system. You can tweak and re-publish to your heart’s content. Whatever is your creation is yours to change. You can continue to add to it, improve and change it indefinitely without impacting your ownership of the work.

However, as a practical matter, if readers are buying one version, you risk frustrating them if a week later, there’s a new, improved version available, right? Adding and improving your written creative works is more the province of blogging or article writing rather than fixing what you’ve done in a book.

Plan ahead and take care when publishing so that you aren’t compelled to keep issuing “updates,” to the consternation of your readers.