Category Archives: The Writing Life

Posts about writing for fun and profit.

A Different Kind of eBook

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My first full-length, destined for electronic publication ebook.

In the spring, I was approached by one of my regular publishers to do a new title for them. This was a surprise. After all, as the computer user base is getting ever more sophisticated, sales of print computer how-to books for the beginner to intermediate market I write for are getting ever smaller. I honestly don’t expect to sell titles on new computer topics anymore.

But this book was different in two respects:

  • It would be published as an ebook only.
  • It would be handled as a work for hire.

An Ebook only in Publication

I should start by saying that everything about the book would be handled just like any other book I wrote for that publisher. I’d have to use a special Word template that I don’t particularly care for but have plenty of practice using. The book would go through the usual collection of editors and production staff: tech editor, copy editor, production editor, proofreader. I’d review the manuscript after each editor was finished with it and mark up my comments and corrections. I still had to get the book done more than a month before it was due to be released.

It was just like writing any other book.

The only difference is, at the end of the process, a case of books didn’t arrive on my doorstep. In fact, it wasn’t until yesterday — nearly two months after the book’s release — that I finally tracked down and downloaded my own copy.

QuickBooks 2009 for Mac CoverThe book, which is titled QuickBooks Accounting 2009: The Official Guide for Mac Users, looks good. It’s in standard page size and orientation (which is something I don’t agree with for ebooks, as I discuss in “Thinking Outside the Book“), with a very pleasant layout and design.

The book is an easy onscreen read on my 24” iMac monitor, but I suspect it might be a little tougher on a smaller monitor if the reader can’t see a full page at a time. It looks to me like they thought readers might want to print it out. (I hope they don’t. It would be a terrible waste of paper.) There are plenty of color screenshots (they got that right) although for some reason they didn’t use color graphic elements, as they do in my other books, which are printed. (Still can’t figure that one out.)

The book uses Adobe Reader’s Bookmarks feature to link to headings from a sidebar and the index’s page number references link back to individual pages. There aren’t any in-text cross-reference links, but part of the reason for that is that I couldn’t use page references as I wrote, so I never referred to specific pages in the text. (FrameMaker was an excellent publishing tool for this sort of thing.)

Security Settings for PDFDistribution of the book is apparently limited to folks who buy QuickBooks 2009 for Mac and somehow get a special code with a Web address. They go to the URL, enter their name, e-mail address, and the code, and the book is downloaded. It opens right up in Acrobat, without the need to enter any special codes, but the word SECURED appears in parentheses in the title bar. A peek at the Security settings for the document shows that certain actions are not allowed, but they aren’t the kind of actions that would prevent anyone from getting the most of the book. In fact, they’re the same settings I would have used if I’d released the book as a PDF.

So I’d venture to say that anyone who downloaded the book would be satisfied with the way it was published. Sure, it’s not in print, but at the same time, it’s also not costing them a penny to obtain.

Thoughts on Piracy

Of course, limited distribution of this ebook will not remain limited. In fact, I’m sure it’s already out there on pirate sites, like all other ebooks eventually are.

It may seem odd to readers to learn that I really don’t care how this book is distributed or who “steals” it. But that’s got to do with the way I was paid for it. I wrote it as a work for hire. That means I got paid a flat fee and handed over all rights to the work. There are no royalties to worry about, so sales is not an issue. I negotiated a price I could live with up front, got my money, and did my job. Even though the book has my name on the cover, it’s not really something I have any kind of ownership of.

I’m pretty sure my publisher had the same deal for the book, but their number was bigger. So they may not care about this book hitting the pirate sites, either.

Lessons Learned

The goal of the publishing project was to create a user guide for QuickBooks 2009 for Mac. To keep costs down and prevent readers from having to buy a printed book, the powers that be decided to go with an ebook. This may reduce revenues all around, but it also saves a lot of money and the bother that goes with print publishing.

