Some of us, ah, have, like, y’know, problems getting to the, um, point

A few months ago, I joined Toastmasters, in my continuing effort to improve my public speaking skills and better myself overall. It’s been one of the best decisions, and I’m already seeing the payoff after just a short time. One of the skills we work on is ridding ourselves of “filler words,” such as uh, ah, so, and others in our speeches. Once we master that, those words will naturally evaporate from our normal speaking pattern away from the podium.

Harry Deitz, editor of the Reading Eagle in Reading, Pa., (I bet you pronounced the first “Reading” wrong, didn’t you? I did.) wrote an excellent and humorous post about this very topic back in March. Here’s what he had to say:

OK, it’s a good thing, you know, that we aren’t, like, charged for words, ah, when we, you know, speak. Many of us, um, might like go broke. You know what I mean?

So, like, what’s basically happened to our language?

After I wrote a column about the use of poor grammar and another about the incorrect use of punctuation, I received an email from Samuel Watts of Reading.

“Your columns would pertain to the written word, and that surely is being corrupted today,” he wrote. “But I am more concerned with what is happening to the spoken word. I cringe when I hear the words ‘you know,’ ‘like,’ ‘whatever,’ and ‘basically,’ just to name a few. I often listen to ‘Feedback’ on WEEU and note that a lot of callers can’t go more than four or five words without a ‘you know.’ Sports figures are especially guilty of this.

“Recently on ‘Judge Judy’ someone said that the rent had been ‘tooken’ care of. A lot of times she will correct someone who uses such a word, but this time she didn’t. Maybe she’s starting to think it is a lost cause. Could you consider doing a column about this subject?”

Yes, Samuel, there are others among us who are frustrated and annoyed by the breakdown of our language.

During one of the early presidential campaign debates, I was distracted by how often President Barack Obama paused with an “ah” as he formed his thoughts. By the next debate, his delivery was far more polished, which led me to assume his earlier performance had been severely criticized by his campaign staff.

The truth is, those pauses are, like, everywhere.

They often are called filler words. Some studies and linguistic experts have labeled them discourse markers or vocal hiccups. Regardless what we call them, they are annoying. Wouldn’t it make much more sense if we simply paused and said nothing at all?

Oddly, we seldom realize when we are using them. But those listening to us notice.

Many times I have been so distracted by speakers inserting “you know” that I lose focus on what they are saying. Many times, I start to count the “you know’s.” You know what I mean?

It’s not just “you know” that distracts me. It’s “ah,” “um,” “like,” “er” and “OK.”

Then there are people who start statements with “basically,” “actually,” “well,” “truthfully” and “to be honest.” Does that mean that other times they aren’t truthful or honest?

Now stay with me, because there are more of these unnecessary words and phrases.

Some people who want to tell you what they did or said apparently believe it’s more effective to say, “what I did was” or “what I said was” instead of “I did” or “I said.”

While I’m at it, here’s another of the recent breakdowns of our language: When and why did people start to replace “said” with “like” and “goes”? As in “I was like.” or “He goes.”

Some people will say this doesn’t really matter.

Whatever. Which is another of those filler words. And, yes, it does matter. If people are going to take us seriously, if they are going to believe that we know what we are talking about, we need to say what we mean, clearly, instead of fumbling for words and cluttering our sentences.

You know what I’m saying?

At our Toastmasters meetings, a person called the WAG Master (WAG stands for Word of the Day, Ah Counter, and Grammarian) dings a small bell each time we use a filler word. At first it’s annoying, but pretty soon you realize it’s not nearly as annoying as listening to someone use all those little words that detract in such large ways from what they are trying to say. Before you know it, you’re paying attention to everybody’s filler words in casual conversations around the office, or worse, on television — especially the news. It’s amazing how many trained communicators don’t speak well!

Don’t be like the newscasters. Instead concentrate on removing filler words from everyday use. You’ll be amazed at how much better you communicate — and how much more seriously people take you.

