Why do so many names need nicknames?

With the endless GOP primary season including two Ricks, a Mitt and a Newt, I've been thinking about nicknames.

Some past presidents have insisted on using their nicknames. William Jefferson Clinton was just plain Bill.

On a campaign button, Ike fits much better that Dwight, Ditto for TR, LBJ and FDR.

Jimmy takes up about the same space as James (Carter), but sounds much friendlier.

John Fitzgerald Kennedy was called Jack, but "JFK" fit much better in newspaper headlines. I don't know if the current president has a nickname, but the New York Daily News frequently prints "Bam."

Why do some really wussyful names like Melvin, give us such manly names as Mel?

Tony Soprano sounds much more macho than Anthony. Anthony Anastasio was Tough Tony, the younger brother of Albert "Mad Hatter" Anastasia. Machine Gun Kelly, Muscles and Sammy the Bull invoke much more fear and trembling than George Kelly Barnes, George Futterman or Salvatore Gravano. Crazy Joey Gallo is not someone to mess around with. Neither is Scarface (Al Capone). Skinny Joey, Fat Dominic, Hymie, Louie Ha-Ha, Louie Lump Lump and Little Nicky are much less intimidating than Kid Blast, Killer Twist or Grim Reaper.

Why do some names (e.g., Richard) spawn so many nicknames, (Rich, Rick, Dick).

And some nicknames even have nicknames (Richie, Ricky, Dickie).

Why do some names that invoke ugly people (Gwendolyn) lead to nicknames that evoke cute faces (Gwen)?

Why so some nicknames like Peggy sound nothing like their full names, like Margaret?

Why do some people never outgrow their childish names, like Sammy Davis and Stevie Wonder?

If someone calls my office and asks to spike to "Mike Marcus," I know he never met me and is probably trying to sell me Wall Street stock or copy paper. I think only one person who actually knew me called me Mike. That was my father, so I didn't correct him. NOBODY calls me Mickey or Mick.

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Presidential Firsts (mostly true)

• Former President Herbert Hoover became the first politician to use a teleprompter in 1952, when he gave the keynote speech at the Republican National Convention in Chicago.
• The presidential election on November 7, 2000 was one of the closest presidential elections in the history of the US. It was a contest between Democrat Al Gore, the Vice President, and Republican George W. Bush, Governor of Texas. On election night, news media twice prematurely declared a winner in Florida based on exit polls, before deciding the race was too close to call. Both candidates needed Florida's electoral votes to win the presidency. A month of court challenges and recounts followed, until the US Supreme Court halted recounts by ruling for Bush. Bush was certified as the winner in Florida by a margin of 537 votes, defeating Gore, who received more votes than Bush nationwide. It was the third time in American history that a candidate won the the Electoral College vote without winning the popular vote, and the first time a president was elected by the Supreme Court.
• President Millard Fillmore (1850-53) is most often credited for the first bathtub in the White House, in 1851; but he doesn't deserve the credit. Journalist and satirist H.L Mencken wrote a fictional history of the bathtub for the The New York Evening Mail in 1917, and mentioned the Fillmore tub's installation. Mencken recanted the Fillmore tub tale later, saying "My motive was simply to have some harmless fun in war days. It never occurred to me that it would be taken seriously." In reality, fourth president James Madison was probably the first to bathe in the White House, in 1814; but the water had to be heated on a stove and carried in a bucket. Real plumbing apparently came in 1834 during the Andrew Jackson administration.
• William Henry Harrison was president only 30 days, 11 hours and 30 minutes. He was the first president to die in office, and served the shortest term of any American president. When Harrison arrived in Washington, he wanted to show that he was still the mighty hero of the Battle of Tippecanoe. He took the oath of office on March 4, 1841, an extremely cold and windy day. He wore no overcoat and delivered the longest inaugural address in American history. It took nearly two hours to read, even after his friend Daniel Webster had shortened it. Harrison later caught a cold, which then got much worse. His doctors tried everything, applying opium, castor oil, plants, and even snakes. The treatments made Harrison worse and he went into delirium. He died on April 4, 1841, of pneumonia, jaundice, and septicemia.
• In 1812, Dolley Madison, wife of fourth president James Madison, arranged the first marriage ceremony to be held at the White House – the wedding of her widowed sister, Lucy Payne Washington, to a Supreme Court Justice, Thomas Todd.
• Argentine president Juan Perón died on July 1, 1974, less than a year after his third election to the presidency. His wife Isabel assumed the position and became the first non-royal female head of state and head of government in the western hemisphere.
• On May 16, 1981, two weeks before her death, Soong Ch'ing-ling was admitted to the Communist Party and was named Honorary President of the People's Republic of China. She is the only person ever to hold this title, and apparently the first president in the eastern hemisphere.
• Geraldine Anne Ferraro (1935-2011) was a Democratic politician and former member of the US House of Representatives. She is best known as the first woman to represent a major US political party as a candidate for Vice President (with Walter Mondale in 1984).
• Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf (born in 1938) was Liberia's first elected female president, and Africa's first elected female president. Elected in 2005, she is the second elected black woman head of state in the world and also second female leader of Liberia after Ruth Perry (who assumed leadership after an overthrow. She is known as the "Iron Lady."
• Barack Obama’s Presidential Inaugural Committee chose the Lesbian and Gay Band Association, with members from across the country, to march in the inaugural parade in Washington on January 20, 2009. It was the first time that a gay and lesbian band marched in a presidential inauguration.
• Following the normalization of US-Cuban relations in 2009, Obama visited Cuba in August, 2010, an became the first American president to visit Cuba since Teddy Roosevelt invaded in 1898. Obama met with new Cuban President Nicholas Santiago, the first non-Castro to head Cuba in 50 years, and was warmly greeted by the Cuban people in several public appearances. President Obama was in Cuba with his wife and daughters for three days. They stayed at the US Naval base in Guantanamo, but visited Havana and several other cities. They even swam at the Playa Girón beach that was the site of the failed Bay of Pigs invasion during the Kennedy administration.
• The first five Presidents wore knickers to their ceremonies, with John Quincy Adams the first to move into trousers.
• In 1901, Theodore Roosevelt was the first to deliver his Inaugural Address bareheaded.
• In 1999 Ruth Dreifuss  took over as President of the Swiss Confederation — the first woman and the first Jew to hold this office. This was considered a significant personal achievement in Switzerland, where women received the right to vote only in 1971 and which was the last country in Western Europe to recognize Jewish rights.
• And, of course, JFK was the first Catholic president to have sex with Marilyn Monroe, Richard Nixon was the first president whose Attorney General went to jail and veep resigned for cheating on income tax, Ronnie Reagan was the first to put black shoe polish in his hair and have Alzheimer's Disease while still in office, Bill Clinton was the first to sort-of have sex with Monica Lewinsky, Barack Obama is the first half-black president who was born in Kenya, Mitt Romney wants to be the first president with four wives, Newt Gingrich wants to be the first president of the Moon, and Sarah Palin may yet become the first really stupid, retrograde and uninformed female president.