I think that’s what ebooks should do: put quality information into the hands of the folks that need it without wasting resources while sufficiently compensating authors for their knowledge and efforts.

I look forward to the next edition of this book.

Writing Tips: Master the Basics

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If there’s only one thing you do before starting a career as a writer, this is it.

Today, I’m doing a presentation for Wickenburg High School’s Journalism class. I suspect that they’re a bunch of seniors who are interested in journalism or some other branch of writing. Although I’m not a journalist, I feel qualified to speak to them about careers in writing. And since being asked to do this presentation, I’ve been giving the topics I want to discuss a lot of thought.

The Basics

The best piece of advice I can offer anyone considering a career in writing is to master the basics. I mean that quite literally: master the basics of writing. This includes the following:

  • Spelling. Yes, I know that there are spelling checkers in word processors — and even blog offline composition tools like the one I’m using to write this. And no, I’m not saying that you need to know how to spell every word you might ever write absolutely perfectly. But I am saying that you need basic spelling skills. This will help ensure that you don’t misspell a word that spells another word (and, thus, won’t be caught by a spelling checker) or use the wrong word (then instead of than, your instead of you’re, etc.).
  • Want more tips about grammar?
    Read “Grammar is Important“

    Grammar. Again, perfect grammar isn’t an absolute requirement, but a writer’s grammar should certainly be much better than average. Don’t use the grammar checker in a word processor — if you need to rely on that, you may as well give up on any idea of being a writer. The best way to learn grammar is to read and study good writing. I’m not talking about Dickens here. And I’m certainly not talking about blogs. I’m talking about The New York Times, NewsWeek, and other quality publications that are written and edited by professionals. Don’t get the idea that grammar rules are meant to be broken so they don’t matter. You need to learn the rules before you can break them.

  • Punctuation. This goes with grammar. Punctuation is pretty easy. If you can’t master it, you’re not going to impress many editors.
  • Style. Here’s where things start drifting away from what you can learn in basic English classes. Every writer should be able to develop his or her own style or voice. This is something that comes with practice — I don’t think it can be taught. Style includes vocabulary and word usage, as well as the rhythm of your sentences and paragraphs. I believe that the only way a writer can develop his or her own style is by writing and then rewriting. A lot. Every day. Once you’ve got your own style, you should be able to go the next step, which is to emulate (okay, copy) someone else’s style. In fact, a good writer should be able to write in whatever style he or she is called upon to write in.

Here’s the deal. If you try to start a career as a writer and you haven’t mastered the basics, there isn’t much of a chance of you getting a job as a writer. No editor is going to want to deal with submitted work that is fraught with basic writing errors. It’ll take too long to edit.

And if you expect to be a freelance writer, your chances of getting published are slim if you can’t submit an error-free manuscript.

It doesn’t matter what kind of writing you want to do — newspaper journalist, technical writer, advertising copywriter, short story author, novelist. If you can’t write, you’re not going to get work as a writer. It’s as simple as that.

A Story with a Point

And to finish this piece off, I’ll tell you — and that high school class — a true story. Back in 1978, when I started college, English 101 and 102 were freshman year requirements. These two courses took what we supposedly learned in high school to the next level.

I wasn’t very interested in taking English — I wanted to take a creative writing class instead. Fortunately, my college offered a way out. I could write an essay about a topic of interest to me and submit that for evaluation. if the essay was good enough, I wouldn’t have to take either freshman English class.

I wrote the essay. It was about how high school fails to prepare young people for life. I was 17 at the time — please don’t do the math — and already thinking about these things. The essay was a hit. I was exempted from freshman English.

This story has a point. Before I got to college, I had already developed above average writing skills. This served me well throughout high school and college — I aced almost every report and essay test question, mostly because I already knew how to organize and present my thoughts in writing far better than most other students.

These are the kinds of skills every writer needs to develop before beginning a writing career. If you want to be a writer, master the basics now.

