Be There

Give up your fantasy that someone else can ‘do this’ for you. Or that you can program your status updates and blog posts like a robot. Your presence is required to respond to live engagement with readers. It’s tempting to use an automated tweet scheduler to take some of the effort out of your social media strategy.

However small your amount of time online per day is, you open a window to your readers. You want to be able to respond. Don’t leave a potential reader who tries to engage with you hanging. Be present.

Be Shareable

Are your blog posts simply personal journal entries, or are they something that goes beyond yourself? If you are writing just about you, the circle of friends and family might constrict rather than expand your network. If you give useful information, a new way to think about something, or speak to the larger human condition, your audience grows exponentially.

There’s no need to be overly informative or cutesy; just ask yourself if your subject and approach speaks to more than your closest friends. Not everything in your personal life is fodder for your professional persona. What you share should add value to your readers’ lives. Sharing others’ good news is more important than self-promotion as an author. 

Be Engaged

You should be excited and share your passion and enthusiasm in your writing. If you feel like reading and responding to your comments is a chore, you’re probably not posting about something you care enough about to sustain for the long haul.

But if you get a little adrenaline rush when you see several comments, retweets, or you think ‘Oh! I have to share this!’ after reading an article, you’re probably on the right track to blissful social media engagement. Write about what you love, what you want to know more about, and what you care about.

Be Friendly

How many blogs have you responded to in the last month? It should be at least equal to the number of blogs you posted, if not more. Remember your grandmother used to tell you that if you wanted to get letters in the mail you had to write letters? Making social media work for authors is more about the social dynamics than the technical or numerical aspects. You are building a community of readers for your book. Respond to your comments to get new readers.

Social Media is meant to be, well, social! You aren’t going to get the results you want if you are a hermit online. If you want more “likes,” then take the time to read and respond with a comment or ‘like’ other writers work. Take the time to find new blogs and reach out to them. Take the time to make your audience feel welcome.

(Photo courtesy of Mary Bouchard, Trumansburg, NY)

Jill Swenson: Cathryn Prince, this is your fourth book of historical non-fiction. Death in the Baltic: The World War II Sinking of the Wilhelm Gustloff is a featured selection for the Military History Book Club this spring, advance reviews are positive and Amazon sales rankings impressive.. How does your experience working towards publication on this fourth book compare to a decade ago with your first, Shot from the Sky: American POWs in Switzerland?

Cathryn Prince: Each book is different, of course. First there are some similarities between the first and my new book. Each examines a “smaller” event embedded in the global events of WWII. In both cases I knew that these were stories that really had to be told. I knew I would be writing about people who were wary of how their story would be received. I felt, and still feel, an incredible sense of responsibility to tell their story and to tell it well.

Both books required a lot of leg work – tracking down people and conducting face to face interviews as well as time spent in archives and libraries. With ten years between the books, I did notice real differences. More information is now at my fingertips with the Internet and more historical records have been made available so it does cut the time in terms of finding the sources. The advent of social media changed things as well. For this book Facebook and Twitter were tremendous resources when it came down to discovering sources and building on-line relationships with potential readers.

Jill Swenson: How did you find out about the sinking of the Wilhelm Gustloff? And at what point did you know the story would be your next book project?

Cathryn Prince: Several years ago my father told me about a German ship sunk at the end of World War II. He didn’t know much about it except that “it made the Titanic look like a fender bender.” I looked it up. The worst maritime disaster in peace or war: more than 9,000 people died on January 30, 1945 when a Soviet submarine attacked the Wilhelm Gustloff, a former cruise liner turned escape ship. That’s six times more than those who died when the Titanic sank after hitting an iceberg. I knew it couldn’t be just about the sinking. It had to be about the people aboard the ship – their lives before the war and after the war.

Horst Woit was the first survivor I met. This was back in 2006. I spent a few days with him, but I knew after our first hour of conversation that his was a story that needed to be told. Too many of us are unfamiliar with the sinking of this ship and what it was like to come of age in East Prussia – caught between the Nazis first and the Soviets second.

Jill Swenson: Why don’t most Americans know about this tragic story?

