What should be in your article summary?
It’s otherwise known as an abstract or article teaser. The purpose of your article summary is to entice a potential reader to read the rest of your article. It’s a sales pitch for the benefits your article delivers and in many cases, it makes the difference as to whether your article gets read or bypassed.
Remove your “author/writer” hat and put on your “copywriter” thinking cap:
Here’s what should be in your article summary:
- Should be 2-7 sentences in length
- Emotional benefits listed that speak directly to your target reader’s interests.
- Reasons why your target ideal reader should continue reading your article.
- Mentions of at least 4-7 keywords relating to your article topic using keyword research tools.
Here’s what should not be in your article summary:
- Do not repeat the title of your article or your author name in your summary. This is redundant.
- Leave out the sales pitch for yourself or your business.
- Leave out your URL and email address.
- Leave out any blatant self-promotion. You’re here to do blatant article-promotion, not self- promotion.
- Never more than 2 paragraphs or 14 sentences.
7 Quick Tips To Help You Write Your Perfect Article Summary:
Tip #1) Don’t start it with words like “This article contains this or that.” Get right to the point and playfully tease your audience with the benefits that they will get if they take the next step to read the rest of your article.
Tip #2) If you don’t know what to put in your summary — use the first paragraph of your article. If you’re a good writer, you already have your first paragraph loaded with hooks to grab the reader’s interests to pull them into the rest of the article.
Tip #3) Your article conclusion paragraph can help provide clues for what should be in your article summary. Just don’t give away the farm in the summary.
Tip #4) Your article summary is about the WHY, not the HOW. Sell them on why what you’re presenting in the article is important to them and that they will learn the “how” if they continue reading.
Tip #5) Keep tips and strategies OUT of your article summary. Why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free. You’re in sales mode, not teach mode.
Tip #6) Use smart keyword density research to ensure your article summary hits the key terms and keywords relating to your article. The worst thing you could do is include an article summary that uses 1-3 syllable words that barely mention your topic category. Be lavish with the rich use of buzz words and keywords that are related to your primary article topic. One word of caution: Write for the reader and not for the search engines. When you cross that line, you reduce your effectiveness over the long-term.
Tip #7) Originality matters. Your article summary should come from your brain. Never copy someone else’s article summary or style if it’s unique to them.
Creating Your Perfect Article Summary Conclusion:
Be brief and bold in your summary - promising the benefits your reader will get if they read on. This is your chance to pitch why your target reader will benefit personally if they continue reading your article. Unlike your resource box where you pitch yourself and your business or website address, the article summary is your article’s only sales pitch. Leverage it well and don’t waste the opportunity by overlooking this important article writing & marketing strategy.
About The Author:
Christopher M. Knight invites you to submit your best articles for massive exposure to the high-traffic http://EzineArticles.com/ directory. When you submit your articles to EzineArticles.com, your articles will be picked up by ezine publishers who will reprint your articles with your content and links in tact giving you traffic surges to help you increase your sales. To submit your article, setup a membership account today: http://EzineArticles.com/submit/
You’ve got to start somewhere, but once you’ve created your very first How-To report and learned to develop your own research
tactics - life will never be the same again. You can write a report on almost any topic you like, providing you have knowledge of the
subject through personal experience or research.
There are loads of subjects to choose from. How about; solving household problems, hobbies, leisure activities,
social activities, science, psychology, computer problems, mon~ey-making/saving, gardening - the list is endless.
Simple, basic, informative reports.
These reports are written guidelines that give the reader more information on a subject he/she wants to know more about.
You’ll find that the better selling reports are well researched, authoritative, factual and helpful to the reader in the
achievement of his/her goals. Your report can be 2 or a 20 page document - it doesn’t matter, so long as it contains the
information they want. Writing your report can be very easy. However, it does take longer for some than it does for others,
even if they are equally intelligent and knowledgeable.
Picking a subject to write about, one that has sales appeal, is not as hard as it sounds. Just go to any search engine and
type-in your chosen subject and you’ll soon see if it’s popular or not. You will also find less popular niche subjects as well,
to exploit. However, you will need to attract the right customers. Though, choosing the right keywords to attract your targeted
prospects is for another report and not this one.
