I’m fighting a summer cold/flu, the book is progressing slowly and it’s hot hot hot hot here in Washington D.C… argh. On the bright side, here’s a nice mention from the July 12, 2005 Publisher’s Lunch:
"Corporate blog coach, Fortune 500 speaker, and consultant Debbie Weil’s B L O G, making a case for corporate blogging by revealing how your business can benefit - and profit - from this cultural and technological phenomenon, to Megan Casey at Portfolio, by Wales Literary Agency."
Here’s a useful Q & A with my agent Elizabeth Wales on what to expect if you submit a manuscript to an agent (and why you should consider a West Coast agent with strong East Coast ties).
Revealing interview with Mark Bowden, author of Black Hawk Down. Thanks to my agent Elizabeth Wales for the link.
"When I write a book, I invent the process anew every time. It’s about maintaining files and grouping information as I’m reporting and assembling it in a way so that I’ll be able to find it again when I need it. I then shuffle the files as I’m writing in order to organize the information for ready access. I continue to report as I’m writing.
I always outline. I start making outlines for anything I’m writing, whether it’s a magazine article or a book, very soon after I begin reporting. It’s an old newspaper reporter’s habit.
When you have the story organized in your mind, it helps you with the reporting. It helps you make decisions about what is significant to you and what is not.
An outline is a very fluid thing. I change it many times over the course of writing because I find that in a long piece of writing, essentially what you’re doing is thinking the story through, carefully. On these stories you can’t hold them in your head all at one time. The only way to experience the story is to start doing it. And once you start doing it you find yourself pulled in different directions, so if you adhere rigidly to an outline before you begin writing, in my opinion, you cut short any insights you gain through the process of writing."
You gotta have a book blog to create buzz around your book. I knew that when I set up this blog. But it’s confirmed in yesterday’s New York Times in an article, Dear Blog: Today I Worked on My Book. The article quotes three nonfiction authors on their blogs and their books-in-progress: John Battelle ("The Search"), Chris Anderson ("The Long Tail") and David Weinberger ("Everything is Miscellaneous").
The article wisely points out: "Authors’ blogs also change the solitary mission of writing into something more closely resembling open-source software."
My favorite quote: Battelle "calculated that last year he wrote 74,000 words for his book, and 125,000 words on his blog." As he puts it: "It is very satisfying to write something and get an immediate response to it." Yeah, I know what he means. I’m awfully simple minded that way. A blog is so, well, satisfying: scribble your idea, read it over, edit quickly… and click Publish Now. Then hope you get some Comments. Positive or negative, doesn’t matter. It’s the feedback that writers crave.
So… why a book blog? It’s a way to draw on the
"collective intelligence" of your readers to get feedback, ideas, tips on who to
interview, pointers to articles to read, etc. It can build buzz for your book after it’s published. See Seth Godin’s All Marketers Are Liars and Susannah Gardner’s Buzz Marketing with Blogs.
However, a book blog may or may not mean that you are inviting readers into the writing process. Some authors are more willing than others to post drafts of chapters. Robert Scoble and co-author Shel Israel have been postings drafts for months to Naked Conversations (the blog for their book about business blogging). In contrast, David Weinberger, a co-author of the Cluetrain Manifesto and author of Small Pieces Loosely Joined, tells the NYTimes reporter that he’s not going to seek so much input from readers this time around. It made the rewriting process cumbersome and time-consuming.
Count me in the "a bit shy" category about this. I’ll see as I get further along…
If you know of other "book blogs" by all means add them in a Comment below.
I’m more of a hare than a tortoise in my approach to writing. And frankly, that’s not a good thing when you’re working on a book. So I’m going to step back into a pre-editorial mode for a week or so to compile more notes, key
points, resource links, quotes, print-outs, etc. for each chapter.
Several helpful readers suggested this below. And
my agent and friend Elizabeth Wales reminded me today that
stepping back into a non-editorial (read "non-judgmental") mode can be hugely productive.
It’s
called "assembling" a non-fiction book so that you have all your
information - organized and retrievable - at your fingertips. Elizabeth
suggested that I make a master list of what’s in each file. Then as I start writing I can refer to the master list to find tidbits, ideas
or quotes that might fit into whatever chapter I’m working on. Of course, there’s a new article everyday on blogging. So this is going to have to be an iterative process.
Onward. Building a book one brick at a
time… or is it one blog post at a time?
P.S. Feel free to add more tips on writing below. They’re helpful and so encouraging!
Useful Links
Writing Nonfiction by Dan Poynter (talks about "building" a book)
The Clockwork Muse by Eviatar Zerubavel (thanks to Christine Larson for the tip about this marvelous book)
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