I’ve been fairly ruthless on my clients before. When it comes to editing, I take a slash and burn approach. If it’s not necessary, it goes! No crying. No whining. If it doesn’t help the end product then it needs to be tossed out like underwear with skidmarks on ‘em. (gross…but I’m trying to get my point across…wink wink).

Recently, I had one of my toughest editing assignments to date. It was for my church’s Mom’s Group, a book on miracles.

Miracles can be big or small. They can be blessings that you almost miss (“Whew! Thank goodness we missed that exit. Turns out there was a huge accident on there.”) or they can be doozies (“Aunt Margaret coded and then came back to life and the doctos have no explanation!”).

This book was embracing all blessings, no matter the magnitude.

But as I was editing, not only did I need to keep the writers’ original voices, but I realized that such events are so intimate, so utterly personal, that editing them much at all can be a disservice to the person who experienced it.

I would read a story and think that this sentence here or that sentence there was just so unnecessary. But then I would figuratively step back and think about how this is written by a person who lived through it. It is his or her specific account of the event. And who the heck am I to slash and burn it? Who am I to decide what is “important?”

It was rough. The mean editor me wanted to pull the slash and burn. But the mushy-gushy me wanted to honor these people and have their stories of blessings retain their voice, without my interference.

The mushy-gushy me won out. I bought myself a copy of the book and started reading it. And the mean editor me shook her head and looked at all the parts that I could’ve/should’ve cut out. I know my college English professor would have been sickened by my lack of slashing and burning. But, the mushy-gushy me was glad that the people who contributed their stories could see them in their own words, and know that their words would be read by others. Others who would hopefully find them as uplifting as I have.

While I love to write my fiction on spec (translation: work on my manuscripts which are currently unagented), Momma’s gotta pay some bills. So from time to time I take an editing gig. I’m not the stuffy, Professor Tina says “this is the grammatically correct way to write or take a hike” kind of editing gal. I’m more of a “how can we make this subject interesting, make sense and not break a kazillion grammatical rules in the meantime” kinda woman.

So, when credit expert Patrick Ritchie asked me to edit his first book – The Credit Road Map – I did it in a way that would keep his voice intact, make credit actually readable and understandable and I had a fun (and educational) time doing it!

A couple years later Patrick decided to write a book that would  be his original book on steroids…plus geared towards the multitudes of persons who are self-employed. From real estate agents, to business owners to direct marketing sales people. And that book is aptly titled The Credit Road Map for the Self Employed and you can find out more information here.

]]> http://tinamcallister.com/http:/tinamcallister.com/editing-work-the-credit-road-map-for-the-self-employed/feed/ 0 http://tinamcallister.com/http:/tinamcallister.com/catching-up/ http://tinamcallister.com/http:/tinamcallister.com/catching-up/#comments Tue, 04 May 2010 15:44:55 +0000 Tina http://tinamcallister.com/?p=724

Well, I’ve phased out of the non-fiction ghostwriting and ebook coaching. Woohoo!

But it’s been more difficult transitioning from non-fiction writing to fiction writing than I anticipated. Sure, I’ve got plenty of crazy fiction ideas rattling around in the noggin. But the constraints of non-fiction writing have these invisible shackles on me. It’s been tough shaking them off and really writing freely…as fiction really NEEDS to be written.

My solution? Read plenty of fiction. Immerse myself in it. And it’s helped. I’ve read murder mysteries, chick lit, literary fiction, you name it. And I’ll keep on reading it as I keep on working on my writing.

My current project is Woof! And it’s involved a fair amount of research. And I’m not a huge fan of research. But in the end, it will help the book…because if I don’t know what the hell I’m writing about, then the whole book will ring false. And we can’t have that, now can we??

Another fun thing I want to share is a new book – 199 Internet-Based Businesses You Can Start with Less Than $1000 – and yours truly is featured in it. Well, my ebook coaching & ghostwriting biz is featured. You can check it out on pages 182-183. The book is great for anyone looking into home business…plenty of informational nuggets in there and case studies.

Have you ever heard the saying “You know more than you think you know?” I sure hope you have!

For many of us, it’s true!

We have information locked inside us that others would LOVE to have!

Many home biz owners are stumped for what they should write about, what they could possibly put into an ebook to use as a marketing piece or a money maker. So here’s my ultra-simple idea when you get stumped:

Ooh, ooh!! Ultra excited here!!

My Flip camera arrived and I put it to use! After trying to mess around with my pricey HD cameras with no luck (okay, so perhaps some of the issue is operator error…I’ll take some blame here…) I picked up a great deal on a Flip and you know what? I flippin’ love it!!!

(okay, a bit cheesy, but at least I’m crackin’ myself up)

With no further ado, I present my first ebook writing tip via video:

Comments? Suggestions? I would love to hear your feedback on the tip, or on the video itself. Thanks!!