If you don’t want to spend months researching your subject, pick something that has a particular interest to you, something
you already know a great deal about. Your knowledge and enthusiasm will show through, causing your reader to over
look any technical writing weaknesses you may have.
Be factual and clear and don’t pad out the report just for fill. Try to outline the report before you start writing the main body.
That way, you know exactly what you’re going to write about before you get too deep into the subject and end up doing loads
of re-writes.
Everything that’s written should have a natural beginning, a body and an ending. When writing your report, make it sound as though
you are talking to someone on a one-to-one basis. Keep it warm and friendly with a hint of humor, because when analysed, writing
is no more than a written conversation.
Ok, now it’s time to ‘brain storm’ - sounds painful doesn’t it? Well it’s not. Begin by writing down all the subjects you know
something about, no matter how small. Start with any we’ve already mentioned above and include subjects like: horticultural,
carpentry, glass cutting, painting, needle patch work, collecting memorabilia, golf, darts, pet training, astrology, astronomy,
sleep walking, giving-up bad habits, smoking etc etc. Possible ‘How-To’ reports can be created from almost any subject.
Once you’ve made your list, go through the topic’s one at a time and keep going through them until you find one subject that you’re
really comfortable with, even if it’s not the one you originally knew most about. You see, that’s the one you’ll put your heart and soul
into, and that’s the one you’ll be most passionate about.
Now you’ve decided on the subject, the next step is thorough research. The library, magazines, books, newspapers, search
engines - anything that will give you information on your chosen subject. Gather this information based on your outlines we talked
about earlier. However, don’t get bogged down with a fixed set of outlines, they’re just a guide to the way you want to list or
discuss each aspect of your subject.
When you’ve finished with your first draft, be proud of yourself and take a break. Go back to it a few days later, rejuvenated.
Scrutinize it with a sharp pencil. Polish each paragraph for clarity, accuracy and flow. Make sure it’s easy to read, easy to
understand and each sentence follows the one before it. The smoother the writing of the report, the easier it will be to read
and the easier it will be to sell.
And finally, place your report in a .PDF file or a .EXE file for easy down-loading by your customers. Now go and make a
cup of tea while nimbling-up your research cells and writing fingers.
Ed Bellamy is a webmaster and ezine publisher.
For more tips and tricks visit dotBASiCWorld.com
http://www.dotbasicworld.com Copyright (c) 2004.
Avalon Travel Publishing announces the release of the 7th edition of Moon Handbooks Fiji, the original travel guide to the 322-island Fiji archipelago.
Since 1985, Moon Handbooks Fiji has been the leading travel guidebook to Fiji. Author David Stanley began writing about the South Pacific in 1979, and over the years tens of thousands of Pacific travelers have used his guides to Fiji, Tahiti, Tonga, Samoa, and the South Pacific.
Unlike the maps in other guidebooks which contain confusing numbered keys, the 53 maps in Moon Handbooks Fiji are clearly labeled. To allow for detail, three maps of Fiji’s capital Suva are included, and two of the gateway city Nadi.
In this 7th edition, all local telephone numbers are increased from six digits to seven, reflecting a recent change by Telecom Fiji. Internet and email addresses are now embedded in the listings for ease of reference.
Rob Kay of FijiGuide.com has this to say about Moon Handbooks Fiji: “Packed with great maps it also has resources such as a comprehensive bibliography, and tips on local etiquette. More importantly, Stanley excels at getting accurate information on hotels, inexpensive restaurants and tourist sites. However there is another reason why his guide is valuable. Stanley does not simply list the properties in alphabetical order and expect the reader to determine what’s best. Based on personal visits and feedback from visitors, he will actually offer you an opinion and the straight facts.”
Imagine having to read a book that has 1000 pages long. That, in itself, may be a daunting task.
Now, imagine having to read it with all its pages falling off! Close to impossible!
Bookbinding is the art of assembling a book from separate sheets of paper. If a book does not go through bookbinding, it cannot be properly called a book.
