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WTV—January 2016—More Book Stuff Including Front and Back Material
We’ve talked about the bulk of your book —the chapters which are important now let’s talk about finalizing the book and working on front and back material
Storyboard if you need to rearrange.
Cut to get just the main details. Good tight editing is key. Anything past about 60,000 words is a lot for a nonfiction book. Fiction can go longer up to 80,000 words or longer sagas, but I’d say first time authors will be pushing their luck to try to sell a longer book.
Cutting
Cut your chapters and save what just doesn’t fit in the book.
Don’t delete them. Save them.
I am thinking about formatting one chapter I left out of my book and offering it as a free download.
I’ll mention it in the book for those who’ve read and enjoyed and want just one more chapter.
I’ll have it as a FREE opt-in on my website.
This way I get emails of pre-readers and post-readers. It’s a great way to build an email list o f your readers. You have to be creative about getting emails. Giving something FREE is always good.
Book Size
I know my current book needs a rather extensive study guide for some of the concepts I present. However, right now the book is 264 pages and that’s with cutting a ton of things that could have easily stayed in.
I didn’t want to make a huge book. First, people get overwhelmed with huge books. They are not kindle friendly. They work well on audio books but that’s the only place people will pay over $20 for a book.
I’ve found the price point of $12.99 and under to be a good one. Anything over that really kills sales.
Sweet Freedom with an additional 50-70 pages for a study guide would make a book of 320-400 pages, saga length. In order to make $5 a book, which is a sweet spot I feel, I’d have to charge over $20 a book. That would kill sales.
However, people would pay $12.99 for a book and $8.99 for a study guide without any problems. So they’d pay almost $22 if they were two books.
That makes the decision easy financially. However it also makes it easy from a people standpoint. I write books for one reason—so people will read them and get help. That’s a bigger reason to make it two books.
Retail Price
Another point I want to mention here. When you go into Createspace and upload your book, you set a retail price. Sweet Grace was $12.99. I make royalties off of $12.99 no matter where Amazon prices it. Right now they have it at $12.99. For several months when it first came out they priced it lower.
If I want to do a sale on the book, all I have to do is go in to my createspace dashboard and lower the retail price. I can, if I want sell it for say $9.99. That would lower my profit to $2 a book. But for a short time it might be worth it to build interest.
I’ve done this several times with both my current ebooks, dropping them to $2.99 for a season to increase sales. And actually I like doing it with the kindle, because I have learned when they buy the kindle and like it, they are more likely to go and get the print book they can hold in their hands and refer to more readily. Many folks use kindle as a way to preview a book to see if it’s one they want a print version of.
In addition to the actual body of the book, there are other things you need to consider.
Front Matter
Inside the front cover will come the inside front page cover which is a text version of the cover with you name, book name. I usually add a scripture here and the name of my publishing company. Mine happens to be Write the Vision. I have wtv.net which was the first url I ever purchased. When you google that it points to my current website teresashieldsparker.com and one of the tabs under the header is WTV. This is an easy way to have several urls all on one website. File a fictious name with your state’s Secretary of State Office.
Copyright page.
- This includes Copyright© (option g on a mac) year and your name. Copyright©2016 Teresa Shields Parker
- Book title
- Printed in USA
- ISBN No.
- Library of congress control number.
- All rights reserved statement
- If you have scriptures you need their copyright information.
- A way to get in touch with you which would be your name and website and then be sure to have a contact tab on your website
Endorsements
Dedication
Acknowledgements page
This is where you acknowledge those who’ve helped you or even those who have inspired the book journey in some way. If you are writing about a person, this is where you can acknowledge those who were instrumental in the person you are writing the book about.
Author’s Note
This is where you can share directly to the reader why you wrote the book, how to use the book, like if you have special sections or a study guide or appendix or more information. This is really instructions to the reader. This you want them to know. For instance, there are some names in my memoir I decided to change and not use their real names. It was really just more for convenience. I did nto want to chase them down, firnd them ask permission to use their real name. So I changed the name. I chose to add these to endnotes at the end of each chapter. So I endnoted it along with scriptures, songs, quotes and just said “Not their real name”.