This material is from my For the First Time (or maybe the last time) blog, which is no longer being updated, but has a lot of interesting things to read.


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Don't let your flips flop

In designing books, ads, websites and other graphic projects, it's common to do a left-right "flip" to make a picture or layout look better. Unfortunately, it is also common for photos to get accidentally flipped, and sometimes no one notices the flopped flip until publication -- when it's too late.

If you flip a photo, watch out for a text reversal in such things as name tags, keyboards, initial jewelry, clocks, wristwatches or signs or license plates in the background. Watch for reversed flags or logos. Make sure wedding rings are on the correct hand (usually the left in the USA).

Some products, even if made by hundreds of different manufacturers, have standard formats. Don’t reverse a telephone and end up with the handset on the right side instead of on the left, as shown above. On old televisions, knobs were almost always on the right.

Be careful if you flip a photo of a car or a truck. Remember which side the steering wheel is supposed to be on.

Sometimes a flag is supposed to be “backwards.” When the American flag is on the right ("starboard") side of an airplane (including Air Force One) or on the right sleeve of a uniform, the stars go on the right. This mimics the way the flag would fly from a mast on a moving ship or when carried into battle.

The image above, from the White House Museum, has the flag going the wrong way. Those folks should know better.

On the right side of the Marine One chopper, the flag rightly faces the wrong way.

But someone designed, and someone approved, a model with the flag facing the wrong, right way.

It’s important not to have a person or a vehicle looking or traveling “off the page.” It’s natural for the reader to follow the eyes of the person (or the headlights of the car), so don’t direct a reader’s eyes away from the page. If you are using stock photos or clip art, you can easily flip the photo to keep the readers’ eyes focused inward. Be careful of the effects on your flipping if you change pages from recto (right) to verso (left). If you use a photo of a well-known person where the flipping would be noticeable (such as moving a pimple, wart, pierced eyelid, missing tooth, tattoo or nose ring from the left to the right), rearrange the page so the eyes lead into some text instead of off the page.

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Publishing advice from someone who can't write

Text copied from http://www.aaymca.com/have-you-considering-isbn-on-your-publishing-ebook-or-books/.


Borat's English is much better.


Almost everyone who write any books or even ebook are need a copyright. Moreover, you’ll recommended to obtained an ISBN as soon as possible. If you have considered all your choices and have decided that “self-publishing” makes the most fit for you. Please get ISBN to your as soon as possible. You may know that there is an extra in the need to “self-market” your eBook or books, but you must know that it’s also have correlation to boost your profits.


Do you Know about ISBN ?
Yeah..!! ISBN is stands for: “International Standard Book Number”. Most people aren’t know and understand what is an ISBN. ISBN is a number (commonly 10 digit)that would helps to recognize your book, ebook or even brand. The ISBN is commonly placed on the back of the book or product. This is look like a bar-code in a supermarket, wholesale and retail store. It’s capable to identify any products. It’s typically used to identify a book by the author or publisher. It’s so useful for any instance like booksellers, universities, libraries, wholesalers and many more as it’s capable to identify book or products easily and rapidly. Furthermore, it’s also applied on internet, I have seen ISBN search on valorebooks.com. That’s means you’re enabled to get books and any product rapidly and simply online.


Is it Important For Me ?
The answer of this question is depending on your needed. You would really really need ISBN if you are wanna sell or distribute your products like ebook or even book on major websites. However, it would be useless if you just purposed to distribute your ebook or books on your own sites. In a few case, this is needed to be one point of products qualification, some retailers and store won’t accept any products that doesn’t contain an ISBN. So, do you know whether or not it’s important for you ?


How To Obtaining an ISBN Number?
If you decide you’ll like to get an ISBN for your eBook or books, you could easily get it. There are various ISBN agencies in the worldwide that could aid you to joining your ebook or books to ISBN. If you’re published your book by a book publishing deal, you’ll most likely obtain the ISBN. You could also get the ISBN by self publishing agency especially through internet, if you wanna sale book yourself. Typically ISBN already provided for the publisher.