Historical The art of bookbinding goes back to the times of the ancient Romans. These Romans created simple books called codices (codex in the singular term). Each codex would be bound by sewing sheets of vellum together. This was a significant advancement from the times when rolled-up papyrus or vellum scrolls were used.
The Romans quickly found out that codices were easier to handle and write on, not to mention easier to read.
Later on, books were bound using hard covers that would sandwich the pages to be bound. However, stitching was still the method used to fasten the pages together. They were created by stitching folded sheets at the seam. During this period, there were no standards on creating books; so pretty every book that was bound was a unique creation that would vary from other books in size and style.
With the advent of modern printing presses, bookbinding began to evolve into a standardized industry somewhat. However, pages still varied considerably.
Nowadays, bookbinding is a highly standardized art. Today’s technology allows for binding processes to be performed with similar quality.
Modern commercial binding
There are five major categories of bookbinding nowadays: the hardcover, the paperback, the cardboard article, and the sewn book, and the comb-bound book perfect bound.
Hardcovers or hardbound books have rigid covers that are stitched at the spine. Looking from the top of the spine, the book can be seen to consist of a number of signatures bound together. When the book is opened in the middle of a signature, the binding threads are all visible.
A paperback book consists of a number of signatures or individual leaves between covers of much heavier paper, glued together at the spine with a strong flexible glue. This is also known as perfect binding.
A cardboard article looks like a hardbound book at first sight, but in reality it is closer to the paperback in construction. Cardboard articles can be called paperbacks with harder covers. They are not as durable as hardbound books and usually fall apart after little use. A sewn book is constructed in the same way as a hardbound book, except that it lacks the hard covers. The binding is as durable as a hardbound book.
A comb-bound book is made of individual sheets. These sheets each have a line of slits punched near the bound edge. A curled plastic “comb” is then inserted into the slits to hold the sheets together. Comb binding allows a book to be disassembled and reassembled by hand without damage.
Magazines are considered less permanent than books. Therefore, the binding methods for such are usually of lesser quality. Most magazines are bound together by staples that hold together its page spreads. Since magazines have fewer pages, stapling is sufficient to bind its pages together.
Even with the advent of e-books and electronic means for publishing written materials, books still remain the reading material of choice for the majority of the population. It remains to be seen how today’s ever changing technology will change the ancient art and modern wonder of bookbinding.
It has been recommended that writers be easy to get too if they wish to promote themselves, because many media outlets may wish to contact them for an interview. Writers should be findable for publicity sake and if they write articles to propel their own publicity it makes sense for them to have a by-line, which makes them easy to find. This way someone can easily look them up on the Internet you see?
If a reporter cannot contact them easily because and they might be on a deadline then of course the articles they write are doing no good and the reporter will simply move on. Now obviously this makes no sense at all does it?
How should you make sure that they can find you? Well if you write in a Trade Journal you should put your phone number in it. If you write online articles and put them on an online submission article website then you should put a link to your website. You website then needs immediate contact information so these reporters can get to you.
If you do not want a lot of people contacting you, but also do want the reporters to contact you then it makes sense to have a separate page or section on your website; Media Contacts. You might even writer; Media Contacts Only, so that salespeople do not use it to contact you too. Consider all this in 2006.
Writing articles on subjects that you are familiar with is really simple. There are now literally hundreds of thousands of people writing articles for submission to article directories all over the internet and for you to have your documents really stand out with the article directories, you must know seven key HTML tags or your articles are just going to be ignored.
Nobody likes to read an article that is just plain straight text. Even the newspapers try to jazz up their material with certain types of formatting and this is also true for those people who are writing articles for article directories or online articles. If you are submitting articles to online directories there are seven key HTML tags you need to know to ensure your articles are both attractive and interesting to read.
