New book available!

My new book is now available in paperback and on Kindle. Details below:

How to write & publish your book:

a simple guide to writing and publishing your book in print and digital formats for FREE

by Don Egan

Discover how you can save time and money when writing and publishing your own book.

Guaranteed to save you hours by avoiding common pitfalls of new authors.

You will love all the proven tips and tricks to help you create your own published book virtually for FREE!

– Tips and tricks to help you write your book

– Step-by-step guide to publishing your work

– Detailed guide on formatting for e-readers

– Publish for FREE in both paperback and e-book formats

– How to get paid for your work

– How to get your book sold on Amazon worldwide!

Buy it here.

A reading challenge to improve your writing…

Last year I was reading a book about personal improvement. One section was about how to be a better writer. The author wrote that if you wanted to be a writer, you should read Ernest Hemingway’s story, The Old Man And The Sea. It’s a classic tale by an accomplished writer. Novels don’t usually interest me but I read the book as an exercise in improving my story telling.

I have to say, I am glad I did it. The story went to places I didn’t expect it to go. I think I also noted there were no chapters, you just followed the story of the old fisherman. It seems such a simple subject but Hemingway soon got me hooked (excuse the pun) on the story of the old man.

If you want to write stories about anything, I too would recommend you read this classic tale. It may stretch you but you will learn a lot about storytelling as you read it.

Let me know how you get on!

A few thoughts from writers!

When you get stuck

I think there are several stages a writer goes through when writing a book. For me it starts with the idea. Then developing the shape of the book. Then comes the inspiration and the writing begins to flow.

However, at some point, there usually comes a stage where the ideas and inspiration dry up. Now the writing becomes a burden and the enjoyment is replaced by frustration.

Many good books have been lost to the world at this point because the writer just gave up. The project was shelved and never saw the light of day. That is sad.

Once you realise that this is a very natural stage of the writing process, you can plan for it and push through to complete your book. Strangely the way to make progress is to stop completely. Have a break from your writing. Do something completely different.

‘Every now and then go away, have a little relaxation, for when you come back to your work your judgement will be surer; since to remain constantly at work will cause you to lose power of judgement. Go some distance away because the work appears smaller and more of it can be taken in at a glance, and a lack of harmony or proportion is more readily seen.’

Leonardo da Vinci

One summer, when I was struggling to write, I went and built some garden furniture for a few days. The manual task took my mind of my writing and gave me some new and manageable problems to solve. Creating the garden furniture breathed new life into my creative thoughts.

A week later I returned to my writing and had somehow resolved the issues I had been struggling with. Eventually the writing began to flow again.

You don’t need to start building garden furniture. Just do something that recharges your emotional batteries – go for a walk, a run, ride a horse, go on a road trip. Just do something that is away from the computer or wherever you write. Take a small writing holiday from your work.

When you come back you’ll probably know whether to re-write something or take a new direction.

Getting a bit stuck is part of the process. Embrace it.

What activity will you do to take your mind off your writing for a while?

How many words?

How many words do you need to make a book? This is actually the wrong question. It really depends on what you are trying to communicate. The worst thing you could do to your book is to pad it out with unnecessary words to make up the numbers. That would bore your readers.

How many pages is a valid question for a print book, but the number of words is a different question.

How many words do you need to make a book?

As many as you need and not one more.

That said, I do find it useful to know what size a book will be and word-count is a basic indicator.

My first foray into publishing was a series of little booklets in the style of Grief Encounter. They are A6 and 32 pages – designed to fit into the pocket and be read on the train or bus etc. These little booklets each have between 5,000 and 6,000 words.

Then I wrote a series of paperbacks like Searching For Home, which each have between 20,000 and 25,000 words – about 140 pages of standard paperback size.

My most recent project is The Chronicles of Godfrey, which is 60,000 words and 280 pages.

The English translation of War and Peace contains over 560,000 words and typically over 1400 pages as a paperback.

