I was expecting him to talk about formatting or fonts or the like, so I was really surprised when he said that the single biggest mistake new authors make is not hiring an editor(!) “That’s where a lot of money gets wasted,” he observed.

Nick is a conscientious professional, so when he gets a “bad book,” he’ll politely suggest having it professionally edited before he sets it.  But often, new authors will insist on skipping the editing step in an effort to save money.

The trouble is that when the interior is done and the client sees the manuscript all laid out and looking like a real book, the flaws and errors are suddenly obvious. The end result? Not only do they end up having to hire an editor after all, they also end up with the expense of having the designer do the book over.

According to Nick, a professionally edited manuscript is what “separates the one-timers from the people who make writing a vocation.”

Good advice, I’d say. I’ve seen how subtle revisions can make a big difference and prevent those little mistakes that can be so embarrassing. But being an editor and book doctor myself, I am admittedly biased on the subject.

So don’t take my word for it — take Nick’s. And while you’re at it, hire him. He does great work.

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Over the past year, many of you have been following my news about my client and friend Marc Warnke, who has had the vision and commitment to make the journey from hatching an idea, to creating a manuscript, to becoming a published author. The journey reaches its culmination today, folks – the book is now available on Amazon!

It’s called ONO, Options not Obligations.  The subtitle is, Enrich Your Personal Life by Rethinking Your Financial Life. ONO promotes Family First Entrepreneurism and teaches a lifestyle that will help create financial options rather than obligations.  The launch of ONO is today–April 22^nd. You can read excerpts and testimonials, as well as see and interact with Marc live on the 22^nd at www.ONOBook.com.

Marc did so many things right on this project. He engaged a great team of professionals to help with every phase, including a kick-ass editor (!) along with the amazing Maryanna Young to mastermind the launch and smooth the way with Marc’s publisher, Morgan James.

Marc is a shining example to aspiring authors everywhere!

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I got to hear Greg Mortensen speak at the Morrison Center last night. One of the many amazing stories from his amazing journey was about the struggle with his publishers at Penguin over the exact wording of the subtitle for his book, Three Cups of Tea.

The publishers insisted on “One man’s mission to fight terrorism … one school at a time.” Mortensen did his best to convince them to change it to “One man’s mission to promote peace … one school at a time.”

Notice the profound difference just two words can make? He explained it simply and eloquently, saying, “Fighting terrorism is based on fear. Promoting peace is based on hope.”

The pros at Penguin very understandably assumed that “fighting terrorism” would sell more books—even though Mortensen’s mission is education, not militarism—and they prevailed. On the first round, anyway. Mortensen relented on condition that if the hardcover version of the book didn’t do well, the paperback version to follow would feature the “promoting peace” subtitle.

As for how it turned out—the hardcover edition only sold about 20,000 or so copies. The subtitle was changed, and the paperback edition with “promote peace” on the cover shot to the top of the New York Times best-seller list and has stayed there for 95 weeks as of today.

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All writers struggle with this one. For example, take a sentence like “Every writer has ______ own unique style.”

Should one use “his” exclusively? Pretty sexist.

Alternate by using “his” this time and “her” the next? Hard to keep track of, as well as being confusing for readers.

Resort to the clunkiness of “his/her” or “his or her?” Interrupts the flow of the sentences and breaks the reader’s concentration on the subject.

I wrote a report on the subject for a linguistics class a few years ago and decided that my own stylistic convention would be to use “their,” even though it’s not technically correct. I find it less jarring than the other options. To me, this solution is preferable to implying that every reader is male or self-consciously calling attention to the controversy every time.

With my clients, I discuss the pros and cons of the various choices and advise them to choose a convention and stick with it, then I add it to the style guide I keep for each client. As with so many other grammar and usage questions, there are choices and the important thing is to have a good reason for the decision you make and to be consistent.

So, what’s your preference? I’d love to hear other writers’ and readers’ perspectives and opinions.

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At the meeting, we were discussing business writing and the importance of putting yourself in the reader’s position to check for things that could be misunderstood. One of the analysts told the story of a client of hers who is a short-term disability expert. The client habitually refers to her field as “STD” and recently sent out a customer sales letter touting the benefits of STD, talking about how everyone needs STD, etc.