Cathryn Prince: There is no single answer to that question. Nazi Germany did a good job of keeping it quiet in the immediate aftermath. Some of the survivors were ordered to keep their mouths shut. The Nazi leadership didn’t want people to know because they were worried it would cause panic among those still trying to flee in ships across the Baltic Sea. They also knew the symbolism was too great – the Wilhelm Gustloff, the crown jewel in the “Strength Through Joy” fleet had been destroyed. Later, the survivors didn’t talk about it because of war guilt and a sense of shame for the horrors Nazi Germany inflicted on the world. For us in the United States it has taken some time to acknowledge civilians of Nazi Germany suffered. Initially the Soviet Union kept the story quiet because the commander of the submarine – Alexander Marinesko – was not in good graces with his superiors. It wasn’t until Mikhail Gorbachev in 1990 when he posthumously bestowed the Order of Lenin on Marinesko that the story really surfaced there.

Jill Swenson: Where did you travel to conduct your research?

Cathryn Prince: I traveled to Canada a few times, Las Vegas, Ascona, Switzerland and Washington, DC.

Jill Swenson: What challenges did language and national borders play in gaining access to documents to stories involving Russian, German, Lithuanian, Polish, and other Baltic peoples?  

Cathryn Prince: Finding the right archive in Germany took a bit of sleuthing. I learned that while the Red Cross had kept records most were destroyed as the Soviet Army neared Berlin. It was a daisy chain of contacts until I found a researcher in Germany. I asked him to copy everything pertaining to this event and ship it to me. I’m fortunate that my husband speaks and reads German. So we spent many nights poring over documents.

Jill Swenson: You’re a journalist, historian, and author. You are also a journalism educator, writing coach, public speaker, and workshop facilitator. But I know you are also a mom to two kids who love to read and married to a brilliant and gorgeous doctor which means you’ve got your hands full. How do you find time to write? And blog? And Tweet and Facebook and LinkedIn too?

Cathryn Prince: I rowed in college. My coach always told us there is time in the day for everything you want to do. I believe that. I don’t have a research assistant, or intern. I’m lucky that my husband and I support each other in our professions and understand the demands of each other’s careers. My children are older now, 15 and 12, so that makes it easier. I usually get up at 5am, when I’m working on a book. If I’m really deep in the writing I get up at 4am. Get my coffee and sit down. After I get the kids off to school I write some more. I do make sure to get outside once a day for a run or walk – I need that fresh air and time to let what I’m working on ‘simmer.’

Jill Swenson: Any additional advice to authors writing non-fiction for publication?

Cathryn Prince: Remember that a non-fiction work needs structure and a narrative arc. It needs a beginning, middle and end just like a work of fiction. I would say that be mindful that nonfiction can be a harder sell to publishers but don’t let that deter you. That’s the writing challenge. Compelling stories will find their way.

Jill Swenson: Me, too. Thanks Cathryn. And congratulations.

If you want to know more about Cathryn Prince and how to bring her book into your community of readers, please click here www.cathrynprince.com

Premise: The central idea, situation, or set-up which provides the foundation and pushes the narrative forward. What happens as a result of actions is another way of describing the premise. If point A is where the conflict or problem arises and point B is the outcome, then the premise is A leads to B. Perhaps another way to get a handle on the premise of your book is to determine its main point or take-away lesson.

A premise is usually one sentence. It conveys the larger lesson or a universal truth. “When Dorothy is caught up in a Kansan tornado, she visits a magical place called Oz, only to discover there’s no place like home.”

Expressing your premise — your driving idea — helps you while you write. It keeps you from wandering too far astray from the organizing concept and your narrative arc on a steady path. Consider your opening scenario, central characters, the inciting incident and how the stakes are raised. Your premise may be stated in the form of a question. “What if a group of school boys stranded on a desert island work to govern themselves?”

A premise should be brief, provocative, and include the central characters, a conflict, and a hook. The premise should pull the reader into the story and leave them begging for more. The premise should reveal a larger world and contain universal appeal. Write your premise statement in present tense and with clarity.

Here are some examples in book deals reported on Publishers Marketplace from May 9-10, 2013 listings.

“NYT bestselling author Seanan McGuire‘s INDEXING, a serialized urban fantasy novel pitched as Grimm meets Criminal Minds, about a special branch of law enforcement which hunts down potential fairy tales before their narratives can become active and leads to deadly consequences, to David Pomerico at 47 North, for initial publication as a Kindle Serial in 12 installments, followed by a print edition, by Diana Fox at Fox Literary (world English). Translation: Betty Anne Crawford at Books Crossing Borders, Film/TV: Pouya Shahbazian at New Leaf Literary.”