Rather than trying to crank up your word-count, I would advise you to write your book in as few words as possible. Edit and delete your writing down to make it as concise as possible. Concise writing is more powerful.

A great example of this is in John’s Gospel. Writing about Jesus at the grave of Lazarus, John could have written:

‘Jesus was so moved by the death of his good friend Lazarus that he began to weep as he stood before the grave.’

What he actually wrote is more powerful:

‘Jesus wept.’

The brevity of this two-word sentence communicates far more than what is actually written.

So focus on your story or subject and write the best book you can.

My imaginary friend

He sits there in the corner of the room yawning. I’m not even sure he has noticed me.  He looks bored. But I really need to get his attention. He seldom speaks but when he does I hang on his words.

I want to tell him a story but it seems he’s heard them all before. I write the first few lines keeping one eye on him. I go back to the beginning and try again. What will get his attention?

Then I get an idea. As I write he stirs and looks in my direction. He looks at me, demanding further explanation of my opening words. I continue writing to explain what I mean, and yet I want to hold back a bit of mystery, in order to keep his attention.

He begins asking me questions about the story, ‘But what about…’

And then it happens. He smiles. Then he starts making suggestions as to where the story could go. That’s when I know we are in business. That is when the writing is flowing.

I type fast to keep his interest, and his ideas, flowing. If I see him starting to get bored, I try to grab his attention.

I can’t write much without him. I need his involvement. He is my imaginary friend. I am writing the book for him. And if he doesn’t like it, he won’t read it. I need him.

And if you want to write, you need him too. Or maybe yours is female. When you write, write for him or her. Explain your story. Listen to his or her ideas. Never write without your imaginary friend.

Formatting your book for publishing on Kindle (Part 2)

In this post I explain how to create a table of contents and also how to insert a few bookmarks the Kindle needs.

1. CREATE A TABLE OF CONTENTS

If you have already manually typed a table of contents, that is fine. Obviously delete any page numbers as the Kindle doesn’t use page numbers.

If you want to create an automatic table of contents then follow these simple steps.

Make sure that only your chapter titles are styled with the CHAPTER STYLE you created in Part One.

Place your cursor on the contents page (create a blank contents page using the PAGE BREAK command as explained in Part One.

Now go to INSERT and then INDEX and TABLES…

This will open the window below.

Click the second button at the top TABLE OF CONTENTS.

Now click on OPTIONS… on the right.

Now use the slider to find any boxes with numbers in. Delete all the numbers.

Then use the slider to find the CHAPTER box (or whatever you called your Chapter Style in Part One).

Now type 1 in the CHAPTER box. Then click OK.

Finally, make sure you un-tick the SHOW PAGE NUMBERS at the bottom left of the window, because we don’t want to generate any page numbers.

Click OK and Word should create your table of contents.

2. INSERTING KINDLE BOOKMARKS

The Kindle needs to know where a few parts of your book are: Cover, Start, End, Table of Contents.

We can tell the Kindle where these are by using the BOOKMARK menu.

Place the cursor just before the first word of your book – ie: the cover page with the book title and authors name. Now select INSERT and then BOOKMARK…

This will open the bookmark window.

Type COVER in the box at the top and then click ADD at the bottom left.

Then just repeat this process in the other places:

Place your cursor just before the word CONTENTS on your Contents page. Then create a Bookmark called TOC.

Place your cursor at the beginning of your introduction or first chapter. Then create a Bookmark called START.

Place your cursor after the very last word of your book. Then create a Bookmark called END.

Now save your file as MyBookKindle04.doc or something similar.

This file is now ready to be uploaded to you Kindle Direct Publishing account. But you will also need a cover image. In Part 3 I will explain how to Create your free Kindle Direct Publishing account and how to create a cover image.

Formatting your book for publishing on Kindle (Part 1)

Preparing your book for publishing on Kindle is very different to preparing a book for printing. When preparing a book for print publishing you have control of fonts, type size and spacing etc. On the Kindle you can’t control any of those things because the reader controls the appearance of the book on their Kindle. So your job as the author / publisher is to make their Kindle experience of your book the best it can be.

