Congratulations to my valued client Tiffany Majors on the publication of her novel “Drop the Hustle.” It’s the inspiring story of London Bentley, a young woman trying to navigate through a world populated by people who don’t always want the best for her.
Her trusting nature leads her to acquiesce to people and situations that could damage her, and her desire to please others could prove to be her demise. Everyone around London is deep into the hustle: her calculating and controlling mother is a skilled puppet master, her man is a monster, and her preacher is a con artist.
But sins must be revealed. The hustle will be exposed and London will find out the truth about everyone including herself and God. Ultimately, at death’s door London will have to decide if she will out hustle or drop the hustle.
This powerful story leads the reader into a twisted house of mirrors, where nothing is as it seems and the reflection of the person doesn’t match the reality underneath.
An author on the rise, Tiffany Majors hails from Boston, Massachusetts, and currently resides in Maryland with her husband and children. She holds a degree in business administration from Southern New Hampshire University. Tiffany enjoys a career as a property manager — but who knows, perhaps she’ll some day be making a living as an author of fiction!
In the publishing industry, a “beta reader” is a human being who reads your unpublished book and provides feedback, not unlike a book review. Beta readers are subjective, and can provide only their opinion, but they can be very useful in gauging how an average reader will respond to your book.
The industry also offers software services such as Grammarly. These are computer programs that analyze your text and compare it with a known standard. They are useful for identifying obvious typos and errors of basic grammar. They are not very useful in providing a subjective or emotional response to your book.
Recently a valued client of mine sent her manuscript to a “beta reader” service. The resulting report had the veneer of personalization, but the work had clearly been done by software.
The “beta reader” said that he or she (the report was unsigned) had submitted the 38,000-word manuscript to a website touting the Flesch Kinkaid system. This is a computer program that “reads” the text, analyzes its content (like Grammarly does), and compares the results to an algorithm. It does not consider the content, nor does it consider whether you’re writing fiction or nonfiction, or even poetry. It then provides a “readability score” of one to 100. The higher the score, the more “readable” your text is. They provide the example of “The Old Man and the Sea” by Ernest Hemingway as having a very high readability score.
The report provided by Flesch Kinkaid listed various words that were “overused,” such as adverbs and prepositions. It was obvious that the software had scanned the manuscript and counted the occurrence of various types of words and punctuation marks, and then flagged the ones that numerically exceeded the algorithm.
In the report, I was particularly intrigued by the admonitions about font enhancements. After a long explanation about why WRITING IN ALL CAPS is bad (which we never do!), the report said:
“Here are some samples from your book where you use font enhancements unnecessarily, followed by the recommended change:”
The examples were a dozen perfectly innocuous examples of the use of italics.
The report given to my client said this about M-dashes:
“You tend to overuse m-dashes. M-dashes ( — ) are often used in place of parentheses or commas, or to indicate abrupt pauses or interruptions in dialog or action. They are also used to indicate dramatic emphasis. You sometimes incorrectly use n-dashes ( – ) in place of m-dashes. N-dashes should be used for joining words or numbers in a range (eg: 2–5 minutes; January–March). You sometimes use n-dashes in place of hyphens.”
I searched my client’s 38,000-word text and found exactly two places where an M-dash was used incorrectly. As far as “overuse,” that’s purely subjective.
I began to wonder whether there was any human involvement in this so-called beta read! So then I decided to go to the Flesch Kinkaid website and do a few tests myself. They say they can analyze websites, and rate them for readability. For the test, I gave FK articles from two highly technical peer-reviewed websites: “The Journal of Public Health” and “Science Robotics.” These are dense, difficult texts. To my surprise, FK gave both pages high scores for readability – 46.1 and 45, which according to FK were suitable for kids in 9th grade.
Makes you wonder if a highly technical article with a score of 10 would be “readable.”
My point is that these software tools are useful for detecting obvious typos, such as the aforementioned M-dashes. But beta reading? No, that’s not what they do. For that, you must have a real human being.
Thomas Hauck is a professional freelance ghostwriter, book developer, and occasional beta reader for his global clients.