The cost
The price to buy an ISBN may seem to expensive for most people. The cost of getting an ISBN is about $80 to $ 500 or even more, it’s depending on the amount that you’ll purchase. In the worldwide, there are plenty resellers that provide and sell a single ISBN for about $50 to $ 65. Other way for the buy of an ISBN is by your book printer. The printing company usually give this as a service to the customers because they understand that you may not require a lot of ISBN numbers.


Self-publishing may looked so daunting, but if you know and understand about the strategies needed, it’s potentially could be successfully done. Furthermore, an ISBN is needed, you’ll also require to manage copyright issues.


In other words, you actually need to get an ISBN if you have a goal to market and sell your eBook on major sites, in store and many more. But, if you just wanna sell books on your sites, you could ignore this on your consideration. Firstly on your publishing, please ensure that you have already deciding your goal, so that you could prioritize the budgets for your publishing like the budget for getting ISBN.

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I am willing to give in a little about bad Engish

Anyone who reads this blog regularly knows that I can be very intolerant about bad English (and intolerant about other things, as well).

However, my feet are not so firmly planted back in the 20th century, or the 13th century, that I can't change my mind.

I recognize that, like minds, languages do change. Words get new meanings (at one time girls could be boys), additional meanings (cats and chicks can be people, hook up means more than to connect wires, a hood can be a head covering, a hoodlum, or a place), and even contradictory meanings (a gay person may be unhappy, an iPhone is both cool and hot, the latest Nikes can be so good that they're bad).

I am therefore ready to publicly cave in today, to announce that I will henceforth not complain about two pieces of illogical English.

#1: The misplaced "only." If you say you "only eat vegetables" or "only buy European cars," you are implying that you do not sleep, read, watch TV, breathe, have conversations, go to movies, make love, or anything else. The correct sentence structure would be "eat vegetables only" or "buy European cars only."

However, people do manage to understand what you mean when the "only" is up-front, and that placement provides a bit of dramatic emphasis that proper placement does not. My first self-published book (shown above, and replaced by Stories I'd Tell My Children (but maybe not until they're adults) has the "only" where it does not belong. The title is a quote from a nutso teacher I had in high school -- an English teacher. 

She and I are not the only ones who misplace the "only." The song title "I only have eyes for you" is definitely ungrammatical, as is the book title above.

#2: The modified "unique." As I have pointed out in this blog and in books, "Unique" means "one of a kind." all unique things are equally unique. Nothing can be the "most unique." Nothing can be "more unique" than another. A unique snowflake is just as unique as a unique person or pencil.

However, President Obama, people who want his job, and countless millions of others use the phrase and understand it to mean "a bit more unusual than 'most unusual.'" Google shows more than 14 million links for the phrase, so I surrender to the will of the masses. For now, I refuse to use the phrase, but I probably won't criticize others who do.


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Xlibris is ruining self-publishing by not providing the help its authors need (rerun)

Self-publishing companies make most of their money by selling services to writers. If a self-publishing company rejects a book, the company makes no money. That's why self-publishing companies accept nearly every book submitted to them, except for books that appear to be obscene or libelous.

The lack of selectivity is the prime cause of self-publishing’s bad reputation. Even though traditional publishers make many bad decisions, their selectivity and financial commitment provide a powerful endorsement for the writers and books they choose to accept.

Self-publishing companies try to evoke an image of quality and service.

Xlibris says, "you can count on Xlibris' extensive experience to provide dependable, long-term, individualized support through the publishing process and in the years that follow." The company boasts about its "proficient team of publishing professionals" and says it has a "comprehensive range of publishing, editorial, add-on and marketing services."

Xlibris is one of several former competitors including iUniverse, Wordclay and Trafford which were absorbed by Author Solutions, Inc. "ASI" is also the private-label service provider for some traditional publishers such as Thomas Nelson. ASI says it publishes "one of every 15 book titles published in the US every year."

At last year's Self-Publishing Book Expo, marketing director Joe Bayern told me that ASI's best editors work on Xlibris titles.

Xlibris says, "One of our founding principles, dating back to when we were newly incorporated and making books out of a basement office, is that authors should have control over their work. This principle still stands today as we help hundreds of authors every month publish their work in the manner and form that they envision," and "When you publish with Xlibris, you completely control the book design."

That's not necessarily a good thing. If an author has bad ideas for a book's design, or is simply a bad writer, crap gets published. The "proficient team" and "best editors" don't control the quality of what gets published with an Xlibris label on it.

One of the best examples (i.e., one of the worst books) that shows the failure of Xlibris is the awkwardly named, physically ugly, poorly written and unedited The Truth and the Corruption of the American System. The 95-page hardcover sells for (OMG!) $24.99. There are also paperback ($15.99) and e-book ($9.99) editions.

The author has some important things to say (more later), but her message is diluted and distorted by bad presentation, and lack of help from Xlibris. The company wanted to collect money for the publishing package they sold her, but made no effort to improve the book.

Sales are probably infinitesimal. Did I buy the only copy?

After more than two years, there is not even one review on Amazon.com or the Barnes & Noble website.

Author Eunice Owusu tells us on the back cover, and inside the book, and on multiple websites: "I was born in Ghana and came to America about twenty-five years ago. I was married for twenty years and now separated with one child, who is seventeen years old. He lives with me in Houston, Texas. I attended Northern Virginia Community College and graduated in the year 2002 with Associate Degree in Legal Assisting. I transferred to George Mason University in Virginia, Texas Southern University in Texas, and now I am in my final year at the University of Houston in Texas, major in Political Science and eventually transfer to Law School."