When I first started to write this article, I had envisaged there being eight HTML tags however I have dropped one of the tags because using this tag will bring only heartache, pain and millions of spam a month. The HTML tag I do not recommend you use is the “mailto” command which you can use with the “a href” function. The reason I don’t recommend that you use the mailto command is that email addresses put on webpages on the internet can easily be harvested by our spam buddies (buddies not!) and then sold off to many others so I strongly discourage anyone to use this technique. Unless you really do like getting a couple of thousand emails a day and as one person who does get that volume, it really is not any fun.
Okay on to the Seven HTML Tags you need to know …
Starting off, I have substituted the < > for [ ] brackets because when you submit these articles to the article directories quite often they do not like HTML tags except for those below and they sometimes remove all the HTML tags all together. Further to this, if I used these tags as shown below, they will actually work rather than showing the tags. Okay so lets begin …
HTML Tag 1 -
The first tag you need to learn is the bold tag. This tag allows you to accentuate text by making it bold. To make text bold you simply encapsulate the tag with the following -
[b]This text will be bold[/b]
The text between the closing and opening HTML tags will be bold. When working with this HTML tag you must have the closing tag or all your text will be bold.
Note - When typing the HTML tags in substitute the square brackets [ ] with < > greater than and less than brackets.
HTML Tag 2 -
The second common HTML tag you must know is the italic tag. When I am writing articles I try to combine both the Italics tag and the Bold tag in the first paragraph of all my articles. I use this to accentuate that first article. To make text italics you simply encapsulate the italics tag using the following -
[i]This text will be italics[/i]
HTML Tag 3 -
The third formatting tab you need to know is the Underline tag. This tag simply allows you to underline text. To underline text use the Underline tag -
[u]This text will be underlined[/u]
HTML Tag 4 -
The fourth HTML tag you need to know is the Bullet Point tag. This tag is similar to Bullet Points in Microsoft Word except that in HTML there are only four core types. To create a Bulleted list use the following -
[ul]
[li] My First Bullet Point [/li]
[li] My Second Bullet Point [/li]
[li] My Third Bullet Point[/li]
[/ul]
You would expect to see something like -
- My First Bullet Point
- My Second Bullet Point
- My Third Bullet Point
HTML Tag 5 -
We have looked at the fourth HTML tag which allows you to create a bulleted list. The fifth HTML tag is to create a numbered list -
[ol]
[li] My First Numbered Point[/li]
[li] My Second Numbered Point[/li]
[li] My third Numbered Point[/li]
[/ol]
The numbered list would look like this -
- My First Numbered Point
- My Second Numbered Point
- My third Numbered Point
HTML Tag 6 -
The sixth HTML tag you need to get to know is the link tag. This tag allows you to create hyperlinks and hypertext back to you website. This HTML tag is particularly important if you are trying to build inbound links to your website.
The link tag is written in this way -
[a target=”_new” href=”http://microsoftofficespecialist.1-on-1.biz/directmarketing/default.asp”]How to Profit with a Direct Sales Website[/a]
This link tag will look something like this -
How to Profit with a Direct Sales Website
When you are writing for ezine articles you can develop your articles to include html links but sometimes, some ezine directories do not allow the link tag in the main body of the article. The other thing to consider is to use Hypertext in your Hyperlink. The Hypertext you use such as “How to Profit With a Direct Sales Website” should include the keywords you want search engines to index for your webpages. If you do not do this you will be throwing away opportunities for inbound links that will help improve your website position within the search engines.
HTML Tag 7 -
The last tag you need to know is the [br] tag. This tag allows you to insert a carriage return. The one thing about the [br] tag is that not all ezine articles will allow the use of the [br] tag. It is very important that you read the conditions of submitting articles to each Ezine directory as some Ezine directories have a rule that if you do one thing wrong your id or username is out for good.
Knowing these seven html tags will help you format your ezine articles so that they will stand out and be more attractive and easier to read for your users. HTML Tag 6 will also help you in building inbound links to help build the popularity element to your website, which in turn will help build your position within popular search engines like MSN, Yahoo and Google.
© Chris Le Roy I have written a range of HTML Code Cheat Sheets and Microsoft FrontPage 2003 Cheat Sheets. More HTML Information is available at our website - One-on-One Personal Computer Training
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Every technical writer or documentation manager should ask the following questions before authorizing a help file project because the answers will have a direct impact on the final cost of the help project:
1) What kind of help file you need? HTML help? Web help? Flash help? Java help? Oracle help? Winhelp?