Many of my valued clients ask me how they should publish their manuscript. Whether you’ve written a novel or a self-help book, it can be difficult to decide how to market your new creation.
Broadly speaking, you have three choices.
Self-Publish
When you self-publish, you control every step of the process. In effect, you act as your own project manager. You write the manuscript (or have it ghostwritten), you hire the book designer, you upload it to a platform like Createspace, and you handle promotion and distribution. You pay for all of these things yourself.
The advantages are that you control the process and you retain full ownership of your book. You are both the author and publisher.
The disadvantages are that you are less likely to reach a broad audience, and you won’t get major reviews. But many of my business clients don’t care about that because they want to use their book as a calling card, not as a money-maker.
Subsidy Publisher
In the old days they were called “vanity publishers,” but that’s changing. A subsidy publisher is a hired project manager. For a fee, the subsidy publisher will do all the things a normal publisher would do, and more. You can hire a subsidy publisher to ghostwrite your book, design the cover, print it, and promote it. At each step of the way you pay them. Most subsidy publishers sell “packages” that can cost up to tens of thousands of dollars. You need to be careful because the goal of the subsidy publisher is to “upsell” you and get you to buy more and more services.
The advantage is that you’re paying a provider to do what they’re good at. The disadvantage is that you’re also paying their hefty profit margin. In addition, most subsidy publishers require a contract that gives them an ownership stake in your book. They want exclusivity.
Traditional Publisher
A traditional publisher, such as Simon & Schuster or HarperCollins, will invest in your book. They will agree to assume all the costs of production and distribution. In effect, the publisher becomes your business partner and investor. In return, they’ll pay you a royalty for each book sold.
For non-fiction, a traditional publisher will consider your book only if you have a platform – that is, if you have an audience ready to buy your book. The publisher will generally not invest in finding buyers for your book. So if you are Susie Expert, the publisher will say, “We know Susie Expert can use her blogs and TV appearances to sell 10,000 books, so we’ll sign her to a deal, and we expect to sell 10,000 books.”
For novels, it’s anyone’s guess. There are no rules, except in genre fiction, such as romance novels, in which there are very strict rules. But unlike self-help books, it’s unclear whether the author’s platform is relevant. In fact, many authors of fiction use pen names or pseudonyms, which pretty much means their platform is irrelevant.
In any case, most traditional publishers require that you submit through a literary agent. There are a few that accept submissions directly. You have to do your research!
The obvious advantage to a traditional publisher is that they pay for everything. They invest in your product. The disadvantage is that they control the process. You become a hired employee. They own your book. And if your publisher is lazy, your book can easily vanish into a murky pit of obscurity from which there’s no return.
The direction you take can be a big decision, so get the very best advice you can!
Thomas Hauck is a professional book developer and author.
A prolific author of insightful real estate books, my valued client J Scott has written and published many how-to guides for both the novice and experienced real estate investor. One of his most recent, “The Book on Flipping Houses: How to Buy, Rehab, and Resell Residential Properties, 2nd Edition,” reveals the secrets to what many people imagine is a crazy, high-risk profession: buying cheap houses, improving them, and then selling them quickly at a profit.
In fact, the business of flipping houses is just that: a business. Like any other business, you succeed with a combination of hard work and deep knowledge. In this book, J walks you through every step, from identifying properties to rehabbing them to selling them. If there is one golden rule, it’s this: Before you buy a house, you must know the price for which you can sell it after you fix it up. Profit = selling price – (buying price + rehab cost). The math dictates whether or not you decide to make the investment.
J Scott (he goes by “J”) is a full-time real estate investor and rehabber living in the suburbs Washington, D.C. In 2008, J and his wife quit their corporate jobs, started a family, and decided to try something new. That something new ended up being real estate. Together they built a successful business focused on all aspects of real estate, including flipping, building, landlording, multi-family, lending, and note buying.
J has detailed his real estate adventure on his blog, http://www.123flip.com, where he discusses all his team’s triumphs, failures, and results, including all the nitty-gritty financial details of the business.