• Does any of this provide a reason to buy a book about what's wrong with America?
• Do we care about her bad marriage?
• Do we care about her bad writing?
• Are we impressed by Northern Virginia Community College?
• Do we care about the age of the author's son?
• Do we know or care how old he is now, or that at one point he lived in Houston?
• Should we have to do research to determine if the author graduated from the University of Houston and went to law school?

Xlibris says it offers "seven comprehensive publishing packages, each with a unique combination of marketing, editorial and publishing services."  It appears that unless an author pays $3,299 for the "premium package," the unique editorial service is no editorial service.

Five of the packages do not include editing, but the company says that "Writing that is worth publishing is worth a careful edit. Your message deserves it, and so do your readers. It is what distinguishes a professional book from an amateur one."

• That's very true. Xlibris knows what's right, but lets its author customers do what's wrong.

Xlibris would rather sell a package for $649 with no editing and publish a crappy book, than lose the sale because a writer won't pay $0.12 per word for editing. (The charge to copyedit the Owusu book would have been about $600.)

The book badly needs copyediting. Problems include lots of improper punctuation, non-sentences, wrong tenses, wrong words (e.g., "having ends meet" instead of "making ends meet"), missing words, misspelling, missing possessives, improper uppercasing, inconsistent uppercasing, inconsistent time designations (e.g., "6:30 and "six-thirty" in successive sentences, "seven sixteen" and "7:20" in the same paragraph), repeated words ("do do" and "on on"), singular nouns that should be plurals, plural verbs that should be singular, sentences that should be two sentences, paragraphs that should be three paragraphs, unattributed quotations, numbers stuck in the middle of paragraphs for no discernible reason, unnecessary italics, etc.

There is lots of just plain crappy writing, such as:

1. "The state Capitol is in Washington D.C. where Congress and Senates meet."
2. "Something I did not understand about John McCain, when he was running for president, he run in favor of veterans."
3. "Excuses are not accepted as there will also be an excuse."
4. "I belief there are many homeless..."
5. "What can kind of normal person will eat and drink from trashes..."
6. "I make complain to..."
7. "...he was asked to do sports physical done."
8. "...doctor run a series of tests."
9. "...this was her respond."
10. "I had to taken all my problems to bed..."
11. "It has to start from home, yes, and to schools."
12. "Third ward in Houston don't even have head start."
13. "...here me out."
14. "...unplanned pregnancies that want to have an abortion."
15. "Who will want to put their selve in..."

Eunice was born in Ghana and came to America as an adult. I know little about the schools in Ghana, but Ghana was a British colony until 1957 and the official language is English. Apparently, Eunice's English was good enough in her native country, but I am horrified to read what she writes now.

The book contains a lot of criticism of American schools. Eunice attended at least four colleges in the United States and intended to become a lawyer.

• Didn't any of her instructors or professors notice her bad writing? How did she get her diplomas?

The design and production work done by Xlibris is also substandard. Page margins are much too small. It's silly to have the author's bio in two places. The author's photo on the back cover is awful. The text on the back cover is nearly illegible. There is no title on the spine. (The spine is small, but has room for a title.)

The copyright page includes this absurd notice: "This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual person, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental."

• Oh, come on! Is this sentence fiction: "A fixed interest loan is a loan where the interest rate doesn't fluctuate during the fixed rate period of the loan." Did the author invent Houston or the State Department? Is it a mere coincidence that the author conceived of a presidential candidate named John McCain?
• Didn't anyone at Xlibris read -- or even skim -- this book?

The promotional work for the book is confusing, inadequate and incompetent.

The author says: "Our leaders are so blind to the truth and instead of searching for the truth or the things that will bring peace and make America a better place to live, they go on, on a wild goose chase which brings nothing but destruction to our country. This book also deomonstrate [sic] how we can keep kids off [sic] jail and minimize the high school drop off [sic] rate. How we can provide shelter for our return [sic] soldiers and civilian homeless. How we can make our streets and our community safe."

Somehow, this book of social and political commentary is classified as "JUVENILE FICTION / Social Issues / Emotions & Feelings" and the reading level is "Ages 9-12."

There are many other things wrong with Xlibris which should keep potential customers away. For example:

• Xlibris charges $99 for a Library of Congress Control number. You can get one yourself in a few minutes -- for free!
• Xlibris charges $249 for a copyright registration. You can easily register a book yourself for $35.
• Xlibris charges $99 for a CD-ROM of you book's interior and cover files. The disk is worth about 25 cents and the file copying is done with a few mouse clicks.
• Xlibris says, "When you publish with Xlibris, you are essentially self-publishing in the most efficient way possible." Grossly overpaying is not efficient.
• Xlibris has a very strange system for pricing books. A book with 108 pages sells for $4 more than one with 107 pages. Page #108 must be very special. However, if you want to determine the price of your own book, you'll pay Xlibris $249 for the freedom of choice.

The New York Times said, “Xlibris charges no­thing for its basic service, but because of the fees it charges writers for things like galleys and copyediting, its chief executive, John Feldcamp, says the company will be profitable even if it never sells a book.” I believe him, because his company’s publishing packages can cost as much as $14,999!

Xlibris says, "you will be treated with professionalism and courtesy and provided with all the self-publishing help you need." That's simply not true. Eunice Owusu was not treated with professionalism, and Xlibris did not provide all of the help she needed.

