Bloggers Unite for Hunger and Hope

Chances are if you have the resources to be online, you can’t imagine being hungry. Yet, according to Bloggers Unite for Hunger and Hope:

More than 15 million children die of hunger every year. World Health Organization estimates that one-third of the population is underfed and another third is starving.

The numbers are so staggering, we may find the problem so overwhelming that we don’t even bother trying to help. After all, what can one person do?

One person can’t feed all the hungry, but one person can feed some of the hungry. One person can’t solve the problem, but one person can contribute to the solution.

Edward Everett Hale said:

I cannot do everything,
But still I can do something;
And because I cannot do everything
I will not refuse to do the something that I can do.

What can I do—what can you do—for world hunger?

Contribute to organizations that help those in need. Even a small donation can make a big difference. Right now, Food for the Poor is raising money to deliver food and supplies that have already been donated for Haiti Emergency Relief. Haiti, the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, was devastated by storms last year.

Every dollar you give today for shipping will be transformed into $25.34 worth of aid. Every gift will be multiplied twenty-five fold! But you must act quickly.

How tragic that $29 million of food and aid is waiting for money to deliver it while people are dying of starvation! Here is one place you can save lives with the donation of a few dollars.

Heifer International is another excellent organization serving the poor. A donation of only $20 will provide a flock of chicks, ducks, or geese for a family, giving them food and resources to become self-sustaining. Each family “passes on the gift” by giving at least of the offspring of its animals to another family in need.

How wonderful to provide both food and a livelihood for a family with a gift of a few dollars.

Maybe you have been affected by the economy, perhaps even lost your job. You don’t have even a few dollars to donate. But you do have time and talent. Local food banks and other charitable organizations always need more hands and minds and hearts. If you are a person of faith, you can give the gift of prayer.

Whether we contribute a little or a lot, we can each do something to end hunger and bring hope to the hopeless.

Note Added 5/18/09: Comment left by Blog Catalog Blogger Jason: “Your post was chosen as one of the ten best and a link to your post has been included on the BlogCatalog blog as well as the Copywrite, Ink. blog.”

Memoir and Family History: Part 5—Writing

Memoirists and family historians are not necessarily experienced writers, and they often don’t realize how many drafts it takes to achieve a finished product. The first draft will be “pure green dreck.” Start writing, and expect that you will re-write … and re-write … and re-write. But get the first draft written first.

Here are a few things to consider:

• Write in a natural style. You’re not writing an academic paper; you’re writing a story that you want people to read and enjoy. Write the way you talk, not the way you think will impress people. Readers shouldn’t pay attention to the writing; they should be wrapped up in the story and not thinking about what a great writer you are.
• In family history, you may consider it important to include facts such as birth and death dates. If you put these facts in the story itself, weave the facts into the narrative. If you find it difficult to fit in all the facts you want without interrupting the flow of the story, include these details in an appendix rather than in the story itself.
• You may be writing history, but you’re also telling a story. The facts are the basis of the story, but the people—their thoughts and emotions— make the story real and meaningful to the reader. Details and everyday occurrences turn dry history into exciting story. The story doesn’t have to start at the beginning. Open the book with a hook, action or dialogue that will immediately catch the readers’ attention and make them want to keep reading.
• Although you aren’t preaching or teaching, you can certainly share your and your family’s beliefs and values. Your story is about people and what is important to them; spiritual, social, and political beliefs and activities are important to most people. Let your readers know which beliefs and activities are integral parts of your life or your family’s history.
• Choose appropriate photographs whenever possible to make ancestors more real and memories more vivid to readers. How many pictures you include and how you arrange them will depend in part on the format you choose.

Every writer has her own way of writing. There is no formula or set of steps that you must follow in order to write your book. Use the following as guidelines, and adapt them to your own working style.