Thomas Hauck is a professional book editor, ghostwriter, and book developer serving both first-time and veteran authors.
My valued client Dr. James Greenblatt has published an impressive catalogue of medical self-help books whose common theme is “integrative medicine,” which encompasses the whole person – mind, body, nutrition, environment, and genetics. The newly updated edition of “Integrative Medicine for Depression: A Breakthrough Treatment Plan that Eliminates Depression Naturally (Psychiatry Redefined)” targets depression, a serious mental health problem affecting an estimated 16.2 million people in the United States.
For depression, treatment with drugs alone rarely works. The integrative medicine approach recognizes that depression can be triggered by biochemical imbalances and nutritional deficiencies. One of the very first steps in diagnosis is to take a complete blood test to reveal any nutritional shortcomings and to correct them; very often, this alone will produce positive results. Other factors may include adverse childhood experiences (ACEs), the patient’s environment, and genetic risk.
A pioneer in the field of integrative medicine since 1990, James M. Greenblatt, MD, has treated thousands of patients since 1990. The author of six books, Dr. Greenblatt works to educate professionals throughout the United States and Canada on the scientific evidence for integrative medicine in mental health. He is currently chief medical officer and vice president of medical services at Walden Behavioral Care in Waltham, Massachusetts.
Thomas Hauck is a professional editor, ghostwriter, and book developer serving both independent authors and major publishing houses.
The title of this self-help book explains it all. In conversational, down-to-earth language Anthony reveals that everyone has pain, but the people who succeed in life are able to leverage their pain and turn it into positive energy.
This remarkable author, who when he wrote the book was only twenty-one years old, prefers to be called by the diminutive nickname “Ant” (just like the tiny insect) because, he says, it humbles him and reminds of his modest beginnings and service towards others. An author, personal trainer, charismatic motivational speaker, life coach, and former student-athlete, he’s also the CEO of his own ministry, Ant Inspires You. He graduated from UC Davis with degrees in biopsychology (B.S.) and Communications (B.A.). He encourages his readers to live each day to its fullest – his favorite question is, “What are you doing with your 24 hours today?”
Thomas Hauck is a professional editor, ghostwriter, and book developer serving both independent authors and major publishing houses.
Congratulations to my friend and valued client Richie Etwaru on the publication of his new dystopian thriller, “Sylvia Brand,” which I had the privilege to edit. The central character of this eponymous novel is a middle manager at Sun Motors in Detroit, some years in the future. Her life is very ordinary, except for her boss, Randolph Meekin, who is a lascivious jerk. But one Monday morning, Meekin is abruptly replaced by a unisex robot named Carin. As Carin proves to be a fair and businesslike boss, the women in the office rejoice.
As the days pass, Sun Motors institutes a series of new efficiency programs, each requiring the employees–including Sylvia–to sign consent forms. With some misgivings–the program seems heavy-handed but logical–Sylvia complies.
One morning, her life changes. Carin meets her at the front gate and tells her she’s being sent on a special assignment. She’s whisked to the company jet and flown to an unknown destination.
From this moment on, her existence takes an ugly turn. To save her life, Sylvia agrees to go along with what her handlers tell her. But eventually she realizes she has no future, and by saying “yes” too many times, she’s become trapped.
This powerful story serves as a wake-up call to alert readers to the creeping danger of the misuse of human data. Health data is a valuable commodity, and Sylvia’s story, while highly dramatized, is closer to reality than we might think.
Thomas Hauck is a professional ghostwriter, editor, and book developer serving both published and emerging authors.
As
a professional ghostwriter and editor, a significant part of my work involves
helping professionals write and publish books that will establish them as
thought leaders in their fields. Lawyers, doctors, realtors, CPAs, and business
consultants have found that publishing a book can help them reach new markets
and attract new clients.
Since self-publishing has
become both ubiquitous and affordable, the market for professional books has
exploded. Nowadays, if you’re a consultant, having a physical book to give to
clients and prospects has become almost mandatory.