2) How many topics will there be? What will be the average length of an average topic?
3) What is the format of the source files (if any)? MS Word? FrameMaker? PDF? XML? Other help projects? etc.
4) Or, do you need to have the source files created from scratch?
5) Do you need any “browser sequences” (RoboHelp)? How many?
6) Will you need any conditional text?
7) Is this going to be a context-sensitive help file? If so, who will generate the MAP IDs? The help-file author or the engineers in the development department?
Do you need any multi-media components (video clips, sound files, Flash clips, etc.) as part of your help file?
9) Do you need a hardcopy version of your help file? Is it going to be printed at a commercial printer?
********* RoboHelp vs. Flare
Let me also remind all technical writers and managers out there that RoboHelp, arguably the most widely used help file editor within the last ten years, is probably not going to be around for much longer according to insistent industry-insider rumors.
Adobe still has a product page devoted to RoboHelp X5 but you need to look hard to find it: http://www.adobe.com/products/robohelp/
I’ve read that the core engineers who wrote much of the original RoboHelp code have now joined a company called MadCap Software (http://www.madcapsoftware.com/).
Their new product FLARE is supposed to replace RoboHelp in the near future, or at least that’s the latest buzz as I write these lines in June 2006.
So if you are a technical writer or a doc manager, you may want to make your own research whether to continue with RoboHelp or take a test drive with the new Flare.
Free Flare trial download is available at http://www.madcapsoftware.com/downloads/flaretrial.asp
————————————————-
Ugur Akinci, Ph.D. is a Creative Copywriter, Editor, an experienced and award-winning Technical Communicator specializing in fundraising packages, direct sales copy, web content, press releases. movie reviews and hi-tech documentation.
He has worked as a Technical Writer for Fortune 100 companies for the last 7 years.
You can reach him at writer111@gmail.com for a FREE consultation on all your copywriting needs or visit his official web site http://www.writer111.com.
A good news release consists of a short introduction. Journalists call this an ‘intro’. This should total perhaps no more than 25 words. Bear in mind that your text needs to answer the ’six salient questions’: Who, What, Where, When, Why and How? Your intro will cover most but not necessarily all of them. Keep your article short and simple (Kiss). Remember, news is something new and unusual (see Galtung and Ruge, ‘News Values’ in Wikipedia).
The second sentence or ‘lock-in’ builds on the news in the intro. By paragraph three you will probably use the best or ‘killer’ quote from the main source for your story. Always attribute a quote to somebody.
1. A news item should be in a readable font size, usually 12 point Arial or Times Roman and double-spaced.
2. The article should be given a unique keyword to identify it. This is called a ‘catchline’. For example, an article about a poisonous snake sent, undetected in the post, might be catchlined “snake” and each page of the news release then numbered Snake…1, Snake…2 etc. This information is placed in the top right-hand corner of every page.
Do not use: 1. A subject’s name, i.e. Blair, because, if they are famous, there could be lots of stories about them in one day, or the name could be confused for that of a fellow journalist. Or, a word so general, like health, that there might be many stories on the subject similarly catchlined. A good catchline will ensure that every page of your news release can be easily identified in a busy media office.
3. The by-line, the journalist’s first name and surname, should appear at the top left of the page.
4. Between the byline and catchline should be placed the date on which the article was written. This information helps the editor to judge whether an update will be necessary, especially if the article is a time-sensitive news story.
5. Your text should have a simple headine of perhaps no more than three words above the intro, telling the reader what the article is about. Try not to attempt a catchy tabloid-style headline. Sub-editors jealously guard their job as the headline writer.
6. At the bottom of each page, to tell the reader that there is more copy to come, put MORE FOLLOWS, More or just MF (centred).
7. To tell the editor that the article is complete put the word End or ENDS on the last page.
8. Don’t forget to include your full contact details on the first or last page.
Importance of Presentation
Proofread, proofread and proofread. Check the spelling; don’t rely solely on spell check. There are some words that are spelled correctly that are not the word you meant to put in the sentence.