• Get the words on paper in the way you prefer—longhand, typing, recording—see Part 4: Getting Started.
• Write in an organized fashion—chronologically or categorically—if that works for you. Otherwise, write stories or chapters or scenes as you think of them.
• Correct spelling and punctuation errors as Spell and Grammar Check point them out to you, but ignore grammar errors because they are often wrong.
• Don’t edit or revise until you’ve finished the first draft unless you realize you got something wrong or you change your mind about what you want to say.
• If you have written piecemeal, assemble the stories into one document. You may organize your book into chapters or sections either by date (chronological order) or by topic, depending on your personal preference and the nature of your story.
• Edit the manuscript—see my series of posts on editing.  Check first for content and continuity. Did you leave out something important? Did you spend too many words on a particular topic? Does the order makes sense or does the story seem disjointed? Do you need to add any information to make another part of the story understandable? You may need to add, delete, or re-write material.
• Edit again for consistency. Are there any inconsistencies in names, places, character traits, and spellings? If you have fictionalized the story, do the characters demonstrate consistent values or behaviors, or if not, is the reason for any change clear?
• Edit again for factual and grammar errors. Especially in a family history, verify events and dates—anything that can be checked.
• Repeat editing the manuscript until you are satisfied that it is the best you can reasonably make it, realizing that you will never have a perfect book and that too much editing can wipe the life and passion out of your story.
• Get input from other readers. Ask one or more people to read your manuscript and give you feedback. For family histories, other family members familiar with some or all of the history can be very helpful. Someone without knowledge of your family or personal story may be in the best position to tell you if they understand what you’ve written. A professional editor will not only catch grammar, punctuation, and spelling errors but can also improve clarity and readability.
• Evaluate the feedback and use what you find helpful and ignore what you don’t. Note, however, that if several people mention the same thing, you probably need to revise it even if you are happy with what you have written.
• Read the manuscript again to ensure that no errors have crept in and continuity and flow haven’t been disrupted during revisions.

Note that a memoir or family history doesn’t have to be written on paper. In this digital age, video is becoming a popular way to record memories. I am not qualified to give any advice about creating a video of your personal or family story. However, you can use many of the tips in this series to gather and prepare the information for your video.

In the final installment of the series, we will cover publishing and distribution.

Memoir and Family History: Part 4—Getting Started

You’ve decided whether you’re going to write a memoir or a family history, the scope of the story (some aspect of your own life or a certain group of ancestors), and the genre (nonfiction or fiction).

Now you need to determine your audience.

In Leaving a Legacy, I said that most memoirs and family histories don’t have a wide appeal in the mass market. However, if there’s something out of the ordinary in your story, you may believe thousands of people would be willing to pay money to read it.

If you are like most memoirists and family historians, though, your audience will be narrower. For memoirs, people close to you—family, friends, business associates, fellow members of your church and organizations—will be the prime audience.

Depending on the aspect of your life you are writing about, you may have an audience related to that. For example, if you write about dealing with a disease or overcoming a tragedy (such as a violent crime), organizations for people suffering with the disease or people impacted by the tragedy may be interested in your story.

The audience for a family history includes the descendants of the people in the story, both those living today and future generations. Museums, libraries, and historical societies in the areas where the book is set may also be interested, especially if you include historical facts about the area along with your own family story. Individuals and organizations with similar interests to you or your ancestors might also be interested, such as a church that your ancestors founded or a professional or trade association related to a craft, hobby, or business important in the story.

Next, create a plan.

• Research—Most family historians will have already done much of their research before they decide to start writing, but you may need to do additional specific research.
• Interview—Decide who (if anyone) you would like to interview and how you will do it (video, audio recording, or handwritten notes); contact them to schedule; prepare your questions. Be sure to save the recordings if you videotape or audiotape the interviews so your family have the opportunity to see the person and/or hear their voice.
• Get organized—Some writers like to prepare detailed outlines before they start writing, and others prefer to just start writing. If you don’t outline, you probably want a notebook or a computer file to record ideas as they occur to you and to keep track of research and interviews. There’s no rule that says you have to start writing at the beginning and finish at the end. See William Zinsser’s advice in the installment on memoir.
• Decide how you will write—You can type in a word processor; write in longhand and have someone type the manuscript; talk into a tape recorder and have someone transcribe the tape; arrange for someone else to interview you and write up the interview.

 Although I expect my blog readers will do their own writing, some people who want their personal or family story written prefer to hire a ghostwriter. This is a viable option—just keep the following in mind:

• You are telling your or your family’s story, and it should sound like you. Each person has a distinctive voice, word choices and the way the words are put together. If you hire someone else to write your story, find someone who will become familiar with and use your voice.
• Ghostwriters are skilled and well-paid professionals; reputable ghostwriters typically do not write for a percentage of the income from the book because there is no guarantee the book will ever be published much less produce any income. You can expect to pay a significant fee upfront for the services of a qualified ghostwriter.
• As I wrote about in my series on copyright, written work is protected by copyright when it is put into fixed form. Be sure that any agreement you make with a ghostwriter specifies that the writing is work-for-hire and the copyright belongs to you.