“Airplane Books”
Many of my clients ask me to recommend a good length for a professional book. Of course the answer depends quite a bit on what you, the author, have to say, and the complexity of your message. The important thing to remember is that your target reader is probably very busy and does not have a lot of time to read a long and complex self-help book. Businesspeople, especially, want concise information that packs a punch in a short amount of time.
We’re talking about a
total reading time of two hours, maximum. That’s no more than 50,000 words.
Anything longer requires too much of a commitment.
That’s why I call many of
the self-help and business books that I ghostwrite “airplane books.” Why?
Because you can put the book in your briefcase or purse, get on the plane in
New York, read the book in flight, and by the time you land in Chicago or
Atlanta, you’ve read it.
Airplane books do not pretend to tell the reader every possible detail of how they can improve themselves or their business. The goal is to encourage the reader to seek out your services and establish you as an expert in your industry.
Word Counts
Ebooks can be as few
as 10,000 words.
Physical nonfiction books
such as self-help books can be nearly any length above 25,000 words.
For fiction, a novella is
generally between 50,000 and 80,000 words. A full-length novel is 80,000 words
or more.
Memoirs generally need to
be at least 60,000 words. It’s hard to convey the full impact of a human life
in a short book.
For purposes of
comparison, here are the word counts of a few well known novels that might be
on your bookshelf:
The Lion, the Witch and
the Wardrobe – C.S. Lewis – 36,363
The Great Gatsby – F. Scott
Fitzgerald – 47,094
Slaughterhouse-Five – Kurt Vonnegut –
49,459
The Color Purple – Alice Walker –
66,556
Harry Potter and the
Sorcerer’s Stone – JK Rowling – 77,325
Anne Frank: The Diary of
a Young Girl – Anne Frank – 82,762
Song of Solomon – Toni Morrison –
92,400
The Adventures of
Huckleberry Finn – Mark Twain – 109,571
The Return of the King – J. R. R. Tolkien – 134,462
Great Expectations – Charles Dickens –
183,349
Gone with the Wind – Margaret Mitchell
– 418,053
War and Peace – Leo Tolstoy –
587,287
The purpose of this list
is to show that great books come in all lengths. The most important thing is
that you say exactly what you want to say, with no filler.
Another thing to consider
is that if you hired a ghostwriter to write a novel the same length as The
Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, and the rate was fifteen cents per
word, it would cost you $5,454.45. If instead you told your ghostwriter that
you wanted your novel to be as long as War and Peace, the bill
would come to $88,093.05. That’s a big difference!
When hiring a
ghostwriter, it’s imperative to agree on a target word count. It’s measurable
and there is no ambiguity.
Manuscript Formats
After
the manuscript has been written as a Word document, your book can be prepared
and released in various formats: as a traditional paperback or hardback, as a
digital ebook, or even as a pdf that your reader downloads. It may be
self-published or submitted as a Word document to a literary agent or
publisher.
Generally, the fee that
you pay to an editor or ghostwriter does not include final formatting for
publication. When the job is complete, most ghostwriters will deliver to you a
standard letter-sized Word document with one-inch margins. All the internal
features, such as chapter headlines and subheads, will be in place. The formatting
– that is, the invisible “coding” that tells the computer how to display the
text – should be as clean and simple as possible, and conform to the
requirements of typical self-publishing platforms such as Amazon Kindle
and CreateSpace. Tables on the pages are okay, but illustrations and
graphic elements should be added only when the book is being formatted for
publication.
If and when you need your
document formatted for publication in the format you’ve chosen, this is a
separate job with a separate fee. If your ghostwriter provides those services,
you can negotiate this.
Remember that your book may be read by many thousands of people. It’s your reputation and your name on the cover. It’s worth it to make sure that every word is perfect.
Before
you look for a ghostwriter, it’s a good idea to familiarize yourself with the
basic nuts and bolts of books and how they’re put together. The more you know
about the product you’re going to be making, the more effective your selection
of your ghostwriter and your collaboration with them will be.
First, let’s talk about
how the length of a book is measured.
I cannot tell you how
often I see ghostwriting job requests that say, “I need a 200-page book about
how to lose weight. Please give me a price.” Or, “My book is 150 pages and I
need it to be edited. How much will it cost?”