In this client’s mind, STD means short-term disability coverage. But to the rest of the world, the first thing that comes to mind when we see STD is “s**ually transmitted diseases.”The moral of the story? Get a second opinion about what you’ve written before sending out any important piece of communication.

It is especially helpful if your reviewer/proofreader/editor is NOT in your field or your profession, because they’ll be more likely to catch any terms or concepts that only insiders are familiar with.

It’s very difficult to imagine how it feels not to know the things one knows well. That’s why so many how-to books do such a poor job of explaining how to do something. Being able to work from a beginner’s mind, even though you are an expert, is the secret to being a good communicator, a good teacher, even a good business analyst. One of the best ways to find out whether you’re succeeding is to get feedback, whether from your target audience, a friend, or a professional communicator.

The other example the group gave me was a joke (with special thanks to Jane Francis!):

A truck driver has penguins in his truck and is on his way to deliver them to the zoo. His truck breaks down. He flags down another trucker and says,“I’ll pay you $500 to take these penguins to the zoo.”“OK, I’ll be happy to do that,” says the second trucker.

Hours later, the first trucker is in town and sees the second trucker in a crosswalk with the penguins following behind him. “Hey, I thought I told you to take the penguins to the zoo.”

“Right,” trucker two replies. “We went to the zoo and had money left over so now we’re going to the movies.”

As George Bernard Shaw once said: “The greatest problem in communication is the illusion that it has been accomplished.”

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Many thanks to the alert subscriber who pointed out that the link in my earlier post wasn’t working! I fixed it there, too.

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I learned about it from the Idaho Foodbank’s latest newsletter and couldn’t resist logging on and spending way too much time there immediately. In the process of contributing thousands of grains of rice, I also learned that a “sastruga” is a wind-formed snow ridge and that “luculent” is another word for clear. That’s my idea of a good day.

The vocabulary is challenging, even for a person who brags that she has to buy a massive dictionary to find one that contains words she doesn’t know. The site lets you customize the level of difficulty and track your progress, and you can hear how a word should be pronounced by clicking the speaker icon next to it.

Not only does FreeRice give slackers everywhere a way to feed their brains while feeding the hungry, it also exemplifies elegant simplicity in website design. Everything works: the navigation is logical, the design clean and appropriate to the subject, and the content is informative, interesting, and well-written. For an example of what I mean, take a look at the about page. Does clean, clear copy get any better than that?

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The answer depends on whose attention you’re trying to get and what impression you want them to have. The headline in question went with a long copy sales page describing an intensive training retreat. The goal of the headline was to get the right people to read it and then to win their respect for, and trust in, my client’s professionalism.

Everyone alive in this century is skeptical of anything that smells like advertising. Headlines in all caps (including articles and prepositions like “a” and “to,” for example) may catch more eyeballs initially but, if the eyeballs belong to, say, a liberal arts major, the brain attached to them is likely to say, “Oh no, another cheesy long copy sales pitch,” and click away to another site.

If you’re selling something to an educated audience, ignoring grammatical conventions in favor of what is flashy or catchy risks insulting their intelligence. And if your product or service is expensive, gimmicky marketing materials will devalue it. Put another way, if you’re charging Nordstrom prices, you don’t use K-Mart merchandising techniques.

My client is all about quality and expertise. And in my admittedly biased opinion as a writer and an English major, her image and her audience deserve flawless grammar.

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What does “there” look like? It’s easy to judge from the bleachers as a reader, but harder to keep perspective in mid-game when you’re the writer. We all know that it’s better to be useful than clever. The basic principles they teach in technical communication class are the basic characteristics successful business books have in common.

The good ones:

• Have a beginning, middle, and end, which appear in that order.
• Make sure the table of contents matches the chapter and section headings exactly.
• Decide what to put in and what to leave out based on what the reader needs to know, not what the author is itching to say.
• Present the material in a logical, linear sequence, even if the topic is not intrinsically linear.
• Write for a specific audience and have a clear purpose, as in “After reading this book, you will be able to do X.”

Sounds so obvious and so straightforward from the outside — but it’s amazing how easy it can be to get lost in the thick of the process and lose track of the bigger picture as my group and I work through the first drafts of our own books. And there’s more! Somehow in addition to the basics above, good non-fiction books also manage to be readable and even entertaining.

Do you read many business books? If you do, what do your favorites have in common that we could add to this list?

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