 If you’re having a hard time thinking of things to write about, try some memory triggers:

• Re-read old journals or diaries—even old calendars with notes of your activities.
• Pull out and read those old letters that you stored away years ago (if you’re old enough to remember written letters)
• Review e-mails, forum and blog posts, and other electronic/online writings. Many people have documented experiences and thoughts online or in e-mails rather than hand-written letters.
• Look through scrapbooks and photo albums—do this with other family members and share memories of the people and events you see.
• Visit places and buildings from your past—your hometown, your college, businesses where you’ve worked.
• Read your hometown newspaper from years past—especially you lived in a small town. 
• Hold family heirlooms and personal treasures in your hands—remember the stories you’ve heard or the emotions you’ve felt.

Next, we’ll talk about the writing process.

Author Interview: Stacie Vander Pol

My guest today is Stacie Vander Pol, the author of Top Self Publishing Firms: How Writers Get Published, Sell More Books, and Rise to the Top: and Make Money Working from Home with the Best Print On Demand Self-Publishing Companies. That’s almost a complete book in the title.

 

 

Lillie: Welcome, Stacie. It’s a pleasure to have you here. As I mentioned in my review post, you and I define self-publishing differently. Explain what you mean by self-publishing and self-publishing companies.

Stacie: By self-publishing, I mean taking it upon yourself to get published (and pay for the expense) rather than leaving the fate of your book to someone else. You can self-publish with the assistance of an existing company or by setting up your own little publishing firm. I have pursued both routes and there are advantages and disadvantages to each, depending on the number of books you wish to publish and your inclination toward business.

Lillie: I notice that you have taken your own advice and published your book through CreateSpace at Amazon.com. Are you happy with the results?

Stacie: I have been very pleased with CreateSpace and will most likely use them again.

Lillie: I appreciate that you emphasize that a book must be well-crafted. Do you think it’s important for authors to have their work edited? If so, do the companies you evaluate in your book offer editing services?

Stacie: No matter who you are, how well educated, or how detail oriented, you must have your book edited, preferably more than once. It should be edited for content and flow, consistency in formatting, as well as grammar and punctuation errors. I am amazed at some of the things I overlook, even after multiple read-throughs.

Many of the companies in Top Self Publishing Firms offer editing services, but you can often find a student or acquaintance to do it for less money.

Lillie: Or you can hire someone like me. Your book is encouraging that self-published books can become commercial successes. Tell us a little about your research. You give examples of successful titles published by self-publishing firms and describe books as being in the top 2%, 5%, etc. The top 2% or 5% of what?

Stacie: Before I decided to write Top Self Publishing Firms, I was looking for a book like it and couldn’t find the information I needed compiled in a book, online, or anywhere else. I was curious about self-publishing companies, but I was only interested if I knew my book had a chance to succeed. I found plenty of information regarding publishing costs and distribution but nothing on sales performance. I started doing all of the cumbersome research on my own, and soon realized it would make a great resource for other writers.

To prove that self-published titles can succeed, I list hundreds of titles that are performing in the top 15% of sales on Amazon. This is based roughly on the 1.2 million titles ranked by Neilson BookScan. Using the top 1 million titles in the Amazon ranking system, one can draw a conclusion that books that consistently rank at 150,000 or better, are perfoming in the top 15% percent of books sold on Amazon. Several services are available that track and compile a title’s long-term Amazon sales rankings.

Because the industry is so tight-lipped about sales numbers, this method is the best one I know for determining a book’s performance.

Lillie: You provide a great deal of specific information about the services individual companies offer as well as the pricing options. How often do changes occur? Will you have to update your book to keep the information current?

Stacie: Likely because of the economy, the firms discussed in the book haven’t made many changes since the book was first published. I have noticed that several are offering promotions and special deals on their Web sites. In fact, when I published through CreateSpace, they were running a special that made it free to publish. I didn’t have to pay a dime to have my book published.

A book of this nature will need to be updated every year or two, depending on how quickly things change.

Lillie: You offer advice about leveraging Amazon.com that can be useful to all authors interested in promoting their books on Amazon.com, no matter how they are published. Give us a taste of some of the ways authors can increase their sales on Amazon.

Stacie: Start by ensuring your listing is accurate, and if it’s not, take steps to correct it. Next, take advantage of the ways in which Amazon allows authors to participate in the promotion process. For instance, you can submit search words relevant to your book that will help customers find your title. You can also create tags that do the same thing. Both of these can currently be accessed from your book’s detail page. The idea is to make your book easier to find and more likely to come up based on the search words most fitting to your title.