“Compensation expert Don Delve‘s THE PURPOSE OF PAY: Revamping Compensation to Revitalize Organizations, demonstrating the competitive advantage of using compensation and incentives to create a more productive and innovative workforce, to Laurie Harting at Palgrave, for publication in 2014, by Joelle Delbourgo, at Joelle Delbourgo Associates (World).”

“John Glatt‘s THE LOST GIRLS, the story of three young women kidnapped, imprisoned, and repeatedly raped and beaten for over a decade by Ariel Castro in Cleveland and just recently discovered alive, to Charlie Spicer at St. Martin’s by Jane Dystel at Dystel & Goderich Literary Management.

When they write up the big news about your book deal, your clear premise statement will be front and center. Put it down on paper and put it in front of your mind as you craft your book. The power of a premise shouldn’t be underestimated.

The organization and order of information in a non-fiction book is every bit as important as plot is to fiction. Immersing yourself in the subject matter is no guarantee that the structure of a book will reveal itself as self-evident.

So how does a writer of non-fiction move from the research, notes, interviews, documents, and quotes into a coherent structure? And more importantly, a structure that serves the readers of your work? Structural editing is part of the writing process itself.

Here I suggest four techniques to help you hone and refine the narrative structure to your non-fiction work-in-progress.

Thematic analysis

What are the major themes in the book?

Describe how each theme is relevant. How does each theme get played out? In which sections does each theme arise? Are there characters whose personalities or interactions embody one of these themes? How so?

Write reflectively about each theme. As you do, ideas for tightening the plot will pop out at you.

Question analysis

What subjects, topics, and issues will your book cover? What questions will your book answer? Pretend you are writing questions for IBM’s Watson on Jeopardy. Make a long list. Include questions you have already answered in your research and questions you plan to investigate further.

Sort the questions into groups that emerge from critical reflection. For each group, write additional questions you will need to answer. Think about what the reader needs to know and when and where in your book they need to know it.  Sort your grouped questions into an organizational framework.

Don’t forget to ask the big questions. So what? Who cares?

Storyboarding

Sketch the important scenes in your book. Think cinematically. If you are artistically inclined, draw them; if not, paint with words. Brainstorm on as many scene sketches as you can without referring to your research. What are the most gripping moments? Where does the action take place?

Take each scene and identify the conflict or goal, the actors involved, their motives, the themes, and questions it will address.

Play around with the order of these scenes to find a new narrative whole. Consider yourself the movie producer or film editor. Identify the holes between scenes and how to connect the scenes into a coherent narrative.

Character Analysis

Strong narrative structures are built upon characters whose motives drive plot forward. First, identify all of the people in your story. Make two lists: one of major or leading roles, and a second with supporting roles. This is your cast of characters.

In your list of major players, identify your protagonist(s). With which character(s) do you invite your reader to identify, share a point-of-view, and eventually champion? Which character(s) play the role of antagonist? Who (or what) offers the conflict, challenge, struggle, or problem?

For each person in your cast of leading characters, write a character sketch. What role does each one play in this narrative? Describe the physical attributes, distinctive behaviors, personal qualities, and motives. Identify in what places the character appears in the action. Organize a file for each character in which everything you plan to include in your book is in one place. Upon first reference to a character in your new narrative structure, introduce the person to the reader with full attribution. Upon second reference, add more character description and disclosure of details . And so on; developing character depth. As you write the character into the narrative of your manuscript, refer to your sketch and include these details from your sketch.

By taking the time and trouble to work out character sketches, you gather a stronger sense of the dynamic tensions between characters and how their problems, conflicts, and struggles drive the story forward.

If you aren’t already receiving email updates from the Swenson Book Development, LLC blog, we’d like to invite you to subscribe using the form on the sidebar. If you are already receiving updates in your inbox, we highly suggest switching to our new format!

Swenson Book Development has switched to Mailchimp as our official email RSS update system. We’re happy to announce a more readable and handsome format for staying on top of our posts.