A Book Report on Books

This is a reprint of a speech I delivered to my local Toastmasters club yesterday afternoon.

*****

A while back, fellow member Bob Smith so eloquently answered my Table Topics question about whether as a reader he preferred bound books or e-books with a very politically correct answer of “both for different reasons.” As middle ground as his answer was, his sentiment is shared by many readers, as can be seen by the almost 50-50 split of bound vs. e-books sold on Amazon last year. However, that trend is changing as Amazon’s own numbers project e-book sales to exceed 80% of their business over the next five years.

While this is obviously a change in consumer reading habits, there is another part of the equation that is changing: the publishing industry.

There was a day not so long ago when major publishing houses were bustling and new authors had a really good chance of getting their manuscripts picked up by one of the “biggies,” which led to wide-spread distribution in major bookstores across the country, often around the world.

But times have changed, and now many of the major booksellers are gone, either gobbled up by simple attrition through the marketplace or they were bought out by a larger publisher and their operations condensed under the new umbrella. Lower profits from discounted books has also hurt the major publishers and reduced many of the former power houses to rubble.

In an industry that used to have over 20 major players, now there are just six, aptly named “The Big Six”:

• Hachette Book Group
• HarperCollins
• Macmillan
• Penguin Group
• Random House
• Simon & Schuster

As with any industry, the fewer players there are, the less likely you are to get your foot in the door and be noticed. As a result, many amazingly talented new authors are completely passed over because of the overwhelming number of books being proposed to these six remaining publishing houses.

So what do new authors have to do nowadays if they want to get published?

The unintended, but ultimately beneficial, consequence of this tightening of the publishing portal has given new life to a previously shunned part of the book industry: self-publishing.

Not that long ago, self-published authors were the dearth of the book business – talentless hacks who just wanted to see their names in print even if the books themselves were total crap, which a lot of them were. The self-publishing industry didn’t need to make a bad name for itself – it was already a bad name on its own.

Early self-publishing houses — called vanity presses — would charge authors thousands of dollars to publishing their books, with no regard for whether the book was good enough to sell even a single copy. Authors would often invest their life savings and have nothing to show for it.

But all that has changed now. Today the self-publishing industry has cleaned up its act and become much more respectable. It has mostly eliminated the large upfront costs for authors and has changed instead to a royalty-base system where the publisher does not charge anything up front but instead simply keeps a percentage of each book sale, thus incentivizing them to sell as many books as possible and make as much money as they can for the authors.

Self-publishing is now a respectable and highly viable alternative to fighting for sales in the book publishing arena.

Two major technology advances have allowed for this:

1. E-books, which do not require printing and binding, so they are cheap to produce. Just create an electronic file – typically a PDF – and make it available for download for Kindle, Nook, or any other e-reader. Anybody can do it. You could publish an e-book from your home computer.
2. Print-on-demand or POD. You order a book and it’s printed and mailed to you, which means the publisher doesn’t keep inventory or spend valuable dollars on warehouse space.

There is a downside to all of this, however: more work for authors. If authors really want to keep costs down, they have to do a lot of things themselves, such as editing, cover design, and marketing – tasks that were traditionally left to the publisher to perform.

When I published my novel, Absolute Authority, I weighed the two options – traditional and self – before deciding which way to go. I wrote out a list of the pros and cons of each and compared them to find my answer.

Traditional

Pros:

• Aside from the actual writing of the book, most of the other work is done by the publisher
• Better marketing exposure
• No upfront costs

Cons:

• Hard to get in – tons of competition for just a few contract slots
• Very little control of the book once it goes to the publisher

Self-Publishing

Pros:

• Book goes to print faster
• More control over distribution
• More profit per book – lower royalty fee than traditional publishing

Cons:

• Have to edit yourself or pay someone to edit the book
• Have to scope out own distribution channels
• All marketing is on the author

In the end, I chose to self-publish my book through Amazon’s own publishing house, which gave me instant listing and marketing through Amazon, the world’s largest bookseller. Because of my extensive marketing background, I knew I could market the book on my own, which I have done successfully. In addition to my listing on Amazon and other e-reader sites, I now have books in several independent booksellers throughout the St. Louis area, and it’s selling fairly well.