It’s easy to throw everything and the kitchen sink into your ebook. And it’s just as easy to go the opposite route and fail to incorporate some really cool additions that can make your ebook shine! So when you are writing that ebook, start thinking about what you can add to spice things up a bit and add value.

Here are a few ideas:

- throw in your bio; Okay, this isn’t an “extra.” It’s a must have. You wrote the book, now make sure you introduce yourself to your readers and go the full mile. Let them know all about you (especially how it pertains to the ebook), give them contact information, a picture and info on upcoming work-related things.

- add a checklist; checklists are great for condensing your information to one page…something that can be printed out and used. (Just don’t forget your url in the header or footer of that checklist page!)

- provide discounts…have a discount to your services/products. Think of it as a gift to your readers. Perhaps you can work out a discount or some sort of special deal with a colleague on their services.

- add testimonials; no, not a kazillion of them. People don’t want to read page after page of how great you are. But a single page with a few testimonials of you and your product/service is nifty. (and it feels good, right?)

- add statistics; do a little research and find some stats out there to support your claims, to bolster your ebook. Make sure you state clearly where the stats are coming from. Or, you can even conduct your own surveys (check out Survey Monkey or Easy Internet Survey).

- add trivia; quotes, fun stats or interesting little tidbits of information that help augment your book can be sprinkled throughout, or added on a bonus page. Here’s a post with a bunch of trivia site links.

- add a FAQ page on your products/services; you get asked the same questions all the time, so head some of your prospects off at the pass by providing a “Frequently Asked Questions” page in your ebook.

- include a “Thank You” page; there are people who have supported you in your work. And here’s where you can acknowledge them. If they have a business and url, mention it and spread the link love!

- add a list; this is different than a checklist. You’re listing a “top ten” or some other number of listed items. You can add a list of web sites that would be useful. You can add a list of possible software resources.

- top it off with some graphics or pictures; some people like to print out their ebook…so I don’t typically recommend overloading your ebook with graphics that suck up a lot of ink. (Sprinkling throughout – good, overload – bad). But, if you have a subject that could use some picture or graphic representation, think about creating specific graphic pages and then referring to them through the text (as in, “see Picture 1-A on page 52″ or “Check out all the photos on page 52″). By having a page or two of the heavy graphics separate from the text, your prospects still get the visual element but can choose whether to print those pages out or not.

What do you think would make a great “extra” for an ebook?

Last year I was crazy enough to hold a contest for a 25 page ebook. FREE. Ghostwritten by yours truly. And winner Carlin Comm (whom I strongly urge you to follow on Twitter) brought me his project.

Carlin, a veteran of Desert Storm, had written a diary during the war. And he had letters from Americans who had participated in the whole “Any Servicemember” letter writing campaign back then. He wanted to get it all into a book. And he thought he needed my ghostwriting help.

Carlin was wrong.

I remember the day Carlin told me he wasn’t sure he had 100 pages worth of material to fill the book.

Carlin was wrong again.

But these are the good kind of “wrongs” in that it turned out Carlin needed a coach and editor…not a ghostwriter. And he didn’t have 100 pages worth of material…he had 300 pages of material!!

Carlin worked on his diary entries and then sent them to me. I cleaned them up a bit, working to keep his voice intact while keeping the grammar in check (sorta like how I write on this blog – winky wink). And then I formatted it all up pretty and stuff.

And Carlin had his book. That he wrote all on his lonesome. And instead of an ebook, he went and published it!! Very, very cool stuff!! (By the way, another strong urge of yours should be checking the Desert Storm Diaries book out over at Amazon).

It was an experience that in large part brought me to coaching in addition to writing and editing. Because, really, there are plenty of people out there who are completely capable of writing their own book, they just need some guidance, some accountability and all that.

And along the way you may just find yourself having fun! Carlin and I had some great conversations, and really, the whole process wasn’t this blood, sweat, tears deal. Which is nice. When you’re tossing about 10-20 emails back and forth in a given day on the last little changes you have for your book, you want to be able to do so with a sense of humor.

I asked Carlin for a testimonial. I was going to throw it on the new Coaching Packages page. You know, gotta show the peeps I know what I’m doing and all that. But what did over-the-top Carlin do?? He wrote an entire post about my awesomeness. How cool is that??

To wrap up this post about awesomeness…the main points you should take away are:

1 – Carlin is awesome and you should check out his book!

2 – Carlin thinks I’m awesome and who am I to disagree?

3 – You may not need a ghostwriter but you may need a coach to give you a good kick in the rear.

4 – If you go with the whole coach thing, find one you can have fun with. Because it SHOULD be fun!

Oh, technology. On Friday I wrote up an ultra-cool post to you, bragging about working poolside at the Westin La Paloma in Tucson all day (Oh, I could get used to such work environments, dangerous!!!). But then the laptop battery died…ugh…obviously, I had been working too long and sucked the laptop dry.