As an immigrant and a single mother, Eunice Owusu has a special perspective. She has seen aspects of America that many Americans are unaware of -- or care little about. Her outrage at shortcomings and inequalities is justified. She has important things to say. She deserves to be heard. She has experience and passion and provides needed recommendations. She may be a powerful public speaker, but she is not ready to write a book by herself. Maybe she needed a ghostwriter or a co-author. At a minimum, she needed editing, but she got none from Xlibris.

That is a tragedy, and Xlibris and its parent, Bertram Capital Management, should be embarrassed by the terrible book they published for Eunice Owusu.

• Self-publishing companies have to stop behaving like crack whores who will provide service to anyone who can pay the price.
• Xlibris's press releases start out with "Xlibris Publishes Book About . . ." The Xlibris website says, "Xlibris is a book publishing company," but it also says, "Xlibris is not a publisher. We are a publishing services provider." Authors and readers would be better served if Xlibris would decide exactly what it is, and acted more like a publisher, not just a provider.
• Xlibris says, "At Xlibris, the writer is the publisher." It also says it will "assign an ISBN number." If the writer is the publisher, the writer -- not Xlibris -- would assign the ISBN.
• Self-publishing companies need to develop some pride, and to grow some balls. They need to be able to say, "I'm sorry, but your manuscript is just not good enough to be published unless it gets professional editing." Some manuscripts are beyond help.
• There is no solution if Xlibris and AuthorHouse reject books, and the penurious or egomaniacal author then goes to Outskirts Press or Lulu and they don't enforce editorial standards.
• Until and unless ALL of the self-publishing companies develop and insist on high standards, readers will be buried in crap and writers' dreams will never come true.
• It's time for self-publishing companies to develop some pride in their products. Lulu boss Bob Young told Publishers Weekly that "We publish a huge number of really bad books." Did Bob make Xlibris boss Kevin Weiss jealous? Are the companies competing to publish the greatest number of really bad books?
• I know of one self-publishing company that does have standards and a conscience. Vantage Press says, ". . . we insist on reviewing your manuscript . . . before deciding whether to accept your book for publication . . . and "each Vantage title receives a thorough copyediting."

That's the way it's supposed to be.


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Why and how to make your book shorter or longer

Your book can’t have just any number of pages you want it to have. One fundamental restriction is that the number must be even, even if one or more pages are blank.


Each sheet of paper in a book, called a leaf, has two sides (pages). If your book has 300 pages, it requires 150 leaves. If you have 301 pages, it requires 151 leaves and you'll have one blank page after page 301.


It’s pretty common for books to have more than one blank page at the end (or even in the beginning). Additionally, the signatures (large sheets of paper that are printed on before cutting and binding) may dictate that books be composed of multiples of specific numbers, such as 4, 8 or 16. If you come up short or long, you’ll need to write more words or stretch the book to fill up blank pages, or cut words or tighten-up to use one less signature.


You probably have a “target” length for your book, and maybe you’ve missed the target.


Perhaps you think that in order to justify your price, you should be providing at least 300 pages, but you only have 289. Maybe you think a 300-page book will overwhelm some people, but you’ve come up with 311. Maybe your printing budget and cover price will cover a 240-page book but not 250 pages. Maybe you want to offer more pages than a competitive book. Maybe you want a thicker book so the title printed on the spine will be bigger.


There are many ways to reduce the number of pages without cutting important words, and it’s also easy to increase the number of pages even if you have nothing more to say.


Some of the tricks for increasing or decreasing the page count can also improve the appearance of a book by eliminating orphans or other typographic misfortunes, such as two or three words that make a chapter take up an extra page.


Try saying things differently. If you wrote “increasing or decreasing,” space could be saved by substituting “altering” or “modifying” without significantly changing the meaning.


Take advantage of shorter words and contractions. “Pasta” takes up less space than “macaroni” or “spaghetti.” “Group” and “club” are shorter than “organization.” “Can’t” takes up less space than “can not.” Sometimes eliminating just one or two characters can eliminate a page.


Change to different margins. Even using 1/16 of an inch less can save many pages.


Use fewer or smaller illustrations, or pack you type closer to them.


Use smaller size type, either in the whole book or in sections like the table of contents or bibliography. Even a one-point difference can save a lot of pages if you make the change in the whole book. Be careful not to sacrifice readability.


Use a narrower typeface.


Make bulleted lists flush-left instead of indented.


Skip middle names.


It’s equally easy to pad or stretch the book to make it longer. Don’t be obvious if you have to do this. Don’t use 16-pt type instead of 11. It didn’t fool your history teacher who wanted 10 pages about Abe Lincoln and you only had enough words to fill nine pages with normal size letters. You won’t fool people who review or buy your book, either.


If you have to stretch, use a combination of techniques, in moderation. Don’t use one in excess. Try some of these:


Always start chapters on a recto page.


Put more white space around photos, charts, tables and illustrations.


If you just want a bigger spine to print your title on but don’t care about more pages, use thicker paper. Cream (a/k/a “crème”) is usually thicker than white.


Add more photos, charts, tables and illustrations.


Make photos, charts, tables and illustrations larger.


Start chapters in the middle of a page instead of at the top.


Put quotes or helpful hints on individual pages.


Break up paragraphs into smaller paragraphs.


Add some words.


Use longer words.


Define technical terms when you introduce them.


