The week’s posts on a single page (most recent at the top):
Call The Doctor
I was listening to the radio earlier today and they were talking about using “Doctor Google” to self-diagnose.
It occurred to me that I’ve never really talked about this in the context of internet education but it’s probably worth adding to the long and growing list of subjects that need touching on, however briefly.
Cybercondria is health anxiety that people try to fix by going online and picking a condition with a scientific name that sounds about right. Not helpful.
As I’ve written before, it might be better to call the doctor and book an appointment if we have to, not to Google a set of symptoms and self-diagnose what we probably haven’t got.
On The Road Again
What’s left to do in order to get my book into your hands?
- Write out, in the first draft, points that I want to make that are currently illustrated by screenshots and other images
- Come up with titles for the ten chapters that need them
- Consider order of chapters and overall theme of the book’s story and improve if necessary
- Embed the contents from the separate doc
- Print a copy of the book
- Edit the hard copy
- Incorporate those changes in the Word doc on my laptop
- Edit V2
- Ask Big Jon, Charlotte and Suze when they might be available to design the covers, design the book’s interior (formatting) and edit, respectively, and book them in
- Get all formats of the book online (two ebook and one paperback)
There’s bound to be other stuff I’ve not listed here, such as sorting out bar codes for each of the ISBN numbers.
And then, if I do the same thing that I did for Pazzabaijan and Mr Lizard, I’ll get 200 copies printed to give away.
Why would I give free copies away?
Because that’s like the equivalent of a young band travelling up and down the motorway in an old Transit playing small gigs to even smaller crowds for virtually no immediate financial reward, or none at all.
But, in the long run, the band knows that to enjoy any kind of success, they need to put the work in and show their work to as many people as possible.
Don’t Make It Difficult
Scan, skim, “What’s in it for me?”.
That’s how people read your content as they work out within a few seconds if it’s for them or not.
So make it easy to read, using:
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Images
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Graphics
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Bullet points
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Headings/sub-heads
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White space
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Paragraphs (preferably short ones)
Got The Time
It’s worth reminding kids that we can always earn more money but we can’t make more time.
Just like there are two ways to learn, there are also two ways to use our time at work:
- Cherry-picking
- Blocking
Cherry-picking: having a scheduled list of tasks and working your way through them, completing them in their order of priority and devoting whatever time they might need.
Blocking: allocating chunks of time to tasks and moving on to the next one when the time expires.
Which is more productive?
They both work for me so I use both. Cherry-picking has its merits but I reckon blocking is more efficient as its benefits are two-fold: you’re not only doing what you should be doing but you’re also training yourself to work efficiently.
Yesterday
Yesterday was a big day for progress on my book as I began a serious edit of the first draft (rather than the light stuff I’ve being doing up to this point).
Here’s what I did and how I worked:
- Opened the Word doc containing the draft (about 27,000 words)
- Opened the Word doc containing the contents page
- Worked my way through the book, chopping and moving chapters, and updating the contents page accordingly with a bit of alt-tabbing (using the alt and tab keys to flit quickly and easily between the two docs)
- Emptied the folder on Evernote which I use to store ideas for the book when I’m not in front of my laptop
- Removed large chunks of text and pasted them into a third doc (imaginatively titled ‘Bits to feed into book or delete’) which I’ll go back to later
- Backed up all the files on Google Drive at the end of the work
I enjoy this part of the process because it feels like I’m making real progress. I look forward to printing a hard copy and working on the second draft.
Ain’t Got Far to Go
I’m a big fan of listening. More specifically, I’m a big fan of the art of listening. I find it helps in life, generally, and as a freelancer, specifically (when following instructions and briefs, for example).
I was waiting for a mate, Big Jon – the man who is very adept at taking my imbecilic attempts at artwork and turning them into professional designs – outside the Garrick theatre in London’s glittering West End one evening when a French lady approached me. She was wearing in-ear headphones and began to ask for directions to Soho.
Excellent, I thought, I know this, and began to help our little Gallic friend:
“Yeah, no problem,” I said, “but before I tell you, can you take your headphones out please.”
“It’s OK,” she replied, “I can hear you with them in.”
“That’s nice,” I said, “but I’m not going to tell you unless you take them out.”
“Ah,” she said, and duly took them out of her ears before she listened carefully to what I told her, thanked me and wandered off towards Soho.
54-46 (That’s My Number)
When self-publishing a book, ISBNs (International Standard Book Numbers) are an optional extra.
It’s a good idea to buy a batch of numbers if you want to make your book available to sell, but…
There’s no legal requirement in the UK or Republic of Ireland for an ISBN and it conveys no form of legal or copyright protection. It is a product identification number. Source: Nielsen, the official agency for the UK and Ireland
Here in the UK, you can buy them individually and in batches of ten, 100 and 1,000, and I suggest buying them from Nielsen rather than a reseller you find via the Big G.
Why a batch? Because each format you publish will require its own, dedicated ISBN – that means one for a paperback version and each ebook format (ten ISBNs in the UK currently cost £164, including VAT).
If you choose to go with an ISBN, you’ll need a barcode to go with it.
Again, avoid the firms who’d like to charge you and get one free from one of the lovely places below, then, when you have the barcode as an image file, send it to your designer to add to your book’s cover.:
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