But more important than my poolside work ethic, earlier in the week I was the giddy school girl who got interviewed by Kelli Claypool of Diva Talk Radio…we talked all about ebooks, my client/friend Carlin Comm talked about his Desert Storm Diaries book I edited, I talked about some ebook tips…you know, the good stuff!! Did you miss it? No worries – you can listen to it now:

Uh, almost.

I think pretty much everyone has a book in them. The difference between an ebook and a book-book? Well, ebooks are better suited for non-fiction. And maybe not everyone has a non-fiction book in them.

But most business owners and entrepreneurs have an ebook just simmering inside…

So, yeah…I would say you could write an ebook out of nothing.

I used to make tombstones for a living. Yes, those granite memorials you see in the cemeteries. (Hold the “people must be dying to see you jokes” – I’ve heard ‘em a kazillion times). Immediately a couple different titles come to mind:

- How to Market Your Memorial Business to the Masses Without Turning Them Off

- How to Handle Emotional Customers Through the Sales Pitch and Beyond

The marketing book would obviously be a very defined niche, only interesting to those within the industry…but guess what? Sometimes the niche titles are best!!! You have a clearly defined audience and that makes it easier promote and sell.

The Emotional Customer ebook will have a wider audience, but it’s still a good topic. I’m sure I could think up other industries that experience customers who are crying, or are pissed off at the world.

So…if you’ve been tossing around the idea of writing an ebook, here’s what you do:

Think about what you know. Ideally it relates to something you are doing NOW. Because your ebook will either be a marketing piece for your business, or it will be a sales product. And there’s no point in creating a marketing piece on something that doesn’t not relate to your biz. And it’s easier to sell something that has to do with your active work. (Point in case, my WAHM Agent series…yeah, I’m still licensed as a real estate agent and I still work a transaction here and there…but you don’t see me updating a real estate site, or talking real estate all the time. Yes, I’ve sold some ebooks…but it would be oh so much easier if I had written something that actually pertains to what I do on a daily basis – writing and managing a writing/coaching business.)

Think about who could benefit from the information. There are people out there in the world who want to know what you know. Seriously. By unlocking the vault of information in your head (trust me, you DO have something in that noggin of yours) you are helping others. Doesn’t that make you feel all warm and fuzzy? Something else that might make you feel all warm and fuzzy is the traffic driven to your site from a free ebook you’re giving away, or the sales you make off your ebook while you’re sound asleep in bed. VERY warm and fuzzy.

Think about how you can provide the information to your audience with a “twist.” This is especially important if there are other books out there. What angle of the subject can you provide that is different? Nobody wants to read the same ol’ stuff over and over again. They want something new, something fresh. You need to give it a twist!

Think about how you can present the material in a way that makes sense. This means structure. Start jotting down the various points you want to make in your ebook. I’m an outliner. But some people like to use mindmapping. Do what is comfortable for you, it really is a personal thing. Brainstorm yourself silly. But in the end, you need to organize all those ideas and thoughts and place them into an understandable, logical order so readers can follow.

Guess what? Out of “nothing,” now you have something…the beginnings of an ebook. Now all you need to do is keep writing…

You’ve written your ebook. You’re sending out free copies. You’re using it as marketing material. Or maybe you’re selling ‘em and making cash hand over fist.

It doesn’t really matter WHAT you are doing with your ebook – the fact remains that you should keep in mind that updating your ebook can be a great way to keep your name, your business, in front of your peeps.

One of the best things about ebooks is that they are timely. They can be whipped up in days and then available to the public. No months of waiting for a  book to go to print. And then worrying about information being out of date by the time the book is available to the public.

Ebooks take that concern out of the equation.

But don’t assume that once you create your ebook you don’t ever have to update it again.

Okay, well, depending on your topic, maybe you don’t have to update it. If your ebook is a very specific topic then maybe you fully intended it to be a one-time hit to the market. Make your money and move on. But if you want your ebook to stand the test of time, you may think about updating it from time to time.

Weekly updates are pretty time-consuming and actually, silly, when you think about it.

Monthly updates are more manageable, but still – work on your part.

I suggest quarterly updates. Every 3 months or so skim through your book and take a look. Are any of the links outdated or broken? Is any of the information stale? Has anything happened since the last publication to necessitate new dialogue?

Sometimes, you may find everything is fine and dandy. Cool. But other times, you may find that an update is the right thing to do.

If the ebook is a freebie, then it’s easy enough to update and then use that update as a way to generate new interest in the ebook. People like the latest in info, especially when it’s FREE!

But if your ebook is a sales item, then you need to think about your options:

- provide the update FREE to previous buyers of your ebook

- provide the update at a discount to previous buyers of your ebook

- charge both new and old buyers for the newly updated ebook

If you go with option 3, you may find some disgruntled previous buyers. And that can hurt you in the long run. So I suggest going with options 1 or 2 to save face and make nice with the peeps.