Have more front matter, such as a half-title page ("bastard title") ahead of the title page. I used to think It’s a stupid waste of paper, but I've used it for some recent books. It's a good place for autographs.


Use bulleted lists instead of paragraphs with many items separated by commas.


Increase the spacing between lines in a list.


Spell out some names instead of using initials or abbreviations: “John Pierpont Morgan” takes up more space than “J. P. Morgan.”


Include a summary at the beginning or end of chapters and sections.


Include a bibliography listing additional resources.


Put an order form in the back of the book.


Use pull-quotes (also known as a lift-quote or call-quote). They’re excerpts from the book printed in a larger typeface and inserted in the page, surrounded by white space, with the main text wrapped around it. It’s difficult to read a sentence that is broken by a text box or illustration, so keep it to one side. If you have two columns, it’s OK to center it.

You can also make a book seem longer than it really is.

In many books, sections of the front matter have no printed page numbers ("blind folios") or they display roman numerals. If you include the table of contents and introduction in your overall numbering sequence, you might be able to make ther last numbered page reach 307 instead of 297, which could give you an advantage. Don't put numbers on pages before the table of contents. Be aware that booksellers and distributors may show different page totals than you come up with.

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Market research trick, and bookselling tip

If you know what you want to write about, the Internet will make it much easier to do market research than before the world was online.

With a little bit of typing, clicking and reading you can find out what potential readers are interested in -- and where you can reach them when it's time to sell books.

Use search engines to find terms like I’ve listed below. Simply replace “golden retriever” with “super hero” or “Argentina” or "beer" or "horseback riding" or whatever you want to write about.

“golden retriever forum”
“golden retriever message board”
“golden retriever bulletin board”
“golden retriever club”
“golden retriever association”
“golden retriever community”
“golden retriever organization”
“golden retriever news”
“golden retriever newsgroup”

When your book is nearly finished, return to the same websites and mention to appropriately articulate participants that you are writing a book on the subject, and would like to send them a preview copy for their opinion. You can mention that you may want to quote them on the book cover.

After publication, go back again and answer some questions, and point out that your new book provides additional valuable information.

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A few questions on Sunday for the guys who run Catholicism

1. Why do the old men who run Catholicism need the help of American politicians to enforce their rules? 
2. Google shows nearly 8,000 links for "sexually repressed Catholic" -- but only four for "sexually repressed Lutheran," six for "sexually repressed Jew," seven for "sexually repressed Hindu" and 64 for "sexually repressed "Baptist." There are none for sexually repressed Episcopals, Shintos or Jains  Why is this?
3. Google shows nearly 600,000 links for "lapsed Catholic" -- but only 12,400 for "lapsed Muslim" and 5,200 for "lapsed Lutheran." Why is this?
4. If 98% of sexually active Catholic women use birth control, is something wrong with them, or with the Church's rules about birth control? (98% is a much higher rate of disobedience than the rate for speeding.)

5. If the old men in Rome approve of the rhythm method of birth control and don't ban sex for non-fertile women, clearly they recognize that sex is a legitimate activity for purposes other than procreation, so why ban the use of modern technology to achieve the same purpose as the rhythm method? The Pope rides in a car, not on a donkey. Priests use computers and microwave ovens, not quills and fires.
6. Why does any Catholic trust Newt Gingrich?
7. If the Catholic church allows Episcopal priests and Anglican priests to stay married when they convert and become Catholic priests, why not allow all Catholic priests to marry? (Many of the apostles were married. Seven popes were married. Thirteen popes were sons of priests. Six popes fathered children after the 1139 Celibacy Law. Pope Alexander VI had grandsons who became cardinals.)

8. Is it any surprise that there is a shortage of priests and nuns and that Catholic churches and schools are closing?
9. Why do so many Catholic priests rape children?
10. Will most Catholic women go to hell? Will lots of priests be there to welcome them?
11. Do unmarried priests do a better job of counseling parishioners than married priests, rabbis, ministers, imams or gurus?
12. Are male clergy better clergy than female clergy?
13. The Catholic church has reversed its prohibition on eating meat on Friday, no longer blames Jewish people for killing Jesus, and made a posthumous apology to Galileo for his heretical claim that the Earth orbits around the Sun. Would it be such a big deal to change a few more rules?
14. Would any "normal" person take a vow of celibacy?

(Church photo from http://www.atthruhiker.org)
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You can sell more books if readers pull them, than if you have to push them

If you are  a writer, you can write whatever you want to write — but it might not get published.

If you are a writer and a publisher you can publish anything you want. But that freedom doesn't guarantee profitability.

If you want to make money rather than just fulfill a dream or impress your parents or children or inflate your ego, it’s better to think carefully about what you will  publish.

It’s very difficult to sell lots of copies of a self-published novel or poetry book. (But it's easier to sell them as 99-cent ebooks than $20 or $30 pbooks.)

These books depend on push marketing — you have to “push” your books on the public that has no real need for your work.

In order to sell thousands of copies of a fiction or poetry book, you will have to be either extremely lucky (not likely) or generate a huge amount of “buzz” through viral marketing and public relations (time-consuming and often expensive) or impress one or more important reviewers enough to praise you in the media (not likely).

On the other hand, if you write nonfiction about an interesting and important subject — or even better — a how-to book, you can use much simpler pull marketing and have a much greater chance of success.

• With pull marketing, you take advantage of an existing desire by the public to know more about a subject. Readers will "pull" the books from you.People who want to know more about growing strawberries, raising an autistic child, getting a college scholarship, building a log cabin or traveling with a dog, will search for that information on Google, Bing, Amazon.com or elsewhere and hopefully will find your book.