Check the grammar. Again, the word processor’s grammar checker is good to a point, Use the word processing software as your helper but remember that you are the final judge of accuracy. For each news release draft, no matter how small, create a word processing document, name and save it on a disk, memory stick or on the hard drive so you can easily get back to it later. Keep a printed ‘hard copy’ in a safe place.
Writing style and completeness
You are expected to write clearly and concisely - using complete sentences that flow logically from thought to thought.
Assume that your reader has not read the materials on which you are reporting. Explain the issue to your reader as if she or he knows absolutely nothing about the subject. Don’t assume that your reader has an understanding of jargon or terminology or that he or she knows about the products, services or personnel of the organisation for which you work.
Sources
Since you are not necessarily an expert on the subject about which you are writing, it is essential that you source the information provided. Even if you are just using facts from a document or webs site, cite the paper, book or internet source. This will give your writing credibility and authority. If you don’t source, it will look like you’re trying to claim the information as your own creation. You don’t want to be accused of plagiarism.
Be objective.
Try not to use “the first person” (I or we). Carefully put together an outline before you begin writing.
Bullets and short paragraphs
Break the material into short paragraphs; using bullet points if necessary. Even with bullet points, use complete sentences and be meticulous with grammar and punctuation. Don’t rely on the computer to correct all your errors. If you use bullet statements, be consistent.
In many cases, the best use of bullet points is to make each statement a complete sentence with a capital letter at the beginning and a full stop at the end.
In some cases, however, you may want to use a “lead-in” sentence opener. Make each bullet statement complete the sentence from the lead-in opener. And be consistent.
When using bullet statements, it is usually best to single space within the bulleted statements and double space before and after the statements begin.
Use Positive Tone
Write in a positive and lay-person’s style. Your objective should be not to unnecessarily offend anyone who might potentially read what you have written on behalf of your organisation. While every issue you write about won’t necessarily be completely upbeat and enthusiastic, each can achieve a proactive note.
Be conversational
Make your writing sound conversational. Take care to avoid sounding stuffy, stiff, or uncomfortable. Don’t use slang or inappropriate language. Connect with the reader in the same conversational style that you would if you were in the same room with him or her having a conversation. So, don’t use jargon.
Take time
To achieve the best, most positive tone for your news release; you must take your time when writing. You can’t be in a big hurry. This is particularly important as you develop your writing skills early on.
Proofread again to spot typographical and formatting errors. Read the text out loud to make sure it sounds right.
Use your own words
Please do not get in the habit of reading printed text and online information and just doing a “copy and paste” into your news release.
The highest form of successful writing is learning from what you’ve read, summarising it in your own words and reporting what you’ve learned. Practice. It is very important that you develop your own style of writing. When you use someone else’s words, it sounds like someone else wrote it.
Put the full name and phone number (including out of hours mobile) in the contact details at the end of the news release. Additional factual information can be provided in a Note to Editors after the contact details.
This might include biographical facts and a short chronology of relevant events. For ideas about news releases, have a look at examples of them on the websites of local councils and the government news network (www.gnn.gov.uk)
Marc Wadsworth, freelance journalist from the UK’s citizen journalism website. uncovering news about almost forgotten subjects, and keep tabs on the news that doesn’t get reported from the angle you would like. www.the-latest.com
You’re in the shower, waking gently to warm water streaming down your back. The day has barely begun, the smell of breakfast is wafting through the house and you’re at peace with the world.
Without warning your sleepy naked body is raked with scalding hot water.
Somebody is cleaning their teeth again without checking if you were in the shower first - or maybe they did check and flushed it anyway in a fit of early morning pique.
Sliding across the bathroom floor in pursuit of the perpetrator is fraught with danger and you fall spectacularly onto your back in a puddle of cold water, banging your head on the sink for good measure.
It takes a positive mental attitude, repeated affirmations and luck to turn the day around from here.