We want to create a text file that will flow on the Kindle the way the reader wants it to. I am assuming you have a copy of your text in MS Word. I’m no fan of Word but if you are going to publish on the Kindle you should get a copy because that is the accepted text file standard.

Go to SAVE AS and save a copy of your work as MyBookKindle01.doc (where ‘MyBook’ is the title of your book). This is so if you mess up you can go back to your original file and start again. Then we start work on the formatting.

1. KILL THE TABS

The first job is to strip out any formatting you have put into your text. If you have used the dreaded TAB key in your text, you need to find every TAB and delete it. TAB will not line up on the Kindle as it does on your screen. It will make your text display like a dogs dinner. Delete all TAB spaces. (If you used TAB to set a quote in an indented block – still delete the TABS. Later on you can go back to your quotes and use INDENT which will work on a Kindle.)

2. KILL THE FONTS

Next go to EDIT and SELECT ALL. Go to FORMAT … FONT and change the whole text to TIMES or TIMES NEW ROMAN and select 12pt text. Click OK.

Select All and change to 12pt Times

You can go back later and put back things you had in italics, but for now we want everything in 12pt Times.

3. KILL THE EMPTY LINES

If you put a blank line between every paragraph, I’ve got some bad news for you. You need to go through and delete every empty line. The one exception is if you left a blank line to indicate a change of scene:

John tossed and turned as he tried to get to sleep that night.

[blank line]

Clicking the kettle on was an automatic action as John stumbled into the kitchen for breakfast…

But all the other blank lines MUST be deleted. In my book The Chronicles of Godfrey the scene keeps changing from Heaven to Earth in some chapters. But instead of leaving blank lines I used what I call a scene change blob, which I make with three ‘o’s, the middle one in caps.

oOo

And I centre the blob.

If you have any places where you have left a big gap made with a series of blank lines, they too must be deleted because on a Kindle, that may cause a series of blank pages on the device, and Kindle books should have no blank pages, unlike print versions.

Even when you come to a new chapter it needs to just start on the next line. In the next step, we will deal with chapters appearing on a new page.

4. CREATE CHAPTER BREAKS

You can’t create chapters starting on a new page by using blank lines on a Kindle. You must use the PAGE BREAK function in Word. Those few pages at the beginning of a book – title/ copyright / dedication etc should be included in your Kindle version. But there should be no blank pages.

After your title page:

MY GREAT BOOK

by

A. COOLWRITER

Put the cursor just before the first letter of your copyright notice, which could look something like this:

Copyright © Don Egan 2013

The right of Don Egan to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved.

Kindle Edition

Now we are going to make that start on a new page by inserting a page break. Go to INSERT / BREAK / PAGE BREAK.

Your copyright page will now jump to the next page. Go to the beginning of every chapter and insert your cursor in front of the first word of your chapter title. This will make every chapter of your book start at the top of a fresh page on the Kindle.

5. CREATE PARAGRAPH INDENTS WITH A BODY TEXT STYLE

Kindle files should have an indent on the first line of each paragraph. It can also make reading easier if we arrange a small space after each paragraph. Leaving a blank line between each paragraph is too much space but typeset text usually has a little gap between each paragraph. We can do this by creating a STYLE and calling it BODY TEXT or something similar.

We do this by creating a STYLE in the FORMATTING PALETTE. Go to STYLES and click the triangle to open the styles section.

There will be a few styles already in the palette but click the NEW STYLE button so you can create your own.

This opens the NEW STYLE window. First give the new style a name like BODY TEXT. Under FORMATTING select TIMES and 12pt. Just underneath select LEFT JUSTIFIED TEXT symbol and NORMAL SPACING symbol as shown.

Then click on the pop up menu at the bottom of the window which reads FORMAT. Then select PARAGRAPH…

This opens the PARAGRAPH window. In INDENTATION set SPECIAL to FIRST LINE and then BY to about 0.5. This will indent the first line of each paragraph by 0.5 cm.