Pick something you know about, that you can contribute something new about, that lots of people care about, and that lots of people have not already written about. Pick a hot topic, and one that may stay hot, or at least warm, for a few years. Consider combining two hot topics such as “Gay weddings on a tight budget.”

• You don’t have to be the smartest person in the world, or know more than everybody else does, to give advice and get paid for it. You can make a pretty good living if you know more than 90%, 80% or even 20% of the people in the world — if they can find you.

Effective marketing, important information and good writing and design are vital — but not enough. Even timing is important.

Timing is important. Sales of Jerome Corsi’s book questioning President Obama’s birthplace dropped to almost nothing because it was published shortly after Obama released his birth certificate to the public.

The world’s best book about Herman Cain (or even a lousy book by Herman Cain) will probably sell a lot worse now than before he "suspended" his race for the GOP presidential nomination. However, if Santorum is nominated and Herman is his choice for Veep, then books about him get another chance.





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It's time to pick on Outskirts Press again

Outskirts Press is the pay-to-publish company I love to hate. (I hate what the company does, but I love writing about it.) The fools and liars at Outskirts do so many things so badly, that I frequently warn people about Outskirts in this blog. I even wrote a book, Stupid, Sloppy Sleazy, about the company. (I am updating it now.)

Outskirts loves to promote itself, and its press releases usually give me a reason to complain and warn.

The latest Outskirts announcement is titled, "Leading Self-Publishing Service Provider Outskirts Press Pays Authors $300 to Publish Books in February."

The press release says, "Authors who purchase the Diamond or full-color Pearl book publishing services in February are rewarded with a credit of $300 applied to their Outskirts Press shopping cart accounts. The $300 of “mad money” can be applied toward any production or marketing option offered by Outskirts Press, including official copyright registration, custom cover design, the Amazon Extreme package, among many others. 'There is no denying that a penny saved is a penny earned,' stated Outskirts Press CEO and Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Semi-Finalist Brent Sampson during the announcement. 'And during these challenging times, every penny counts! $300 in options goes a long way toward making a great book a truly extraordinary one, and we hope it helps many authors fulfill their New Year's Resolutions of becoming published in 2012.'"

A quick analysis of "Mad Money Month" shows that the $300 is not composed of 30,000 pennies either saved or earned -- because Outskirts options are terribly overpriced. Even with a $300 credit, Outskirts will make plenty of money from the $999 Diamond or $1099 Pearl publishing packages, and the add-ons the company will pressure authors to purchase.

• You can use $199 of the $300 for copyright registration -- or you can pay $35 to register a book yourself. It's not difficult. 
• You can use $149 of the $300 for Amazon Search Inside the Book submission -- or you can get it for free.
• You can use $219 of the $300 for a press release. Outskirts's press releases are laughably terrible. You can write a much better one yourself -- for free, and distribute it for free or a little.
• You can pay $119 of the $300 for contact information on five "celebrities" -- who probably won't read or recommend your book. You could get the info yourself for free. It's not hard to get Barack Obama's address.
• For $329 (over budget!), Outskirts will send ten copies of your book (which you pay to have printed and shipped to Outskirts) to book review websites. You could mail them yourself for about $50.
• For $49 you can get a T-shirt showing your book cover -- or you can get one yourself for $14.95 or $18.95 at Zazzle.com.
• For $219, you can get 500 business cards from Outskirtds, or you can get 500 cards from VistaPrint for just $29.99 -- or less.

I could give you more examples, but by now you should have sufficient reasons to avoid Mad Money Month, and to avoid Outskirts Press.

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Avoid inappropriate terminology when writing about the web

I have previously complained about using 1940s-era terminology (e.g., tennis shoes or gym shoes for sneakers, radio car for police car, dungarees for jeans).

It's now 2:33 in the morning and I just heard two dumbass radio commercials that so enraged me that I got out of bed to blog.

One commercial urged listeners to "log onto" a website. Logging on (or in) means to identify yourself to a website or computer or a piece of software, generally by typing a user name and a password.

That is NOT the same thing as merely visiting a website. Most websites, including mine, do NOT require logging.

The other web phrase I particularly hate is "point your browser at . . . ." Browsers don't get pointed. To visit a website, you either point and click your mouse, or type.

"Aim your browser at . . ." is a stupid variation. DO NOT type or say it. Browsers don't get aimed.

"Surf on over to . . ." is not as bad as the other phrases, but it is silly, childish, archaic and unnecessary.

"Cut and paste" is probably misused more often than it is properly used. If you cut and paste something (usually a picture or some text), you REMOVE it from its current location, and put it somewhere else. If you will merely copy (i.e., not remove) the item, you will "copy and paste." The illustration at the top of today's blog was copied from Wikipedia, and pasted into my computer so it could appear on my blog. The illustration is still on Wikipedia. Therefore, I copied but did not cut.

I'll probably think of some more later, but I'm going back to bed. My wife and dog miss me.