To give your book detail page a feeling of activity, set up a blog that will appear on the page and create at least one entry. A blog can make an otherwise, lonely detail page look full of life and interest. You can set up an Amazon blog through Amazon Connect.

Lillie: Amazon will even carry your existing blog on your book page. A Writer’s Words, An Editor’s Eye appears on the page with Dream or Destiny. You set up the RSS feed to Amazon at Amazon Connect just as you would create an Amazon blog. What else do you suggest?

I also recommend getting as many reviews for your book as you can. This can be difficult and requires some time commitment, but if your book is well written, you will be rewarded. Amazon reviewers can be found on the Amazon Web site. Many of them list an e-mail address in their profiles. Most will say no or ignore your email, but you will eventually get a few yeses.

Additionally, you can list a Web address or e-mail address on the copyright page or in your back matter. When you receive praise for your book, ask for a review.

Lastly, the most important thing you can do to sell more books on Amazon is to sell more books on Amazon, meaning that the more copies you sell on Amazon, the more likely they are to put your title at the top of the search results page, which almost guarnatees more sales.

Lillie: Where can readers learn more about you and your work? Where can they purchase Top Self-Publishing Firms?

Stacie: Readers can email me at topselfpublishers at gmail dot com. They can purchase the book on Amazon.

Lillie: I’ve added an Amazon link at the end of this interview to make it easy to buy the book now. Thank you for visiting A Writer’s Words, An Editor’s Eye, Stacie. Is there anything else you would like to share with us that I haven’t asked you?

Stacie: I would just like to encourage all of the writers out there to keep trying, to take a risk, and to put yourself out there. If you really want to be published, and you don’t want to wait years for it to happen, consider self-publishing. It’s an excellent option. If you write a great book, you can see outstanding sales results and often make more in royalties than you would with a traditional publisher.

I did, and I’ve been very happy with the outcome.

Stacie will be coming back throughout the day to respond to comments and answer questions. What would you like to know about Top Self-Publishing Firms?

Review: Top Self-Publishing Firms

Top Self-Publishing Firms: How Writers Get Published, Sell More Books, and Rise to the Top and Make Money Working from Home
with the Best Print On Demand Self-Publishing Companies
Stacie Vander Pol
Copyright 2008
CreateSpace
ISBN:1440407541
Paperback, 156 pages, $16.95
Nonfiction

In my Self-Publishing Primer, I differentiate between subsidy publishing and self-publishing. So when Stacie Vander Pol asked me to review her book Top Self Publishing Firms: How Writers Get Published, Sell More Books, and Rise to the Top: and Make Money Working from Home with the Best Print On Demand Self-Publishing Companies, I warned her that I had a quibble with her definition of self-publishing. However, she suggested that we agree to disagree on the definitions and that I read the book for the information it provides.

Stacie’s goal is not to convince the reader to publish their book through a self-publishing (or subsidy publishing) company. The book is designed for writers who have already done their research on publishing options and decided this option is right for them. Her purpose is to help writers choosing to publish through one of these companies to find the best company for them, and her focus is on how successful the companies’ clients are in selling books.

Chapter 1 begins this way:

This book profiles the top twenty-six self-publishing firms based on their sales results. Other factors in self-publishing are important, but without sales none of them matter. Book sales will determine how much money you make, how seriously you are taken as a writer, and how much recognition your book receives.

She gives examples of the Amazon sales rank of books published by the companies she profiles, and she covers services provided in the publishing packages offered by these kinds of companies.  Most useful for a writer choosing a publishing company, however, are the comparison chart and the profiles of individual companies.

Specific details, such as available packages and costs, may change, so I recommend that you verify the information before choosing a company. However, Top Self Publishing Firms is a valuable resource because you will have a list of the companies that consistently have the best sales, and you will have complete contact information (including Web site URL) to make it easy for you to confirm current services offered and prices.

Before using this book, you need to determine if publishing through what Stacie calls a self-publishing company and I call a subsidy publishing company is the best choice for you. If you decide to publish through one of these companies, then this book can help you choose the right company.

Stacie will be here on Wednesday for an interview and to answer your questions. Be sure to come back then to learn more.