Why the switch? Our previous email feed didn’t give us as much control, and blogs had a habit of arriving to our readers not looking as polished as we’d like. To reach the level of professionalism that matches our writing, we decided to move to a new system.

There are lots of changes beyond email updates afoot under-the-hood for SBD, LLC – Chad Lieberman, computer whiz extraordinaire, has been hard at work making our site faster and up-to-date.

Not sure how to unsubscribe from our old feed? Next time you get an email from us, check the bottom of the message and click unsubscribe (and then don’t forget to subscribe to our new, improved emails!)

What completely sets Nook Press apart from Kindle Direct Publishing is the integrated feature of composing, editing and formatting your book within the platform instead of uploading and converting a file to an eBook format.

When self-publishing through KDP, there isn’t a way to edit your book within the platform; once you’ve uploaded it it’s set in stone as far as Amazon is concerned. Simple tweaks can require multiple uploads. Nook press is eliminating that hurdle and giving authors simpler-to-use ways to control the final version of their book.

Nook Press is also banking on integrated social capabilities; authors will be able to share their content and receive comments and feedback before publishing.

There’s no guarantee that Nook Press will lure readers away from eBook frontrunner Kindle to the experiencing-a-plummet-in-sales Nook, but authors will certainly be drawn to features made for burgeoning writers.

But just because you have more control doesn’t mean that you should consider self-publication in your immediate future. Swenson Book Development had written about this in the past; consider your needs against the cons of self-publication before you are lured to the easier-than-ever world of online publication.

The pursuit of ‘perfect’ too soon may be your nemesis as an author. During the creative process of writing a first draft, you must suspend editorial judgement. Shut off the internal critic in your head. Squash your temptation to pause and obsess about finding the right word. Don’t think about metaphors, or language mechanics. Silence that harsh interior censor, and write ragged, raw and rough. Focus on your story and subject.

If suddenly the idea of writing the first draft seems impossible, stop thinking about writing and think about what you have to say. What is your point? What is the overarching problem/issue/conflict? What is the story? Quiet the monster who whispers in your ear that you’ll never be a good writer. It’s not about the quality of the writing in the first draft, it’s about the story. Focus less on your writing as craft and more on capturing the essence of your story.

“Perfectionism is the voice of the oppressor,” wrote Anne Lamott in Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life. It’s called a rough draft for a reason. ”The shitty draft,” is how Anne Lamott describes the product of every writer’s first version. I call it the “vomit draft,” because the words spew out. Gushing like a fire hydrant, it’s not pretty. It’s part of the process. When you’re into the writing flow of new material, it feels involuntary and convulsive. Gulp.

The number of words grows weekly. Page numbers rack up into three digits. Exhilirating. Intoxicating. When you finish the first draft of your manuscript, you will experience an incredible sense of personal accomplishment. Congratulations. Word to the wise: don’t show it to anyone else to read until you have gone back and gone through three or four times cleaning up your own copy. Author and journalist Constance Hale talks about the rigorous 7-step self-editing process she goes through with every piece of her own writing.

It is hard to write. It is hard to receive feedback. It is important to find someone whom you trust, but is an editor and knows how to give helpful feedback. Your family and friends are not your best first readers. Don’t put either of you in a “this is awkward” situation. What they may say will either be what you want to hear and not particularly helpful, or hurtful. Good feedback comes from editors, writing groups, or trusted friends. Good writing is rewriting.

To see if you have an associated image, log-in to your WP dashboard and look at the upper right hand corner in the dark grey bar.

See how it’s just an empty square? Let’s change that!

Creating a WordPress.com/Gravatar account

Surprisingly, there is no quick way to add a profile image within the dashboard. Instead, you need to go to Gravatar and log-in using a WordPress.com account (or create one).

WordPress.com is the free hosting/social blogging platform that uses the WordPress platform.You may have installed WordPress.org if you have your own webhost and domain name. If you always had your own dedicated host and built your site using something other than WordPress, you probably don’t have a wordpress.com account. Unless you already using WordPress.com as your blog platform (which has not been recommended for SEO reasons), you’ll need to create an account.

To make matters more confusing, WordPress.com uses Gravatar for its profile and profile picture needs. The concept behind Gravatar is you have one account that handles your profile for multiple sites. It works well, but not every site uses Gravatar!