With the publishing industry changing, it’s nice to see there are multiple options for authors – new and experienced – to get their work out there. This also gives readers more options of books to read. With e-book prices being so low – many of them under $4.00 – readers can take a chance on an unfamiliar author without spending a lot of money, and might possibly find a literary gem they would have otherwise overlooked.

What to Say About Back Covers

The back covers of books confuse me. Can you really ever tell anything about a book by one? I know, I know: don’t judge it by the cover. Yeah, yeah. That’s not what I’m asking. Let me see if I can explain it in a way that makes sense for anyone who can’t read my mind.

Have you ever read the synopsis on the back of a book, then read the book, and when you were done wondered what in the world the blurb writer was thinking? The actual story was so far removed that you wonder if the jacket writer even read the book. Surely the author wouldn’t have written that, right? He or she would have known better, you hope.

Or what about a back cover blurb that is so detailed that you question whether you even need to read the entire book now that you know pretty much everything that happens?

It’s the same frustration I feel when I watch a movie trailer and then later see the movie and wonder what the director was thinking when he pieced the trailer together, because the movie was completely different from what I expected. Or how about this one: a great scene from the trailer — the one scene you are looking forward to the most — doesn’t make the final cut? Very upsetting.

When I wrote the back cover blurb for Absolute Authority, I wanted to give the reader a taste of the plot, a feel for the action-packed pace, and just enough suspense to keep it interesting and drive sales. I did not want to give the entire plot away or lead readers down the wrong path just to be “clever,” as I think some authors do.

What criteria do you use to write your back cover or your sales synopsis? Is it the same as your query letter plot summary? If not, what’s different and why? What would you as a reader and a writer consider the best approach to a back cover blurb?

Interview with Lisa Ballantyne, Author of The Guilty One

Every once in a while, I open the mailbox and inside sits a padded, brown envelope about the size of a book. I start to get excited. Then I pull it out and read the return address. More often than not, it’s from a publisher. Excitement turns to thrill as I tear open the package to see which book it is, because it’s not a book I ordered. It was sent to me because I’m on the list of reviewers for several major publishing houses, and the book in my hand is an Advance Reader’s Copy (ARC), one the public hasn’t seen yet — an extra thrill. But this is where the thrill might continue to build or vanish entirely.

Like any reader, the first thing I do is “judge the book by the cover.” Admit it: we all do it. Part of that cover includes the back, the synopsis. When I’m considering purchasing a book, I judge it entirely on the storyline on the back. Like it, buy it. But as a reviewer, the synopsis simply serves as an intro to give me an idea how much I’ll like this book that I promised to read.

When my ARC of The Guilty One by Scottish author Lisa Ballantyne arrived, I loved the cover art and design. It caught my attention immediately. Then I flipped it over and read the synopsis. Two points. We were off to a good start. That evening, I opened and read the first chapter and knew I was going to like the book. I was right. It almost went by too quickly.

The story Lisa Ballantyne has crafted is both moving and inspirational, yet gritty and realistic. She has created characters with meaning and depth. And her plethoric use of amazingly detailed descriptions was so vivid I felt like I was standing not in the rooms of a fictional book but right there in the heart of the English countryside, a place I’ve never seen in person.

I loved the book so much I contacted HarperCollins and requested an author interview, which Lisa graciously granted.

————–

Lisa, as an author myself I’m always curious to know what influences writers to create their stories and characters. Why did you write The Guilty One? What inspired you to create Daniel, Minnie, Sebastian, and the other cast members? And why this storyline?