Thanks to March Commenters

	Thank you to the 159 commenters who left 243 comments in March. Your comments extended the conversation and added value and interest.
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Sriraj	Sriraj.org
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wilson	Will You Mind
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Bluestocking	The Bluestocking Guide
Gabriel	Angeli Perrow, Children’s Author
Anne	EZ Insurance Quotes
Bible Study Guides	Bible SEO
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Melanie	An American in France
Alina Popsecu	Words of a Broken Mirror
Cesar	Cealagar
Dawn Colclasure	Dawn Colclasure Blog
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Jeanne Dininni	Writers’ Notes
Jennifer Mattern	All Freelance Writing
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Deb	Punctuality Rules
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Tony Mariotti	How to Fix a Breakup
Tracey	DVDs Online
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Va Home Loans	Low Vet Rates
Vikk Simmons	Down the Writer’s Path
Walt	Customize Vista Themes
Wilma	n/a

 

Memoir and Family History: Part 3—Family History

A family history tells the story of people in your family. Most people who write family histories start out doing genealogical research. After they gather all that information, they want to share it with other family members. I’m not going to talk about genealogical and historical research in this series—the subject is far too broad, and chances are if you are interested in writing your family’s story, you have already done the research.

The first step is simply assembling the information in some way. A relative has created huge notebooks with all her research on various family lines. She includes the family tree, copies of historical documents, and photos. While the notebooks are interesting, they aren’t very exciting. They don’t tell anything about the daily lives of her ancestors. They don’t entice the reader to get comfortable and read the story, ignoring everything around her.

So many genealogists decide to move to the next step: to put all this research into a book. You will find advice on turning genealogical research into a family history in Writing Family History Made Very Easy: A Beginner’s Guide.

The challenge is to write something that people will want to read, which means including more than just names and dates and events. Readers of family histories want to know what the people in the story did, what they believed, how they lived.

For current generations, you can interview living people. Ask them why they moved across the country or dropped out of college or opened a business. Find out how they lived, what they did for fun, what motivated them. Start with your oldest living relative, even if their memory is failing. Often senior citizens who can’t remember what day of the week it is can clearly recall their childhood and early adulthood.

Ask questions that don’t require a specific answer but that guide the older person in a general direction. Asking “tell me about school” might get a better response than “what was a typical day like when you are in elementary school?” You may not get an account of everything that happened in a typical day, but you will hear about the things that are strongest in the person’s memory. Those strong memories will make your story more interesting and more authentic.

Recognize that each person’s memories are their own and may be different from other people’s memories of the same experience. Expect to hear different perspectives, and use those different perspectives to add texture to your story.

If you are writing about ancestors from earlier generations, you will have to depend on historical research. However, you may not learn enough details about your family to make the story interesting.

After years of genealogical research, my client David Bowles starting writing his family history as nonfiction. He wanted to share what he’d learned with his children and grandchildren. However, his family found the story boring. To fill in the gaps and make the stories exciting, he began writing The Westward Sagas as fiction. Although he has invented scenes and dialogue, nothing in the stories is in conflict with known history. He writes about real people in real historical situations. All the known facts, events, and dates are accurate. He may have imagined that his ancestor planted corn at a particular time and place, but he knows from extensive research that his ancestor owned a farm in that location at that time, that corn was a crop common to the area, and that the time he indicated was the right time to plant.

Some writers prefer fiction because they want to make up more elements of the story. In that case, you need to make clear to readers if the book is not historically and genealogically accurate. Descendants are reading about their family deserve to know if they are reading total fact, fact-based fiction, or pure fiction.

For more about writing family history, check out the following resources.

• 10 Steps to Writing Your Family History
• Cyndi’s List – Links to Resources for Writing Your Family’s History
• Genealogy Spot
• Genwriters

Next week, we’ll talk about getting started with your family history or memoir.

He Is Risen! He Is Risen Indeed!

When the Sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices so that they might go to anoint Jesus’ body. Very early on the first day of the week, just after sunrise, they were on their way to the tomb and they asked each other, “Who will roll the stone away from the entrance of the tomb?”

But when they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had been rolled away. As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man dressed in a white robe sitting on the right side, and they were alarmed.

“Don’t be alarmed,” he said. “You are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who was crucified. He has risen! He is not here. See the place where they laid him. But go, tell his disciples and Peter, ‘He is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him, just as he told you.’ “

~ Mark 16:1-7

He is risen and He shall reign forever and ever! Hallejah!

Way of the Cross

Yesterday, I attended the Way of the Cross service, then I spent an hour in the Vigil at the Altar of Repose. Good Friday is always a day of meditation of prayer.

Isaiah 53: The Suffering Servant

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