Life could be really easy if it weren’t for the words
An example of a Toppled Bollard sales piece. It really doesn’t matter what you are selling with a letter like this. As a one off, or as a first letter or email in a series, it won’t work, but as part of an ongoing communication campaign, it should give a laugh, and let people know you are, despite all appearances, humna.
Life could be really easy if it weren’t for the words.
Handling staff and freelances is a problem. As a publisher I am often called upon to handle the issue of pesky authors who get too big for their boots. Here I describe how I handle them – and I am sure that you can adapt my technique for your own personal usage in your company. Let me know how you get on!
With writers, it is vital to get a firm grip on what goes on at the start of the book – what we like to call the “front matter”.
You can always tell the front matter because it is numbered in lowercase roman numerals, as opposed to the mere text of the book which is numbered in the much more commonplace and downmarket Arabic numerals.
First you will need your frontispiece – a nice illustration which need have nothing to do with the book as a whole, but is copyright free (and thus without fee). Choose it with care, and the author challenges you, tell him/her that without the frontispiece the book will become a laughing stock. That sets the scene for the whole publisher-author relationship.
Opposite the frontispiece is a verso page (the frontispiece being, of course, recto, for obvious reasons which are too delicate to mention here).
The title page contains the title – we must be very clear about this. I sometimes give the author a mention on this page, but it’s not obligatory.
Next up you can have the contents – usually one of the publisher’s main activities (and here you must absolutely never rely on the author who won’t have a clue what he/she has written about).
Interestingly the table of contents is not only in the front matter but can also include the page number of the table of contents. This is known as self-referencing, and is considered a good thing.
Within the context of the contents subheadings and nested subheadings (that is subheadings that are due to give birth) are generally seen to be of significance and are also considered to be good things. Handle them with care.
Next up comes the foreword, which is often best left to a mythical person of supposed importance within the context of the book. I tend to introduce Sir Hardly Anyone at this point who is (depending on my mood) General Secretary of the Society of Certain Things, or Head of Nutrition at Weetabix Ltd. This choice seems to cover most books.
Each edition of the book should have a new foreword which comments on how things have moved on since the foreword of the last edition. All previous forewords should be retained in reverse date order, for verisimilitude. Indeed it is not unknown to start with seven or eight forwards to get a sense of gravitas at this point.
Now we are getting into the meat and two veg of the book, for we come to the Preface. This is where the author will try to push in, claiming that he or she is the best person to write the story of the book.
But you must resist! Invent another celebrity to write the piece, and tell the author it will look awfully self-centred to have a writer’s foreword. If the author presents you with a copy of a book where the writer has indeed written the foreword take the book, hold it at arms length, scowl and then say, “well, I rest my case, but if you really want it like this…”
Beyond this we have the Acknowledgement. Even if there is a thank you in the Preface you still need the Acknowledgements. These are a way of saying that certain people did things, but these were not considered of enough importance to be in the Preface. In fact the Acknowledgements section is the perfect place to insult everyone you have ever felt like insulting. The smaller the typeface the greater the insult.
Following this we come to the Introduction. Authors are generally considered fairly inept when it comes to Introductions, and it is best not to let the author loose here, for he/she will only ramble on and on about the history of the light bulb in 19th century Carlisle, or the role of the beef sandwich in the discovery of the pulsar. Best if you handle it.
You can however let the author have a go at a dedication, as long as there is an agreement to keep the dedication down to ten pages or less. If you get a dedication which starts, “This book is dedicated to The Right Revered Isaac Wob, who was Bishop of Bloemfontein back in the days of that little adventure with the farmers we now like to call the Boer War…” then you know that the delete button is going to be needed.
And so, the Prologue. Amazingly most authors are generally so besotted with their writings that at this point they forget that the Prologue is written by a character from the book. Equally they don’t realise that just because Frankie Howerd always began, “It came to pass…” this is not de rigour. For safety, write it yourself.
Beyond this we have the publication date, the edition number, the copyright information, the ISBN, and the printer’s key – which clearly is your domain.
When all this lot is put together it should take you up to the normal 198 pages – which means you don’t have to bother with all that troublesome stuff from the author. And that certainly cuts down on production time.
I trust that is clear, but if you need further help, do let me know.
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