AaronTurpen.com

This is a little different than my usual posts about the business of writing, but it clearly falls into the overall subject matter here.  Most people in the business of selling words understand that a publisher’s primary job is not printing material, but selling (marketing) it.  The writer creates the work, but the publisher finds people who will pay to read it.  Thus the writer and publisher are often two halves of the same grapefruit, so to speak.

According to the Wall Street Journal, however, the profits for publishers are dwindling fast.  Even in books and magazines, where traditional media seemed to have been holding its own (whereas newspapers are faltering).  Ron Adner and William Vincent at the WSJ say that the future of books, especially electronic books, will include advertising because publishers have little to no profit margin in these mediums.

Of course, this is not really all that new.  I have a small collection of pulp novels from the 70s, 80s, and 90s that all have advertising inserts at their centers.  Collectors know, by the way, that these are worth more if they include the adverts rather than if those have been torn out.  Mine aren’t worth anything, really, except that I enjoy the mindless reading once in a while.  I confess to a small horde of Destroyer and Executioner novels.  I especially enjoy the Destroyer series for its humor and surprising philosophic mysticism.

Books today don’t generally have advertisements in them for a simple reason: it’s hard to sell adverts in most books and the ones that could draw advertising dollars are probably selling too well to bother the reader with it.  Those authors, and I’m talking about the big names like Stephen King and Michael Crichton, usually retain a large measure of artistic control over their work and would likely veto any ad attempts regardless.

Electronic books are a new medium that, while it has relatively low costs associated with it, also has a low profit margins to match.  With outlets like Amazon.com selling ebooks at less than paperback prices, it’s no wonder publishers are a little worried.

Ebook reading (thanks primarily, I think, to readers like the Kindle and iPhone) is gaining ground fast as more and more people latch onto this method of absorbing literature.  The market for electronic books has been growing quickly for the past few years.

Some readers, like myself (a confessed bibliophile), will probably never enjoy reading from a screen.  We are, however, becoming a minority as the percentage of Americans who read regularly is migrating more and more towards electronic delivery.

How will this change the printed word?

To be honest, I don’t think it will change it all that much.  Some methods of advertising, such as “push” or forced adverts, will probably create a backlash amongst readers when it inevitably appears in books.  Currently, for instance, I boycott all Disney films on DVD because they force the viewer to sit through their previews despite having paid for the movie on the disc and not the previews that are an advertising bonus (in my mind) to the studio.   Forcing ads between chapters, at page turns, or when loading a book to read would be comparable to that and unacceptable.

On the other hand, having an ad appear tastefully within the text or come up during the book loading (with the ability to skip it immediately) is not so bad.  While it will require some getting used to, I think most people would understand that the price of a cheaper ebook is seeing those ads.  Smart publishers will probably charge a premium for ad-free copies.

In the mean time, those in traditional print media will continue their doom drum beating, telling us all how the world will end because the newspaper and news magazine are on their death beds.  Like any business, publishers have to adapt as times change.  Today, the Internet and instant proliferation of information is quickly replacing the old print-and-distribute method.  A few publishers are or will adapt and continue to operate.  Others will fail.

That’s the biz, sweetheart.

The title of this one should give away the fact that this article is not really aimed towards writing professionals.  Instead, I though something should be said to those who write as a side note to their normal career.  Maybe you work in IT and your boss expects you to occasionally write presentations, reports, or blog posts.  Maybe you’re a commodities trader and your business could use the marketing boost that some decent articles and a newsletter might provide.  Whatever your situation, you’ve found yourself being required to write things for other people to read and are a little unsure of yourself.

Well, have no fear.  Good writing requires only that you understand some fundamentals and build some simple, proven habits to bolster them.  These are the beginning skills a professional writer will foster and will take mediocre writing to the level of good writing quite quickly.  The ultimate goal here, really, is to get rid of some of the baggage we all have thanks to the way we’re taught to write in school and to avoid common mistakes.

I’ve covered many of the basics before, but will repeat them here and add a few new ones that might help non-professionals find an easier track towards good writing.