Back to the shower the hot water has run out leaving a cold shampoo rinse, the blunt razor tears one side of your face off and applying after shave to the open wound is a poor choice of treatment.
Going to the toilet looks simple, but the process has been sabotaged by a carefully laid strip of Glad Wrap. The added shock of no toilet paper sparks a burst of bad language and a frantic search for a mop and bucket.
Hot buttered toast will make everything better.
Or not. Today it would have been better to go back to bed and hide under the covers. It may not be safe, but it’s comfortable.
Breakfast this morning consists of burnt toast, sour milk on your corn flakes and coffee with three tea spoons of salt stirred into it.
One shoe is missing, the other has a shredded lace which breaks half way through tying. Every sock is an odd sock and your expensive new white shirt has turned pink. A heated argument over whether it’s pink or mauve sends you out the house early and into the car that hasn’t a hope of starting.
You should give up, but no.
The grinning taxi driver is an old school friend, who chooses this morning to tell you that your colour blind soul mate is someone he slept with after they both got drunk at a school ball 20 years ago - and isn’t life ironic.
Yes, isn’t it.
After thumping the taxi driver and trying to explain yourself to the stern man in the police station, you turn up late for work with a neat pile of documents giving the time, date and venue of the court hearing.
You are in no mood to turn the computer on at work but you do, only to watch the confounded thing turn itself off again, and again, and again ….
Lunch is a half eaten plastic box containing partly digested dog biscuits and the children’s half eaten porridge. How the dog found or why it chose to throw up in your lunch box is a mystery, but by now you accept it as inevitable.
I saw my star sign for Pisces one day which said “Do not go out today. Everything you touch will either drop off or explode. Friends really don’t like you, even your mother has a hidden agenda. Trust no one, especially not your partner who is having an affair with your best friend. Check the paternity of the children you thought were yours.”
Obviously the writer was going through ‘one of those days’ and had scribbled down her thoughts in jest. Picked up by an enthusiastic copy writer it had managed to find its way into print.
It’s important to remember that children have ‘off’ days too. I know a four year old princess who stomped down the stairs in a soaked nightie during her parents flash dinner party, stormed into the dining room and demanded angrily “Which one of you bastards left the toilet seat up so I would fall in?”
If you’re having a bad day it’s best getting it into perspective. If we cant be happy today, now, it’s probable we wouldn’t be happy anywhere, at anytime.
Irrespective of those who say they love you, but still clean their teeth when you’re half asleep in the shower.
Good days can turn bad which in turn can turn good again. Who knows. Writers and illustrators can start off in the morning with nothing going their way and, alone, they struggle to justify what they are doing with their life. After all, if no one is buying or even lookibng at their work, what is the point?
However, we are only ever a moment away from our lives changing forever. And changing, or rather transforming the lives of young people everywhere is what a website called: http://www.chocmint.ws is doing. Illustrated e books for children, by the authors and illustrators themselves. And a chance for young writers to join in and see their work published.
No matter how badly the day is going, it always turns around.
About the Author
Robert Daniel
www.chocmint.ws
Writer, children’s author, specialist teacher, dad, multiple pet owner, soccer fanatic, Welsh Australian.
E mail robddaniel@yahoo.com for more information, and one free consultation with an AWESOME life coach - if your wish is to have a life you love, and you agree to be coachable :o)
If you’ve never written a book, then you probably do not know about the absolutely hair-raising, hair pulling, hair losing, event of meeting a deadline. It is somewhat like article or column writing. Except, when you write a book, you agonize to the point of losing sleep, losing your appetite, losing all desire for carnal pleasures, over the simple question,
“Are there any errors in the manuscript?” {1}
When you write a column or article, and if it is a paying gig, the editor is going to read it and question you up one side and down the other about,
“Where’s the quote for this?”
“How do you know such and such?”
“I want you rewrite paragraph #10 and make it tighter.”
(I wish I had never heard the phrase “tight writing”.)
Now, book editors will do this too. And, when push come to shove, with you and the editor going over what you’ve written with a fine-toothed comb, you hope for the best when press time comes. If you end up with some typo, grammatical boo-boo, misspelled word, or inaccuracy in some fact, then both you and the editor can throw you hands up in the air and say,
“We tried.”