Go to Gravatar.com and enter your email into the text box in the front page.

If you already have a WordPress.com account, click on the large blue button. If you don’t, then click the link to create a new one.

You’ll get a pop-up window with fill-in forms to create your account. After clicking ‘submit,’ you’ll get a message to check for a confirmation email (remember to check your junk mail and spam folder if you don’t see it in your inbox).

Sign into Gravatar once you’ve clicked the confirmation link.

Once you’re in Gravatar, hover over the symbol next to your name and click ‘edit profile’

Fill in your ‘About Me’ section as fully or sparsely as you desire. Then click on ‘Verified Services.’ Use the dropdown menu to find WordPress, and click ‘Add’

Enter your website’s URL and your WP login information. ONLY DO THIS WITH SITES YOU TRUST.

When you’re done, it should be listed as a verified service.

But wait! You aren’t done yet. Click on ‘Add an Image’ in the upper left hand navigation.

Click on ‘My computer’s hard drive’ and proceed as for adding an email attachment or uploading any other image (you can also use an online image’s URL).

Follow the instructions for cropping your image and rate your Gravatar.

Set the image as your Gravatar by clicking on the thumbnail at the bottom.

Give it a few minutes to make the changes, then revisit your WordPress dashboard.

Well, look at that! You’ve got a profile picture on WordPress.

We’d especially love to get your feedback. Let us know what you think of this workbook as you begin to plot out your next book project.

In coming weeks, we’ll offer more free downloads: Getting Started with Google Analytics: Basics for Authors is a guided tutorial for writers and another workbook, Recording Your Google Analytics Baseline.

Please let us know what tutorials or workbooks you’d like to make your writing life more organized, efficient, and simple. We’re developing an inexpensive series of workbooks on How to Write Your Non-Fiction Book Proposal.

At some point you will share your work with someone for editing – and that’s where the art of writing gets technologically tricky.

Microsoft Word has a well-documented compatibility issue between versions of the software; Google Docs doesn’t have an easy way to track changes; Pages for Mac doesn’t play nicely with PCs… the list goes on and on.

Luckily, it seems that collaborative writing has become the focus of some reasearch and development and a recent start-up.

Medium isn’t meant for editing – consider it a new way to blog –  but it’s moving in a direction of organic community-based creation that is just waiting to be savored by tech-savy writing groups. Ev Williams, Medium’s midwife, was the man behind Blogger and the cheerleader that brought Twitter to the online world’s attention. What is he accomplishing with his latest project?

Medium (currently in closed Beta) invites users to create a theme and generate or curate content with invited collaborators.

An “Open Collection of Crazy Stories” gives users a chance to get an active preview of Medium

Within your freshly written content, you and your collaborators can leave notes for each other, easily edit the text, and upon publication receive credit where credit is do. Imagine, with your writing friends, piecing together ideas and eradicating typos before publication.

It’s an entirely new way to think about blogging; the solipsistic nature of Twitter and personal sites is intrinsically absent from Medium. Critics say its just another platform – but maybe its ripples will lead to better collaborative writing software in the future.  

The world’s greatest maritime disaster during war or peace time, the sinking of the Wilhelm Gustloff, is not a familiar historical event to most American readers. Gunther Grass fictionalized these events in his controversial Crab Walk. Cathryn Prince spent years tracking down the few living survivors, digging through the documentary records, and gathering evidence. She recreates the mounting tension, chaos, and terror with the experiences of those who lived it. The tragedy, and the nearly 70 years of silence in its wake, is a story worth retrieving from the bottom of the black Baltic.

Today, Palgrave-Macmillan releases Cathryn Prince’s new book, Death in the Baltic: The World War II Sinking of the Wilhelm Gustloff. Here are some of the great initial reviews:

“The story of the worst maritime disaster in history…Prince has scoured the planet for survivors, treating their harrowing stories with gentle empathy, from the first sickening bolts of the torpedoes to the chaos and terror of the ship’s swift sinking as passengers fell into the freezing water, clambered for lifeboats and watched loved ones disappear in the tumult… An engaging study of a shocking tragedy.”—Kirkus Reviews

