How To Write A Book | Joel Trains Authors
Write a book. Start your own Internet business.
Michael Lopp, a Silicon Valley engineering manager, writes a blog (randsinrepose). He has also written two books, Managing Humans and Being Geek. In this piece, he writes about his approach to book-writing. While I like my approach better–more orderly, faster results–there is much to love and learn from in what Michael writes. Check it out.
A founder of this site just sent me a note. Sounds like a winner! Just about to launch.
Check it out & sign up for early notification here.
I got a card a few months ago asking me to subscribe to The Sun, a literary magazine with no ads. The card, a fold-over-3-ways with several interesting photos and some tidbits of writing (including the story below), convinced me to try the “free trial.”
I was hooked from the first issue. This is writing of a quality to which I aspire, thoughtful, considered pieces. Check it out here.
Carol wrote and offered her article, “How to Write with Style.” It’s a great introductory article on writing style, and has other writing resources.
Found this important piece of news on http://www.whatweknowsofar.com/. Enjoy!
Loan Words from Mike Rugnetta on Vimeo.
A Google ad suggested I go look at Autocrit, an on-line editing wizard. I was blown away by its power! In seconds, it identified a bunch of subtle problems with the block of text I dropped into the free version.
Running into the limitations of the free version, I signed up for the $47/year account so that I could put in multiple blocks of text–blog posts, articles, pieces of fiction, whatever. (Knowing that I have a 60-day money-back period gave me confidence too.)
Autocrit is transparent; it explains what is wrong with the writing, covering things like:
You can try it for free.
I liked it so much I signed on as an affiliate. The links in this post are affiliate links; I’ll get 25% if you decide to buy a subscription.
If you can read these, and not go to the site to read the rest, you are not a lover of writing:
1. Call me Ishmael. —Herman Melville, Moby-Dick (1851) 2. It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife. —Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice(1813) 3. A screaming comes across the sky. —Thomas Pynchon, Gravity’s Rainbow(1973) 4. Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendía was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice. —Gabriel García Márquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude (1967; trans. Gregory Rabassa) 5. Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. —Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita (1955) 6. Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. —Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina (1877; trans. Constance Garnett)
100 Best First Lines from Novels
I was going to quote and link to one particular article on Joe Konrath’s blog, but the more I read, the more I realized you should read it all. So click on that link and head over there. Joe shares powerful lessons for people wondering whether self-publishing is viable vs. finding a publisher.
I traveled to Israel (and spent 3 days in Cairo) for the entire month of December. It’s great to be back in California, although I always love visiting Israel.
Speaking to many old friends and new acquaintances in the world of engineering and high-tech, my conviction that writing a book is the number-one way for professionals and startups to promote themselves has been confirmed and strengthened. People invest so much in printed marketing collateral that just winds up being thrown away. Books hang around, and continue to deliver your message for a long time.
So many startups have complex stories to tell, stories that require more than some pretty pictures and a few bullet points. Books provide an opportunity to wax eloquent on the complexities and make them understandable.
Of course, the same applies to individual professionals. What do you want your prospects to know? A book is a vehicle for conveying it in a comprehensible way.