Not a Blogger? Maybe You Should Be!

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If you read blogs, you can blog, too.

One of the hats I wear is the Webmaster hat for wickenburg-az.com. This is a Web site I started back in 1999 to provide information of interest to Wickenburg residents and visitors. A few years back, I converted it from straight HTML to a blog-based system utilizing WordPress. This makes it very easy to add new content, automatically archives old content by topic, and adds a great search feature.

wickenburg-az.com is a place for folks to share their own content. I have a number of regular contributors, as well as a few folks who just send new content for consideration when they have something to say.

Yesterday, I received two new submissions — a record for a single day. One was a piece by a woman — we’ll call her Jackie — who was deeply offended by something John McCain said in an Interview with Sarah Palin and Katie Couric. She wrote a short article that explained her views. I could tell by reading it that it was something she’d thought about, something that bothered her a lot. She wasn’t a Democrat latching onto yet another Republican faux pas to prove that Republicans weren’t fit to be in office. I got the feeling that she’d been a McCain supporter who felt betrayed by his recent behavior. This comment he’d made was the last straw.

I couldn’t put the article on wickenburg-az.com. Although the site does cover politics, it concentrates on politics at a much more local level. (Heaven knows that the politics in Wickenburg has enough scandal, cronyism, and blatant favoritism to keep us busy.) So I wrote to Jackie, told her that we couldn’t use it, and suggested that she submit it to the newspapers.

Jackie responded to say that she had and that no one seemed interested in printing it. She thanked me for my response — I may have been the only person to extend that simple courtesy.

That got me thinking…I’ve been blogging for nearly five full years now. (My first blog post was on October 15, 2003.) I’ve used my blog to share everything from boring stories from my life to opinions about politics and religion. If I have something to say, I say it here. I don’t try to submit it to newspapers or other Web sites. I have my own publishing outlet and you’re reading it: An Eclectic Mind.

So I wrote back to Jackie and suggested that she start her own blog.

Those of you who think there’s some kind of computer programming knowledge required to start and run a blog are seriously mistaken. If you have the equipment and skills to find and read a blog post on someone else’s blog, you have everything you need to start your own. Best of all, there are plenty of free blogging tools and services out there. My personal favorite is WordPress. Although I use the WordPress server installation, which does require an above average amount of computer know-how, WordPress.com is a free service that just about anyone can use.

Why haven’t I mentioned this before? Well, it’s mostly because I thought everyone already knew this. It wasn’t until I began this e-mail exchange with Jackie that I realized that there are people out there with something to say and no easy public outlet in which to say it. Blogging fills this purpose for me. Why can’t it fill this purpose for others?

Are you someone like Jackie? Someone with something to say to the world and no place to say it? Consider blogging.

Lynda.com WordPress CoverAnd at the risk of turning this into a commercial — which is not my intent — I invite you to check out the free sample lessons from the WordPress.com video I created for the folks at lynda.com. There’s enough there to introduce you to blogging so you can find out whether blogging is for you. There are also free lessons that cover the WordPreess.com setup process. That’ll get you started. WordPress isn’t difficult to use, so there’s a very good chance you won’t even need training material. (But if you do, I can’t say enough nice things about lynda.com materials.)

Blogging has become an important part of my life. It gives me an outlet to communicate what I’m doing and thinking to the world. So what if only a few hundred people read each blog post? I’m not writing for them as much as I’m writing for myself — to get what’s in my head out where it can be read by others.

Isn’t that what Jackie was trying to do when she submitted her article to wickenburg-az.com?

Advice to Home Buyers

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A never-published sidebar.

In July, while I was working on the eleventh edition of Quicken 2009: The Official Guide for Quicken Press, I wrote the following sidebar for Chapter 13. But by the time I had completed it I realized that it was probably not a good addition to the book for various liability reasons. So I pulled it out and wrote this post, dating it to appear after the Quicken book was published.