If you are using quotes, you should get permission unless you are quoting from something printed. If it is something someone said to you and you are sure they are OK with you quoting, you can use their name. But to be doubly sure, I’d ask for a signed statement to that end. If you don’t want to go through that and there’s no one to vouch for you that that’s what they said, then say a friend or a mentor or a neighbor. Most likely there would be no legal action if someone didn’t want their name used, but if your book hit it big there could be. Most of all, you don’t want to upset someone by sharing their name.
However if it is something awesome they said and you want to give them credit and they say yeah sure. No problem. That’s when I’d use the name. Or as I said if they said it in a speech around many people or in a small group of people then I would use their name.
As a journalist I’m reluctant to quote many people unless they know they are being interviewed and I check quotes with them or it’s a public speech of some kind. Some people just don’t want publicity.
In the Author’s note is where you share how you handle names and quotes.
For a fiction book, many use Authors notes to share information such as this book has some facts which are similar to my great grandparents’ lives, but many which aren’t. It is not intended to be a memoir of their lives but a book in memory of their bravery facing the many trials of growing up in the south. (or whatever)
Or maybe you want to tell the reader why you wrote the book or what you hope to they get from the book. For fiction books An Author’s Note is usually short.
Foreword
Written by someone who knows you or someone of influence. I find endorsements easier to garner than forewords. You have to have the book done for both of these.
Table of contents
Up to this point you should have been numbering pages with roman numerals.
Starts the book
Prologue or Introduction
For my memoir I use this section to speak to the reader and tell them what I want them to get from the book. I try to identify with them right off the bat.
Other nonfiction books mightuse this a bit of history or summary of what people need to know prior to reading the book they are holding.
For Fiction—Many times this is the back story or an introduction to a character. Though actually I am not sure it is a necessary element for a fiction book.
Chapters
Final Note or Epilogue
Not sure why I like the term final note. Just sounds more personal. For me I use this as a last connection speaking directly to the reader. So I talk to them in the Intro and in the Final Note.
Fiction books the Epilogue works well to bring the reader up to date with where the main character is after the story.
FLOW OF YOUR BOOK
Try not to do things that break the flow of your book. Discussion questions, in my opinion, belong in the back of the book. Other things to watch out for. Too many capital letters, don’t capitalize everything. Don’t do all caps. The reader doesn’t know where to look and his/her eyes get tired. Watch too many exclamation points. Not everything in your book is amazing! Don’t do bold or italic. Italicize book and magazine titles.
BACK MATERIAL
Appendix: Any additional information supplemental to the story.
Study guide or book discussion questions.
Scriptures
What’s Next
- How to connect with the author
- Additional books by you
- Website
- A free offer to get them to the website.
- You want to be making fans. So how can they connect? What can you give them FREE which will be of help to them and for you to be able to capture their email addresses so you can connect with them on an ongoing basis.
I didn’t get much into the Createspace material. However I have all of that along with urls in my FREE Book “How to Navigate Amazon and Launch Your Book”.
I will talk more about both those topics in the final video. I have the book in the finals section if you’d like to download it. It is chuck full of information.
Action Steps:
- Finish the content. Cut chapters. Cut content.
- Choose several possible endorsers or those to write forewords.
- Send the .pdf or the .doc to them. Give a timeline for sending back an answer and the endorsement or foreword.
- Decide on material in the back and begin putting it together, i.e., appendix, discussion questions, study guide. Put everything in Scrivner or a Word document. It will all need to be typed to go in the book.
- Decide on a way to interact with your readers and a way for them to contact you. How will they know about your next book? How will they know about other items you have to offer, such as speaking engagements, study groups, classes, coaching? All of this needs to go in the What’s Next section.