Make Proofreading a Habit

This one is universal and has been repeated often here at AaronTurpen.com.  After you’ve completed writing your material, set it aside for as long as possible (a full day is best, but an hour is OK if time lines are short) and then read through it.  This gives you a clearer perspective on what you’ve written and will help you do several things: see typos and misspellings, fix repetitious words and phrases, re-arrange material for better flow, and otherwise clean up your work.  Most shoddy writing can be fixed with a few minutes’ proofing.

Making this a habit will eventually lead to proofreading as you write, eliminating your most common mistakes before they happen.

Read It Out Loud

Once you’ve completed your writing, read it back to yourself out loud.  Does it stay together?  Are parts of it clunky or hard to understand?  If something is hard to read out loud, it’s definitely hard to read period.  This will force you to simplify sentences and keep on point.  After a while, you’ll get in the habit of writing out loud in your head.

Use Punctuation For Readability, Not “Grammar”

The worst thing they teach in schools is “proper grammar.”  This involves a lot of memorization and rote learning about the way punctuation is “correctly” used.  Most of it is detrimental to good writing.  Sure, it might look great to your High School English teacher, but for the man on the street?  It’s hoity and makes no sense.  Punctuation should make sense.

Of course, that doesn’t mean that every sentence shouldn’t have a period, a question mark, etc. at the end, but it also means that just because grammar says a semi-colon or comma is supposed to be there (or not be there) the sentence or paragraph won’t read better if it isn’t (or is).  Use commas, semi-colons, and hyphens as ways to create pauses, to break up ideas, or to create better readability and flow.  If, when reading your work out loud, you notice that a sentence is a little long or seems hard to grasp, it could probably do with something to break it up.  Either add a comma (or two) or cut it in half and make two sentences.

Remember that most reading takes place verbally (if in our heads) because language is, fundamentally, meant to be spoken.  Use that knowledge to make your writing easier to read.  Here are a few quick rules about punctuation marks:

• Commas are the carpenter’s hammer of the writing trade.  While periods are the nails, commas are what pounds them in.  Use commas to create a pause, make a list, or otherwise divvy up a sentence into easily digestible bits.
• Semi-colons are probably the least-used and most useful of the punctuation marks.  Often, two short sentences that appear choppy can be combined with a semi-colon to make them smooth.  Imagine the spots where you’d arch an eyebrow, give a smirk, or otherwise signal to someone you’re talking to that something is important; that’s where a semi-colon goes.
• Parenthesis are probably the most over-used of the punctuation marks that could stand being underused.  More often than not, they’re used when they shouldn’t be.  Much of the time, they can be replaced with commas, a colon, or dashes.  For you programming types, nesting parenthesis in writing is never good.
• Colons are used to make examples and that’s it.  Don’t use them for anything else.  It’s distracting.
• Dashes are very useful for encapsulating an idea within a larger idea.  So if you have two sentences to write, but one looks better when said inside the other, use dashes rather than parenthesis to add it in.  It automatically tells the reader’s brain that a brand new idea is about to come and shouldn’t be confused with the original one they’ve been reading.
• Question marks and exclamation points are how you add character to a paragraph or page.  Question marks should always end a question, of course, but questions can be used for more than just asking questions.  They can be existential, make a heavy point, or just make the reader ask for an answer.  Do you think questions are just questions?  Think again.  Exclamations, on the other hand, should be used very sparingly.  In fact, if you aren’t writing a personal email, a crappy blog post, or a text message to your friends, don’t use exclamations.  They are the purview of Internet marketers and should be avoided as much as possible.

Don’t Ramble; Follow the 5th Grader’s Basics

Last, but definitely not least, don’t ramble along in your writing.  If you have trouble with this, set word count goals or other limits to force your writing to be concise.  When proofing, trim the fat and keep it all on topic.

Of course, none of this means you should totally ignore all of the English classes you had to take in school.  Everything you learned up to about the 5th grade is probably relevant.  Capitalize the first word of the sentence, capitalize proper nouns, don’t use five exclamation points when you really need just one, and for hell’s sakes, don’t rush it!

Take your time, do it right, and eventually it will become easier and easier.  Writing is all about practice. Great writing is about being a genius – ask anyone who knows me!!!