Editing 101 — How to Edit Your Book by Drafts
After hours (months? years?) of painstaking work, you’ve finally gotten to the last page of your manuscript and feel ready to show the world. Congratulations! You’ve made it further than a lot of other writers. Are you ready to self-publish or send it off to an agent? Not quite. There are still quite a few […]
How I Created a Memoir from Old Family Letters and Photos
Creating a memoir from old family letters and photos can get complicated. You start out with good intentions and then find yourself sorting through hundreds (even thousands) of letters and old photos trying to find a way to make a manuscript. Scrapbooking has been around for years, and it is a convenient way to take […]
Editing 101 — How to Edit Your Book by Drafts
After hours (months? years?) of painstaking work, you’ve finally gotten to the last page of your manuscript and feel ready to show the world. Congratulations! You’ve made it further than a lot of other writers. Are you ready to self-publish or send it off to an agent? Not quite. There are still quite a few revisions needed for your book. Here are some tips to help you learn how to edit your book.
ISBN and Barcodes: Tips for Self-Publishers
One of your final steps in the journey is the attainment of an ISBN number and a barcode. This number identifies your book’s publisher, edition, publication region, and physical properties. The barcode is a graphical representation of your ISBN and pricing information. Simply put, they are a unique identifier for your publication—no other number or media will have that exact ISBN or barcode.
Writer’s Guide — Show, Don’t Tell
We’ve all heard everyone from English teachers to writing coaches tell us to show, not tell. But what exactly does it mean to show rather than tell?
Writer’s Guide — Structuring Your Plot
Let’s look at how structure frames the plot (in a good way). The plot is the sequence of events in a story that answers the dramatic question. The structure, or narrative structure, is what keeps the events in good order. Structuring your plot correctly is key to a story that reader’s want to continue.
Writer’s Guide — Using Plot to Answer the Big Dramatic Question
Have you ever read a story where you had a hard time figuring out what was going on? Not in an Inception type of way, but more like you can’t figure out what the story is trying to accomplish. What is happening? A well-defined plot describes the main part of the story in which everything revolves. Knowing and answering the big dramatic question centers around the protagonist’s central conflict and keeps the reader interested in your story.
How to Add a Drop Shadow in Adobe InDesign
When creating an eBook or similar publication in Adobe InDesign, you may find yourself needing to make text pop just a little to stand out on the page. This is especially useful when you have white text against a medium-dark background. It’s not dark enough for the white text to be readable on its own but not light enough for a darker font. We could take the text into Photoshop and build ourselves a nice frame with a drop shadow. However, here’s a much simpler way to add a drop shadow in InDesign.
Writer’s Guide — Different Types of Point of View in Writing
Contemplate reading the latest murder mystery on the market. Imagine your emotional response to the story presented from the point of view (POV) of the husband who first stumbled upon the scene of the crime. What about a story from the victim’s perspective as they you (the reader) tell their story? Would your reaction be any different if the narrator was an omnipresent narrator with no direct ties to the characters? The point of view, or voice that tells your story, directly impacts your emotional connection to your story.
How to Determine Word Count and Check Spelling in Adobe InDesign
In publishing, you learn that triple-checking your work in Microsoft Word is just the beginning. Once you have begun putting the document into a document layout program like Adobe InDesign, you never know what changes may occur. As people begin reviewing the manuscript in its final stages, little changes can impact the quality of your document. A newly added caption may have a small typo that everyone misses at the last minute. Here’s how to determine word count and check spelling in Adobe InDesign.