Write A Good Book
I know for most of us, that sounds like a no-brainer. After all, we’re writers and editors byprofession. Have you seen those ads for “Write an E-book in An Hour”? Have you seen those e-books? (One example can be found at bybloggers.com as a premium for signing up for the newsletter.)
Some writers can hammer out an article or even a chapter or two in an hour. Actually I can do a 1,500-word article in about an hour. But that’s just words to paper, it’s not research or re-writing. It certainly isn’t publishable material.
Another method touted is to take a bunch of blog posts and string them together, viola, an e-book. I just read one of those. The writer didn’t bother to re-read the material. Not everything fit with the subject of the book and there was a lot of duplication. While I did glean a few tidbits of information, I’m glad I didn’t pay for the book.
I do have to add that some very good e-books start out on as blog posts. Two examples are How to Blog a Book by Nina Amir and Social Media 101 by Chris Brogan. I recommend both of these books not just as examples, but they have very good information for e-book writers.
It is far too easy to be tempted to hack out something, throw it up on Amazon for 99 cents, and just wait for the money to roll it. Even for professional writers, the promise of fast publication is tempting.
If you want a good product, and I’m sure you’re taking this class because you do, you need to start with the basics of solid writing. Following all the rules of writing that we’ve all learned over the years.
Even if you are planning to convert a print book that is already published, you’ll want to go back to basics. Re-read your manuscript. Has there been new information that changes your non-fiction book? Did some errors slip through? I had my most recent book edited by three different editors. When I went through it before converting it to Kindle, I was amazed at the number of little mistakes I found. Is there anything that you could have written better? I’m sure we can all find a sentence that can be massaged.
What do you do to insure that you are writing a good book?
Excerpt from Formatting e-Books for Writers
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