Book Doctor – Page 4 – Self Publishing Advisor

Self-publishing Guest Post: Transacting Book Sales

The Book Doctor on managing book sales transactions for the self-publishing author.

Q: When I bought your book at a recent seminar, you used a credit card company that notified me via e-mail of my charge going through. Can you tell me about the company? Who are they, and how do I contact them? I need to have the ability to accept credit card payments when I sell my books, so I am shopping around.

A: The company I use is ProPay, and it can be found at http://www.propay.com. A colleague highly recommended ProPay, and I have been completely satisfied with the service I get. Through ProPay I can take almost any credit card by e-mail, phone, or in person and later transfer those funds to my own bank.

Bobbie Christmas, book editor, author of Write In Style (Union Square Publishing), and owner of Zebra Communications, will answer your questions, too. Send them to Bobbie@zebraeditor.com. Read more “Ask the Book Doctor” questions and answers at http://www.zebraeditor.com

Book Doctor

Self-publishing Guest Post: The Book Doctor

The Book Doctor sets it straight on apostrophe usage for writing on the road to publishing…

Q: When it comes to plurals for last names, which is correct? Hueys or Huey’s or Hueys’? The Robersons or Roberson’s or Robersons’? Microsoft Word always flags these as misspelled. I can never tell the difference.

A: Microsoft Word probably flags them because the words themselves, Hueys and Robersons, are not in the dictionary, plus the computer program cannot decipher whether the name is plural or possessive.

If it is strictly plural, it takes no apostrophe. Examples:
We ate dinner with Joe Huey and the rest of the Hueys.
Mike Roberson said all the Robersons are visiting next week.

If it is plural possessive, it needs an apostrophe. Examples:
We ate dinner at the Hueys’ house.
The Robersons’ dog is visiting, too.

Note that if the name ends in an s, the plural possessive for book style is to add an apostrophe and an s. Examples:
The Jones’s house is painted white.
I agree with all of the Samuels’s suggestions.

Book Doctor, Self-Publishing

Guest Post: Ask the Book Doctor

Style advice for the self-publishing author…

Q: When mentioning an album name in my book, like song titles, do you lowercase conjunctions (and), prepositions (of, for), and articles (a, the), even when they appear capitalized on the album covers?

Actual cover: Wheels Of A Dream

In my book: Wheels of a Dream

A: You have hit on a style issue. Advertising, labels, and such often capitalize things at will. Advertising style is not the same as Chicago Style.

Chicago Style, the standard for the book publishing industry, has specific rules for when things should be capitalized, written out, abbreviated, or punctuated. It says, in part, the following: “In title capitalization, the first and last words and all nouns, pronouns, adjectives, verbs, adverbs, and subordinating conjunctions (if, because, as, that) are capitalized. Articles (a, an, the) and coordinating conjunctions (and, but, or, for, nor) are lowercased unless they are the first or last word.

What you have in your manuscript, Wheels of a Dream, is correct as far as capitalization goes, but I’m not sure if it is an album or a song title. Chicago Style calls for putting quotation marks around the title of a song, but it calls for italicizing the title of a long musical composition, such as an opera or an album.

Book Doctor, Self-Publishing

Guest Post: Book Doctor on Manuscript Submission Format

Q: I know a book has to be in standard manuscript format for editing, but can I send sample chapters to an agent in single-spacing, to save paper?

A: I can understand your confusion over standard manuscript format, but editors did not create it, publishers did. A book is considered a manuscript until it is redesigned to be ready for publication. All manuscripts—and excerpts sent to agents or publishers—should be in standard manuscript format. The only exception would be when the author plans to self-publish, in which case agents and publishers will not be involved.

Book Doctor, Book Marketing, Self-Publishing

Guest post: Ask the Book Doctor

We’ve discussed how creating a blog can help organize your writing schedule, generate actual book content, and assist in ultimately marketing your published book by building platform and establishing yourself as an expert.

Guest blogger, Bobby Christmas, the Book Doctor, talks about generating blog traffic for self-publishing authors.

Q: I have started a blog, which started out slowly, but I now get about fifteen hits a day. How can I increase that number?

A: First, for those not familiar with blogs (Web logs), they are online journals. One provider of Web log space is http://www.blogspot.com. Many authors have found that maintaining a blog builds a fan base for their books and keeps fans up to date when a new book is going to be released.

I’m not the expert on blogs or driving traffic to blogs, but I will give these tips:

What are you doing to make those people go to your blog and read it now? Do more of the same.

To drive traffic to your blog, write articles or a column regarding your subject matter and include a link to your blog. Send those articles to any site that may post them.

Embed key words in your blog, words that readers might use to search for the type of information you provide in your blog.

In addition to my very basic advice, buy and read a book on how to increase visibility and drive readers to a blog. I noted 164 books about blogs on Amazon.com.

Bobbie Christmas, book doctor, author of Write In Style (Union Square Publishing), and owner of Zebra Communications, will answer your questions, too. Send them to Bobbie@zebraeditor.com. Visit Bobbie’s blog at http://bobbiechristmas.blogspot.com/. Read more “Ask the Book Doctor” questions and answers at http://www.zebraeditor.com.

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