When you’re writing a
book, the page count, especially on a Word document, is completely
meaningless. All that matters is the word count.
Why?
Because the page count
can be easily manipulated up or down. Let’s say you have a section of text
that’s 500 words. Here are two options for formatting that text on the page of
a book:
1. A big font with lots
of space between the lines and in the margins. This might give you
20 lines of text per page with an average of 10 words per line. This means
that you’ll get 200 words per page. Therefore 500 words will fit on 2.5 pages.
2. A tiny font with
narrow margins and narrow spaces between the lines. This might yield 35 lines
per page and 15 words per line. You’ll get 525 words per page. With this
format, your 500 words of text will fit on just one page with room to spare.
The lesson for the client
is to never use page count as a delivery guide. Always use the word count. If
you say, “Write me a 200-page book,” you have no way to measure how much has
been written and delivered to you. But if you set a target of 30,000 words or
60,000 words for your book, you’ll know for sure if your ghostwriter is
delivering.
Typically, you need
30,000 words to create a paperback book that feels substantial in your hand.
For a 5” x 8” paperback, this would give you a spine width of roughly 3/8”. To
boost the page count and make a thicker book, you can:
1. Increase the size of
the font. The big bestseller Who Moved My Cheese? is a
very short book – maybe 20,000 words – and the font size is 14 point Times New
Roman. Plus, the designer left plenty of empty space on the pages, and by doing
so managed to pump up the page count to ninety-six.
2. Increase the size of
the margins on the pages. The more white space around the text, the more pages
you’ll have, and a fatter book.
3. Make the size of the
book smaller (i.e., 7” x 4” rather than 9” x 6”). Smaller pages = more pages.
4. Use cream paper, not
white. It looks much better and it’s slightly thicker.
Of course, in
an ebook many of these considerations are moot because the reader
never sees the entire book at once, only a single electronic “page” at a time.
If you’re shopping for a
book editor, you may encounter editors who quote their rates on a per-page
basis. Their website might say, “Line editing – $5 per page.” For the reasons
outlined above, this is completely ridiculous. The only way to give an accurate
quote is by the word count. If you encounter an editor or proofreader who
quotes a rate per page, keep looking.
Thomas Hauck – book developer, ghostwriter, editor
Academics
who have written a peer-reviewed manuscript sometimes want to jump genres and
have their thesis re-written into a popular book.
A client once contacted
me and told me that he had written a thesis on the history of the cultural and
diplomatic relationship between Sweden and the countries of the Near East,
specifically Israel and the Palestinian territories. The history dates back to
the time of the Vikings, who first contacted traders in the Holy Land in the
tenth century CE. The client hoped that this could become a mass-market book in
the American market.
“I would like to keep an
‘academic tone’ in the language,” he said, “but give it more of narrative. I
have added quotations and anecdotes to the text in an effort to give it more of
a narrative. Some segments of the text have many anecdotes while other sections
are more academic. Is there any possibility of giving the text even more of an
interesting and captivating narrative, as some sections are still too
technical? In the best of worlds, I would like to end up with a factual text
based on facts combined with a captivating story.”
This is much more
difficult and expensive than you’d think. Peer-reviewed academic papers are
structured very differently from mass-market books. Imagine if you took your
BMW to a mechanic and said, “Can you transform this BMW into a Mercedes?” The
mechanic would say, “Okay – but because I have to replace every single part of
the car, it will cost you eighty thousand dollars.”
The most common problem
is that the author thinks his or her subject matter is inherently boring, and
that by somehow “spicing it up” it will become interesting. It is at such times
that the kindly editor, in an effort to save the client from spending many
thousands of dollars on a wild goose chase, will say, “Are you sure you want to
do this? It will require writing a completely new book. What sort of narrative
do you have in mind? The story of a family over many generations?” Such a project
could quickly become an epic James Michener novel.
My advice? Be happy with what you have, or be prepared to pay many thousands of dollars to have a ghostwriter write a new book for you.
Thomas Hauck – Book developer, ghostwriter, editor