And, I might just add right here and now, errors do happen. Even when there are lots and lots of sets of eyeballs looking at a manuscript, errors are going to creep in. Have you seen a Danielle Steel novel lately?
What terrifies me the most isREADERS!
I once read something by the famous travel editor, Bill Bryson, who said something to the effect that if you forget to dot an “i” or cross a “t”, readers will most certainly take the time out of their busy and meaningful lives to drop you a multi-paged letter to tell you about it.
And, he is right!
In the first book I coauthored with my wife, there were “boo-boos”. I have spent many sleepless night worrying that perhaps we should apply for passage on the next space shuttle and ask them to drop us off on the nearest inhabitable planet. The reason for my worry is that readers, of course, have gone to great lengths to point out these errors in the public forum on Amazon.com.
Thank you very much!
In our first book, The Plain Truth about Living in Mexico, we wrote with the intent of offering something different than the usual expatriation books. The books that do exist on expatriating to Mexico are good. I have actually enjoyed reading all of them, and I’ve read some more than once. But, we wanted to write this book with a different slant. Why write something that was the same old stuff rehashed?
In case you do not know this, once you’ve submitted a manuscript, the editor is supposed to go over it with his editorial magic wand and find the mistakes. Then, you get the galley proofs back and you, the author, review it again for errors. Well, we found the errors in the manuscript, made a doc file, and sent it to the editor.
Lo and behold, the book came off the press with the errors still in it. Now, I have eventually gotten over this since it will be rectified in the next edition. We will revise. The errors do not distract from the text and you can read the book in spite of the mistakes.
The ones not so forgiving are the readers.
I have tried to understand this. I really have. And, all I’ve been able to come up is a feeling of sheer terror! Maybe I need to talk to someone.
As an author, I want to produce the best work humanly possible. I do understand the reader might feel “slighted” if the book isn’t also PERFECTLY edited. I can see if an entire paragraph is missing or duplicated (my wife showed me a novel she has where this really happened), making it hard to read the chapter, then I get that.
In our book, two lines “jumped” within a paragraph and the word “college” came out “collage”. Now, remember, we caught these errors. They were not fixed.
Rather than putting away my pen, we have coauthored another book, GUANAJUATO, MXICO: Your Expat, Study Abroad, and Vacation Survival Manual in the Land of Frogs. This is due for release this summer.
And, I am here to tell you I have been sweating blood over this book! “What if there’s a misspelled word?” “What if there is some hideously monstrous mistake somewhere?” I cannot sleep for worrying over this! (Did I say I might want to talk to someone?)
My wife, the copyeditor in this family, has labored to the point of exhaustion over this new book. Not only has she edited this new one but also has written two chapters in it and has done some rewriting.
Can a book be perfect? Can even one of the huge publishing houses make a mistake? Can the big-name authors, published by the hotshot houses in New York, miss a period, misplace a semicolon, miss some grammar mistakes, produce something unworthy of the reader’s time?
Did I ask you if you’ve read a Danielle Steel novel lately?{2}
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{1}I always tell people there’s only one trick to writing: You have to write something that people are willing to pay money to read. It doesn’t have to be very good, necessarily, but somebody, somewhere, has got to be willing to pay money for it. –Bill Bryson
{2}Don’t misunderstand me. I should hope and pray to be as successful as Danielle Steel. What I mean is her fans’ comments on her book, Toxic Bachelors, as they appear on Amazon.com. But, I am sure Ms. Steel is crying all the way to the bankyou go, girl!
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THE PLAIN TRUTH ABOUT LIVING IN MEXICO
Expatriates Doug and Cindi Bower have successfully expatriated to Mexico, learning through trial and error how to do it from the conception of the initial idea to driving up to their new home in another country. Now the potential expatriate can benefit from their more than three years of pre-expat research to their more than three years of actually living in Mexico.
http://www.zyworld.com/theolog/PlainTruth/Home.htm