I wrote this book because the characters of Daniel and Minnie began to ‘inhabit me’, right down to the smell of them. After musing on their relationship I realised this story was being told by Daniel as an adult; I could see him in a suit in London. Later on, I discovered he was a solicitor and it was only then I had the idea of giving him a client who was a young child on trial for murder – in order to throw Daniel’s own troubled childhood into relief. I wrote this book purely because the characters came to me and demanded to be written.

However, for a long time, I have been interested in choice, free will and nature versus nurture. I think we are finding out more every day about the interplay between nature, nurture and free will. There can be no doubt that people’s upbringing and neurological wiring has a huge impact on their future choices, but that does not diminish the power of free will. My personal view is that nothing is inevitable. Science has shown that even people with genetic variants and brain activity indicative of sociopaths can still lead productive, moral lives. I am wary of anyone who would wish to simplify what is a very complex equation. Human beings are fascinating and complex which is wonderful for fiction. I am sure that my own interest in this subject area fuelled the themes of the book.

Your writing style and attention to detail really made the characters jump off the page. I felt like I could sit down and have a cup of coffee with all of them. How do you go about creating believable and relatable characters?

Thank you so much for your kind comments. There really is no greater compliment for a writer than readers believing in her characters. My characters  remain the only reason I write. I love them and I want to do them justice. I myself am not sure how their creation happens. It is almost as if I gradually become aware of them as real people and then the plot evolves through understanding their foibles and traits.

How much research did you have to do for the scenes in Old Bailey? Did you sit in on any proceedings or interview anyone in the criminal justice system?

The whole novel required a substantial amount of research: even the locations of  London, Newcastle and Cumbria were unfamiliar to me. However I did have to particularly research the criminal justice system in England and this took up a lot of time. I visited the Old Bailey in London three times and sat in on ongoing cases, and I also had the help of a Scottish criminal solicitor, who helped me to understand how a case would be argued in court and what Sebastian would experience before trial.

As authors, we all enlist the help of experts for the storyline details. Did you know a lot about the British juvenile justice system already or did you seek help for that?

The legal system in Scotland (where I am from) and England are different, so even with my solicitor’s help I still had to cross reference against the English context. Despite the fact that there was an enormous amount of research required, it was hugely enjoyable. Once again, my interest in the characters fueled my research. It was like stalking my own imagination.

How long did it take for you to create The Guilty One from idea to finished book?

From idea to completed draft which I sent to the publishers – 12 or thirteen months – but then there was an editing process to follow which took about 6 months.

I loved the back and forth between Daniel’s childhood and the present. What made you decide to write it that way?

I think that novels tell the writer how they will be written rather than the other way around. This narrative method was the only way that this book would work; it was the way that this story wanted to be told.

Is this the first of a series or a stand-alone book?

I see this as a stand-alone book, but I will likely continue to be interested in and write about the themes in this novel.

What is the future for Daniel and Irene?

They are lovely. They are the hope. I think Daniel learns a lot in this novel, about love and trust; and hopefully he will bring that new insight to his developing relationship with Irene. I wish them well.

Are you working on any other projects right now?

I am working hard on my new novel which I hope to publish soon.

How can people get a hold of your books?

The Guilty One is available at all major book retailers including Amazon, Barnes & Noble, iBookstore and many others. Visit HarperCollins.com for a full list.

Inspiration Found…Where?

Hollywood is running out of ideas. They just are. Between all the stupidly formulaic television shows (one of many reasons we no longer have cable in our house) and the humdrum remakes of both formerly good TV shows and movies — they should have left well enough alone — it seems as if the major networks and studios have just thrown up their hands and quit trying to create anything original or unique. If you watch primetime TV, you’ll see the very same storylines, the very same plot twists, the very same character triggers, the very same everything from show to show but with different actors and costumes.

Now, I realize that to a certain extent fiction has to be formulaic. Scene and story structure have to be there to move the story and characters along, whether on screen or in a book. So I don’t fault the writers entirely for writing this way. And apparently these shows are selling commercial air time, which is what TV is all about anyway. The movie industry is suffering, but that’s mostly a format issue — people waiting for the DVD or Netflix, thanks to high ticket prices and improved home theater technologies.

