Unless, of course, the claims are true.
In three cases, I’ve found them to be. The World’s Best Cat Litter is, in my experience, the world’s best cat litter. I am owned by two cats and know whereof I speak. Likewise The World’s Best Glass Cleaner really is amazing—streak-free cleaning, a glorious shine.
And, finally, to something that’s relevant to this blog: The Only Grammar Book You’ll Ever Need, by Susan Thurman. It’s a slim, small volume, which puts a certain pinched look on the faces of most language enthusiasts who think that bigger is better. In this case, not so much.
If you hold any linguistics degree, if you edit medical journals for a living, if you spend your free time wagering on the existence of esoteric words, then you’re right: this isn’t the book for you. But for most people who simply want to get by without misplacing their apostrophes or without confusing their and there, it’s a great tool.
For solving tricky grammar questions, avoiding embarrassing errors, and getting your thoughts organized enough to put pen to paper, this compact work will provide you with all the tools you’ll ever need.
The book’s subtitle is A One-Stop Source for Every Writing Assignment, and it’s possible that it was in fact developed with students in mind. But think of all written communication as a writing assignment, and you’ll enter into the spirit of the thing.
Here you’ll find help understanding the parts of speech and elements of a sentence, avoiding common grammar and punctuation mistakes, using correct punctuation in every sentence, and writing clearly and directly. I suspect we all have colleagues to whom we’d like to gift this book based on those claims alone!
The most damaging mistakes a writer can make are probably misspelling or misusing words. Just a few of these errors will make a reader lose confidence in what you’re trying to say. Here are basic rules of English spelling and the most commonly misused words …
Oh, yeah … (insert blissful sigh here)
The Only Grammar Book You’ll Ever Need is published by Adams Media, is affordable, easy to slip into a jacket pocket or purse (or keep in the top drawer of your desk!), so head out to your local independent bookseller and order a copy today. And then you’ll be … beyond the elements of style!
]]>I can’t tell you how often I receive queries that say, “This only needs proofreading,” and yet clearly requires a heavy copyedit, or developmental editing, or character development, or even layout help. Sometimes it’s the person querying who isn’t aware of, shall we say, his or her own limitations. Often it’s just about not understanding the different processes that take place when a manuscript is moving toward publication. But, in any case, confusion often ensues.
Help is here! Today I’m starting a series that will look at what we mean by copyediting, line editing, layout, developmental editing, formatting, and the like. So mark these pages and check back and see whether your questions about process are answered. You’ll finally find out what you need! And then you’ll be … beyond the elements of style!
]]>I wish I were a real writer.
What nonsense! The truth is, I am a real writer. I have novels and nonfiction books, short stories and articles, poetry and produced plays to my credit. Do they pay all my bills? No; but the reality is that I have in fact fashioned a life around writing. I make my living writing copy: website copy, business copy, press releases and white papers and business articles. It doesn’t mean that I’m always writing what I want to be writing … but I’m always writing.
What makes us real? What criteria do we use to define ourselves? It’s worth spending a little time thinking about it. And then you’ll be … beyond the elements of style!
]]>Kirkus’s new owner is Herb Simon, “the owner of the Indiana Pacers, the NBA team, and chairman emeritus of Simon Property Group, a shopping mall developer,” according to the New York Times. Plans are for Kirkus to continue to be published “as a print magazine while beefing up its digital offerings.”
“With the growth of e-books and e-reading devices, no one can really see the future of publishing. But turmoil like this creates opportunities,” said Simon in the NYT article. “At a time when even the definition of a book is changing, my love of books makes me want to be part of the solution for the book publishing industry.”
Simon is apparently just as interested in publishing as he is in sports: he is already the owner of an independent bookseller (and we love independent booksellers!).
So there is hope in these changing times, and your next book in prepublication may yet see the light of day in the new and possibly improved Kirkus Reviews. And then you’ll be … beyond the elements of style!
]]>There may have been a time when that was enough. Writers wrote, and passed their work on to others who took it to market—edited it, packaged it, sold it, promoted it. That’s every writer’s dream, isn’t it? leave me alone to create, you do the rest.
If you’re just writing for yourself, that will work. You can sit and write to your heart’s content. Write a diary, fill notebooks with your deathless prose, feel good that you’re getting the words and thoughts and people out of your head. But if you want someone else to read what you’ve written … well, that’s going to take you out of your quiet room and your quiet writing and out into the bustle of the marketplace. Ewwww.
But take heart — there are a lot of ways to market your work, and among these many activities you can find something that will work for both you and your writing.
In the next few posts I’ll discuss some of these activities. If you haven’t thought much about marketing, try and see this as a buffet: think about each method, try it out, explore it, see if it resonates as something you feel you can enter into and work with.