“The sinking of the cruise liner that was once the pride of Hitler’s Strength Through Joy program has long been overlooked by maritime historians.  Yet when the Wilhelm Gustloff disappeared beneath the freezing waters of the Baltic in January of 1945, she took with her more than six times the number of people lost on the Titanic.Through careful research and interviews with the few remaining survivors. Cathryn J. Prince vividly recreates the chaos and terror of this epic maritime disaster.”–Hugh Brewster, author of Gilded Lives, Fatal Voyage: The Titanic’s First-Class Passengers And Their World

“Death in the Baltic is the engrossing story of a tragedy that should never have been forgotten. With the grace of a writer who truly feels the loss of thousands in the cold waters of the Baltic Sea, Cathryn J. Prince has preserved their memory and improved our sense of history.”–Gregory A. Freeman, author of The Forgotten 500 

“Cathryn Prince reaches into the dark corners of history, and draws attention to this unreported tragedy through the experiences of the people who lived it.”—Stacy Perman, author of A Grand Complication

“With Death in the Baltic author Cathryn J. Prince recounts an important but little known aspect of World War II. Rich in detail, drama, and tragedy, Prince’s gripping narrative skillfully interweaves the traumatic events of the final weeks of the war with moving stories of survivors of a maritime disaster which claimed more lives than the sinking of the Titanic.”—Dwight Jon Zimmerman, award-winning author of Uncommon Valor

Death in the Baltic tells a gripping, invaluable story. Out of a desire for vengeance and recognition, one Soviet submarine commander caused the deaths of thousands of refugees, deaths that the victors of World War II chose to ignore. Cathryn Prince breaks the silence around the devastation many German civilians suffered at the end of the war.  Parting the curtain on the “collateral damage” the Allied Forces accepted as a necessary strategy for defeating Hitler, Death in the Baltic reveals that war’s trauma spares no one.”–Leila Levinson, award-winning author of Gated Grief 

Congratulations Cathryn Prince.

Heirloom pink poppy seeds sprouted this week indoors. I am prepared to expect blossoms this July. Much depends on what happens between now and then. And so it is with the seeds of ideas.

As a book development editor, my greatest joy is derived from seeing the seed of an idea germinate and grow into published manuscript. Cultivating the soil, weeding, and tending the plants are tasks for gardening good ideas. Having the proper tools on hand, integrated pest management systems, and sufficient discipline and dedication are important factors in the bounty of one’s garden qua bookshelf. Climate, soil, and weather variables can’t be controlled; nor can the contemporary marketplace of ideas and books.

Springing forth on Tuesday, April 9th from Palgrave-Macmillan is Cathryn Prince’s Death in the Baltic: The World War II Sinking of the Wilhelm Gustloff. Outstanding reviews and pre-order sales put her new title at #35 for Books/History/Europe/Poland on Amazon this morning. We wish her the best on her new book launch.

Since it’s spring and National Poetry Month, please enjoy Mary Oliver’s “Why I Wake Early,” in her own voice. “In happiness, in kindness.”

Finally, this Saturday morning we send out congratulations to Deborah Allison of Integrative Holistic Wellness of Ithaca whose name was drawn from new registrations for our e-newsletter in the lobby of Alternatives Federal Credit Union. She wins a free one-hour consultation with Swenson Book Development llc.

Are you planting the seeds of a book idea?

Publishing is a business. So where are the best sources of news and background information for an author? These are the top 4 across all genres and types of publishing.

1. Shelf Awareness has a free subscription to readers. Even if you aren’t an author seeking publication, if you love books this is a great place to dip your toes into enlightment about the business of publishing. It comes out on Tuesdays and Fridays if you subscribe to their Readers version and let’s you know what’s new in publishing. The professional version examines the business of publishing with a weekday trade newsletter.

2. Publisher’s Weekly is known as the Bible of the book business. A weekly news magazine about the international book publishing business and is targeted to the business and professional audience of authors, agents, editors, publishers, and booksellers. It has been published since 1872.

3. Galley Cat is the news hub for MediaBistro. News of deals, writers resources, reviews, and all things current and trendy in book publishing.

4. Publishers Lunch Automat provides up to date information for booksellers and curates the day’s publishing news reports. Delivered daily through email subscription, it’s one of the best places to see what book concepts sell and how they are pitched. It is the free newsletter of Publishers Marketplace, a subscription service targeted to the book publishing industry.