But whatever happened to the art of storytelling? Why does Hollywood tell the same story over and over, usually making it worse each time? Why is this happening? Why can’t they come up with new characters, new stories, new plots?

When the Fox hit show 24 debuted in November 2001, it truly was a revolutionary show. In fact, when Keiffer Sutherland first pitched the idea of a show where the action took place in real time and each episode was an actual hour, the network execs with their heads in the sand balked at it and said it would never work. He was convinced it would, and eight seasons and 18 Emmys (out of over 30 nominations) later, apparently he was right.

Revolution is NBC’s newest attempt at something, well, revolutionary. And it works. It’s a premise that has been tried in books and movies before, but never in television to this extent. I was hooked from the pilot and will be watching when the series resumes March 25.

I say all of this as a lead in to a question for all my author friends: Where do you find your inspiration for what you write? What do you do to keep it fresh, so you don’t just repeat what every other author is writing out there? And how do you balance that with the need for story structure?

Please comment here or on Facebook.

10 Proofreading Tips for Self-Publishers (and Everyone Else)

Every author experiences this: you finally get around to reading your finished book, with its perfectly glued binding and beautiful cover, the story you have lovingly crafted and poured your heart into for what seems a lifetime, and as you get to page 15 you find…a typo. Ugh. How did everybody miss this? You’ve been all over the manuscript, you’re editor has been all over it, your spouse has read it — how could you have all missed it? Well, you did. And it’s too late because this isn’t an advance copy — it’s the final. But, hey, maybe nobody else will notice. Yeah, right. You know in your heart of hearts that you’re forever stuck with the knowledge that every single reader will probably see this very same typo — the one both you and your editor somehow missed after all those hours reading every single letter of the manuscript over and over again — and cringe. And think less of your book. And call you a terrible author. And tell all their friends to avoid reading you because you’re sloppy. And post horrible no-star reviews on Amazon. And make disparaging remarks on Facebook. And…okay, maybe it won’t get that out of hand. But you will always know that typo is there. It will haunt you non-stop.

The good news is: typos can be fixed. If you published traditionally, fixing them can be a pain in the nether regions. But if you self-published with a POD printer, you simply go back into your original file, fix the miscue, and upload a new PDF. Problem solved. Of course, you can’t change the copies that were already printed, but at least not everyone will see your typo forever.

But how do you avoid this sleep-losing scenario all together? What steps can you take regardless of which way you publish to ensure you won’t be the victim of the renegade misspelling or word switch you just know is out to get you?

Check out this great list of 10 Proofreading Tips for Self-Publishers from PBS. It applies to traditionally published authors, too.

5 Big Things People Should Know About Self-Published Authors

Many of you know I self-published Absolute Authority through CreateSpace, Amazon’s publishing house. This was not because the book wasn’t good enough to get published the traditional way. It was. But after going through the agony of querying ad nauseum, I did the math and figured out I was better off not waiting around any longer and just getting the book out there. I have two sequels planned (one in the works as we speak) and did not want to delay too long and thus lose my momentum. So I decided on purpose to self-publish.

There was a time not so long ago that self-publishing was strictly taboo if you ever wanted to be taken seriously as an author. Thankfully, those days are long gone. The stigma has worn off and authors are free to be more creative and not get stuck in the mass production assembly line of traditional publishing. With a little imagination and some help from other successful authors and marketers, writers can now break out of the industrial publishing mold and succeed on their own, often with very little expense. There has also been a resurgence of independent bookstores happy to support fellow renegades by prominently displaying their books on the front shelves. They also aren’t afraid to charge full price and reap the rewards for both store owner and author.

But even though self-publishing is much more widely accepted as legitimate, there are still some misconceptions out there. Here are 5 Big Things People Should Know About Self-Published Authors.