Then under SPACING set AFTER to 6pt. This will create a small space between each paragraph. Then click OK.

Now back in the text of your book go to EDIT and the SELECT ALL. Then in the FORMATTING PALETTE under STYLES click on the style you just created BODY TEXT or whatever you called it.

This should format your whole text. Click into the text to deselect everything.

Now we need to go back the the FORMATTING PALETTE and STYLES and create a NEW STYLE called CHAPTER. This will be the same as BODY TEXT but in BOLD and with no indent, and CENTRED. As below.

Now go through your text and change all your Chapter Headings to the CHAPTER STYLE.

That’s most of the work done.

Click SAVE AS and save a copy of your work as MyBookKindle02.doc

Now you just need to create a TABLE OF CONTENTS and INSERT a few BOOKMARKS and you are good to go. I will explain these two steps in the next post.

Write first – Edit later

When you start writing there is always a temptation to edit as you go along but the most helpful advice I heard was – don’t. When you get into a flow with your writing it is really important to keep that flow going as long as you can.

If you start re-reading and editing what you’ve done you’ll get bogged down with editing and the writing flow will stop.

Get your idea down on paper or screen and don’t worry how rough it is. There will be plenty of time to edit later. I’ve got three unpublished 20,000+ word books on my computer because I messed around with editing too early in the process. They don’t flow. To be honest they are a mess made by premature editing.

When writing a technical or self-help book it is easier to edit as you go, but even then unadvisable. Keep your ideas going onto the page.

When writing fiction you really need your creative juices to keep flowing, so just get your ideas down first.

The beauty of word processors is that you can edit as many times as you like later. But if your writing doesn’t flow with great ideas your readers will get bored and close the book.

Writing The Chronicles of Godfrey was my first work of fiction or allegory. I had to re-read my work so I could remember the story and where I was heading. I did little edits during my catch up reading – you know, the their/there/they’re sort of errors. But I tried to leave the main editing to be the next step after writing the first draft.

In one scene I needed a major character to have a brother. But until this point I hadn’t mentioned his brother. The writing jarred a bit because suddenly, not only did the guy have a brother but the brother was there helping him with something. So in the editing stage, I wrote the brother into the opening scene of the character.

Had I done that at the writing stage, I could have got lost in this new character, who actually only has a ‘walk on’ part later on.

So, bash your ideas onto the page first. Get the whole arc of the storyline down. Then you can begin to smooth and polish the writing, grammar and punctuation.

Reading and writing

If you want to be a writer you need to be a reader. You should read and write a lot. Writing, like every other skill is learned. The more books you read, the more you will get a feel of how to write.

In this post I want to recommend three books you should read if you haven’t already:

1. Notes from a small island by Bill Bryson

This is the most well written book I have ever read. It’s a book that actually did make me laugh out loud many times. But my point in recommending you read it is to observe a piece of writing excellence.

2. On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft – by Stephen King

I’m not a horror fan at all, but this partly biographical work is a must read for any aspiring fiction writer. It’s a book writers need to read several times over. It is a story that teaches you how to write a good story.

‘In my view, stories and novels consist of three parts: narration, which moves the story from point A to point B and finally to point Z; description, which creates a sensory reality for the reader; and dialogue, which brings characters to life through their speech.’

3. Writing the Memoir – by Judith Barrington

This is a practical guide to the craft, the personal challenges, and ethical dilemmas of writing your true story. I read this while thinking about writing Searching For Home. It taught me the difference between an autobiography and a memoir.

Memoir is the best selling genre of books at the moment, so I hear. If you are thinking of writing your true story, read this book first.

I wrote my autobiography Beautiful On The Mountains about seven years ago. But Searching for Home is a memoir. An autobiography tells a life story. A memoir reflects on certain events in that story.

I will recommend other books but these are my top three recommendations for would be writers.