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Tawayne, editors are needed for more than books

(from a comment on Huffpost)


With being [sentence would be better if it started with "As"] an "Indie" Author [lower case "I" and "A"], in the beginning, I too [insert commas before and after] made the mistake of rushing my novel. There was [were] editing issuses [issues] and many other problems I myself [delete word] didn't see. [rearrange sentence] After being blasted in a review, I took Hard Times An Erotic Thriller [use quote marks or italics] off the shelves, hired an editor and put it back on the market [It's inconsistent to say you took it off the shelves and then put it back on the market.] where [change "where" to "and"] I sold many books, got better responses from my fans and become more in touch with my work [Silly psychobabble. How do you get in touch with your work?]. With the release of my second book, Friendly Skies, [use quote marks or italics]  I made sure that I had an editor aboard [silly cliche -- delete word]. I really think with [delete word]  the "Quick Release" [lower case "Q" and "R"], [delete comma]  method that Indie Authors [lower case "I" and "A"] have ["use" would be better], it [delete comma and "it"]  is messing up the art form [delete "form"] of writing. [In next sentence, insert "I" and make "C" lower case.] Can't say that all are bad, but I've seen some that wasn't [weren't] really good. Author, Tawayne McNeil

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Holy crap. Michael recommends a sports app. What's going on?

My nephew Joe Cafarelli was director of basketball operations at Baruch College and is now an important person at a company that makes lots of sports-oriented clothing and footwear -- but I don't hold it against him.

Unlike Joe, I'm not a jock or a sports fan. I have never watched a Super Bowl or World Series game. In college, when forced to play intramural baseball, my favorite position was "left out."

Baseball and football put me to sleep (but so do most movies). There are exactly two sports that are active enough to keep me awake. One is hockey. The other is basketball. (But I haven't seen either in about 45 years.)

Joe and three of his bright buddies have developed what I (and some people who really know about this stuff) think is an amazingly good app for basketball training. It's called OneBasketball and the price is a penny less than five bucks.

If people buy a lot of his apps, maybe Joe will be able to pay me back for the two semesters of college I paid for. According to our contract, if Joe doesn't pay me back, he has to wipe my drool when I'm dribbling in a nursing home. If you don't want Joe to face a future of saliva servitude, buy the app and help buy his freedom.

For a measly $4.99 (less than the cost of most meals at Mickey Dee's), the OneBasketball mobile app provides more than 140 basketball drills to improve shooting, ball handling and individual moves. Joe says there is nothing else like OneBasketball, and I believe him. He also says that with OneBasketball, "you'll have game situation basketball drills with videos in the palm of your hand." (Joe has not explained to me how to operate an iPhone or iPad while flying through the air with a basketball in your hands.) With OneBasketball, there'll be no more aimless shooting and running around in an empty gym, and the OneBasketball Shot Tracker helps you monitor your progress as you work your way to the NBA. (That's a good rhyme, isn't it?)

Stephen A. Duck said, "As a former player and current coach I find this app extremely useful in planning workouts for players as well as allowing them to plan for themselves. The drill library is so extensive that the player will never be bored. There is no other program like this out there and it's a must-have for any player or coach."

CLICK for Youtube preview

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Literary corruption

From author Andy Duncan: "I’ll even be giving away the first 20 copies to anyone prepared to write a five-star review on Amazon. (If you feel it’s unworthy of that, just send me the book back again, and forget you ever saw it.)"

1. If I think the book is crappy, I'll say so, not be silent.
2. Why should I have to pay to return a review copy? That's not how the world works.
3. Can Andy enforce the bribe/contract?
4. What if it backfires and people request review copies just so they can write negative reviews?

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There is no such thing as "Publish On Demand"

(Above: advertising what doesn't exist. Would you like to buy a unicorn?

Publish On Demand is an unnecessary and confusing misnomer using the same initials as Print On Demand. There’s really no such thing as Publish On Demand. It makes no sense. But companies still want you to think they’ll do it for you.

Despite its use by major traditional publishers, the Print On Demand process has been subject to some unfortunate and unjustified stigma because of its association with sleazy companies that print books on demand mostly for their authors rather than for readers.

Therefore, some companies have sought to give a new meaning to the "P" in POD.

Llumina Press, Booksurge, Lulu, Tate, Outskirts, CreateSpace and others have paid Google to run online ads for the stupid phrase aimed at ignorant writers who don’t know the difference between printing and publishing. There are even stupidly named websites called PublishOnDemand.net and PublishOnDemandGlobal.com.

• Some critics describe and deride "self-publishing companies" as "POD companies" -- which makes the situation even more confusing.
• Sleazy and dishonest PublishAmerica says, "PublishAmerica is not in any way a POD, vanity press, or subsidy publisher. . . . In the most commonly used context, POD indicates "Publish On Demand." BULSHIT.

Publishing and printing are not the same thing. Printing is part of publishing. Printing can be done on demand. Publishing can’t.

Publishing is a complex, multi-stage process that takes a writer’s words from manuscript to books on sale. The end result of a publishing project, which may be 10,000 books or just one book, can take weeks, months or even years.

With Print On Demand, books are printed one at a time or a few at a time as orders are placed by readers through booksellers. That does not mean that a publishing company starts the entire publishing sequence whenever an order arrives. With POD, a book is produced (i.e. printed, not published) in minutes, not months.

So, what's the point of all this?

If you see the phrase "Publish On Demand," be very careful before you spend your money. There's a good chance that the company is fooling around with more than the English language. The shady operators in the publishing field have already distorted the meaning of "self-publishing" and "indie" and now they are demeaning and devaluing "POD."

What word or phrase will be the next victim? I don't know, but I'm not optimistic.

Remember what Bill Clinton said: "It depends on what the meaning of the word 'is' is." And Humpty Dumpty said: "When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean."

I sure wish publishers would be more careful with the language they and we depend on.

(Clinton photo from the White House. Humpty drawing from http://all-free-download.com. Thanks.) 

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