One of the easiest and quickest ways to market your book—and one you can and should begin before the book is even published—is to write a focused blog. Before we go any further, write this on your brain: this is not the kind of blog where you offer opinions, share your breakfast menu, comment on the movie you saw last night, or diss your coworkers. A blog that markets a book needs to be devoted to that book, and everything that you write in it must have the goal of promoting the book.
A few years ago, Guy Kawasaki wrote a brilliant article about blogs that remains absolutely the best advice available for blogging, and I strongly urge you to read and re-read his words.
A good analogy is the difference between a diary and a book. When you write a diary, it contains your spontaneous thoughts and feelings. You have no plans for others to read it. By contrast, if you write a book, from day one you should be thinking about spreading the word about it. If you want to evangelize your blog, then think “book” not “diary” and market the heck out of it.
So think about writing a blog, even if it’s just to document your progress. One of my clients, Andy Kaufman, maintains this site where he blogs about what’s going on with his yet-unpublished thriller. I’d have liked to see more frequent updates, but you get the general idea (and Andy’s attention has of necessity been elsewhere). Getting people excited about your book before it’s published gives you an immediate sales lift when it does come out, and creates more buzz about it.
Buzz is what you’re looking for. Getting people to subscribe to your blog, link to your blog, talk about your blog and your book—that’s the goal. Work on it, and you’ll be … beyond the elements of style!
]]>The submission calendar is well worth checking on a regular basis: you may have some old unpublished piece that just fits in perfectly — or be inspired to write something new! Either way, keeping up with submission information will keep you … beyond the elements of style!
]]>Well, the Oxford English Dictionary, anyway.
Then again, the OED’s “new” word of the year is “unfriend.” But it’s probably news for Facebook users that unfriending has been around for a very long time indeed. The OED itself notes:
1659 Fuller _App. Inj. Innoc._ iii. xxxjb, I hope, Sir, that we are notmutually Unfriended by this Difference which hath happened betwixt us.
In addition to unfriending people, this year we’ve added zombie bank, hashtag, sexting, birther, ecotown, and tramp stamp, among others, to the list of accepted vernacular vocabulary.
Pleased? Disconcerted? Time marches on, and like it or not, someone you know is already using these words. Or maybe it’s you. In any case, try some of them out! And then you’ll be … beyond the elements of style!
]]>One I’ve had recently, to tell the truth.
The reality is that most beginning writers have no concept of the fact that it takes more than a good idea to produce a book or a script. Everyone has good ideas. My car mechanic has good ideas. Should he write them down? Should he? Probably not.
It takes a great deal of time learning to take a good idea and translate it into something that people will want to read or go to the theater and see. Call it an apprenticeship if you will. Call it paying your dues (though that part is often reserved for the deluge of rejections one is sure to receive). Call it learning your art. whatever you call it, it’s essential to know that great writers become great writers by practicing, getting honest feedback, thinking about it, incorporating it, and practicing again. You’ll note the use of the word “become” in that sentence — it doesn’t happen overnight. Most “overnight” successes have been writing for many many years in obscurity.
Ask for honest feedback only when and if you’re willing to take it. And then you’ll be … beyond the elements of style!
]]>Remember as you browse the first rule of social media: there’s no one-size-fits-all here. Some of these sites may interest you; many of them will not. And that’s as it should be, because you don’t want to spend all of your time online! Explore the sites at your leisure, see which ones seem to work for you, try them out. If you don’t like one site, move on.
And if you find more to add to the list, drop me an email at jcezanne@customline.com and let me know!
In addition to the list above, there is a Facebook application called Visual Bookshelf that you can access from inside Facebook. It’s another community that shares reading lists and reviews.
So that’s it for now! I’ll update this list periodically, as community life on the Net is always changing, always growing … but this should get you started. And then you’ll be … beyond the elements of style!
]]>But change is the only constant, and the web is changing faster than anything else, it seems. The new paradigm, the essence of social media marketing, isn’t helping people sell—it’s helping them buy. Changing the focus from pushing Product X to pulling people in to buy Product X. It may seem like a matter of semantics, but if you think about it you’ll see that it’s far more radical than that, a seismic shift.
It doesn’t mean that other forms of marketing are obsolete. In fact, social media marketing sits in snugly with search engine optimization, because at the end of the day, it’s still all about content, still about getting people to one’s site and having them buy once they’re there.
And there are as many ways of getting them there as there are people in any given conversation. But that’s another shift, isn’t it: from advertising (i.e., talking at people) to evangelizing (talking with people). Social media types find advertising invasive, anyway, so we’ll be seeing less and less of it; but one can evangelize from within—a community, a club, a social group—specifically because one is a group member. One belongs. One listens. One supports.
So the first tip for those of you who want to join the conversation? Listen! And then you’ll be … beyond the elements of style!
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