I need to stress that the only thing I’m advising here is for people to be conservative when borrowing money. I don’t want to see the U.S. economy getting any worse, and I certainly don’t want to hear stories about people — especially people with families — losing their homes. Consider my advice and take it with a grain of salt. While there’s no reward without risk, there’s also a lesser chance of loss without it.

Here’s my unpublished sidebar:

Mortgage Options: What Does This Mean To You?

I’m not a financial advisor and I don’t feel comfortable giving financial advice. But here’s one piece of advice I feel I must give in this eleventh edition of my Quicken book: Don’t make unrealistic assumptions.

The mortgage crisis that’s currently going on in this country is due, in part, to unrealistic assumptions made by borrowers. Some people assumed that the home they were buying would quickly rise in value so it would be worth far more than they were paying in just a year or two. They reasoned that they could always sell it at profit if they had trouble making mortgage payments. Other people assumed that rates would continue to stay low or even go lower, so payments on their adjustable rate mortgages would stay the same or be reduced. And most people probably assumed that the economy would stay strong, fuel prices wouldn’t rise, and they’d stay employed.

Hindsight is 20-20. As we saw, the worst combination of economic changes recently hit the U.S. The “housing bubble” burst and home values declined. Soon, many people’s mortgages — some for 90% or 100% of the home’s purchase price! — exceeded the value of their homes. Some homes could only be sold at a loss, with the seller still in debt on a home he no longer owned. Interest rates rose and adjustable rate mortgages rose with them. The cost of living increased, making it difficult for many people to cover their living expenses and pay their mortgage. A rash of layoffs throughout the country left many people unemployed. It was the perfect storm.

When I advise readers not to make assumptions, I’m warning those of you considering a home purchase not to make the same mistakes that other home buyers made over the few years before the housing bubble burst. They assumed best case scenario and they were proven very wrong. It may be better to assume the worst case scenario. If housing values remain flat or decline, mortgage rates rise, the cost of living continues to rise, or you lose your job, can you still afford the home you’ve selected with the mortgage deal you’ve chosen? If not, perhaps you need to find a better deal or choose a more affordable home.

Be smart — not sorry.

Writing Tips

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Some wisdom from the trenches.

My meeting the other day with a wannabe writer made me realize that there are a lot of people out there who want to write but simply don’t have a clue about many of the basics. So I thought I’d start a new series of articles here. The idea is to share some of my insight with the folks who understand that they don’t know everything and that they can learn from other writers.

I realize that this sounds sarcastic, but I think it’s pretty close to the mark. So many wannabe writers simply don’t understand the basics of writing — or writing for a living. They have this glamorized idea of what it’s like to be a writer. They think it’s easy. And while it may be easy for them to write, it isn’t easy for most folks to make a living as a writer.

And that’s what it all comes down to. As a commenter here said, writers write. But if you can’t get paid for your writing, you’ll probably have to work a “real” job to earn a living. And that might not have enough time to write. So the goal of anyone who wants to be a writer should be to get paid for writing. Then they’ll have plenty of time to write.

My goal in this series is to not only provide tips to help you be a better writer, but to help wannabe writers or new writers understand how they can make a living as a writer and what that living might be like.

I’ve already written a number of posts that you might find helpful if you’re interested in learning more about being a writer. I’ve listed the ones that I think are best here:

I learned two things in the hour it took me to compile this list:

  • The list is a lot longer than I expected it to be. I wrote a lot about writing since I began blogging nearly 5 years ago. This list doesn’t include all the posts in the Writing category, either.
  • Before writing Saturday’s post, I hadn’t written anything worthwhile about writing since February 2008.

I urge you to read any of the posts listed above that you think you might find interesting. Comment on them, too. Your comments will help me develop ideas for new posts about related topics.

In the meantime, I’ll use the “Writing Tips” title for a bunch of short new posts that cover some of the basics. I promise not to be too chatty.