All four of these also offer job boards, resources for writers, reviews, and helpful links. Publisher’s Weekly, Galley Cat and Publisher’s Markeplace have professional versions which bring a subscriber much further behind the paywall to access helpful databases.

Reading the news about the marketplace in which you hope to compete as an author is smart strategy.

• Celebrity, athletic, political or public figure
• Travel
• Spiritual 
• Food
• Grief
• Farmsteading
• Mommy Dearest/Growing up dysfunctional
• Escape from religious extremism
• I’ll take you there memoirs
• I will survive memoirs
• Love and romance
• Family, friendship, and business relationships
• Workplace or career
• Exploration or adventure
• Addiction/recovery memoirs
• Humor

These various types of contemporary memoirs are not mutually exclusive categories; any one memoir may be more than one type. For example, Eat, Pray, Love was both travel and spiritual as written by Elizabeth Gilbert. Cheryl Strayed’s Wild is a chronological narrative of a trek across the Pacific Crest Trail and a memoir about grief over her mother’s death. Joan Didion has written two powerful grief memoirs. The Year of Magical Thinking is a now a classic recommendation for bereavement counselors to give widows to read and her more recent Blue Nights is a touching portrait of a grieving mother. And yet both are also very much like the rest of her literary narrative non-fiction writing in the “I’ll take you there” style. Joyce Maynard’s classic Looking Back captured the voice of an entire generation 40 years ago and is another example of the “I’ll take you there” kind of zeitgeist memoir. So, too, is Patti Smith’s more recent Just Kids, but it was also about grieving, her career as a musician and writer, and friendships, especially with Robert Mapplethorpe.

Alexandra Fuller has written memoirs of adventure and exploration in Africa with Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight and The Cocktail Hour Under the Tree of Forgetfulness. And yet they are also memoirs of love, family, growing up dysfunctional. ‘You are there’ in Rhodesia with her mother in the Jeep with the Uzi across her lap. Augusten Burroughs in Running with Scissors wrote a memoir about growing up with a mentally ill mother. These revelations about his parents’ behavior, their divorce, and its aftermath revived Christina Crawford’s Mommy Dearest style of confessional disclosures. Though Augusten Burroughs was not the child of a celebrity with a built-in platform. he changed his name after living until age 18 as Christopher Robison. Pooh. Close enough to Christopher Robinson to make an august son’s name from a father like William Burroughs. Much cooler to be associated with the beat writer of Junkie and Naked Lunch. Augusten Burroughs followed up with another memoir, Dry, about his own struggle with alcoholism and addictions. Drinking: A Love Story by Carol Knapp is a memoir about her affection and affliction for alcohol but it’s also about her career as a journalist. Diablo Cody wrote her memoir Candy Girl: A Year in the Life of an Unlikely Stripper after she started writing a column, “Pussy Ranch,” for City Pages in Minneapolis where she worked the Skyway Lounge off Hennepin Avenue.

One of the funniest memoirs I’ve read is Sara Benincasa, Agorafabulous: Dispatches From My Bedroom. And I’ve laughed hard at the writings of David Sedaris and Garrison Keillor who also write in this sub-genre. Benincasa’s memoir isn’t just humor, it’s an “I Will Survive” memoir. Jeannette Walls’ Glass Castle and Kate Braestrup’s Here if You Need Me are both examples of survivor memoirs. Wall Street Journal reporter Amanda Bennett did survive her husband’s pancreatic cancer and wrote The Cost of Hope sold by the medical system to a nation of people whose loved ones get sick, even on the best health care insurance policies available to two working adult professionals. Rhoda Janzen’s Mennonite in a Little Black Dress made readers laugh as she survives a divorce and a year living with her aging Mennonite parents, but her latest book, Does This Church Make Me Look Fat? is as much about love and middle aged romance as it is a spiritual journey.

Some of the most interesting memoirs fall into the category of escape from religious extremism. Deborah Feldman’s Unorthodox about leaving her Hasidic traditions, and Lucia Greenhouse coming to question Christian Science in her motherfathergod memoir. There are more forthcoming like The Witness Wore Red and the just released revelations in Beyond Belief about the Church of Scientology from the niece of David Miscavige Jenna Hill. Malala Yousafzai just signed a contract for her memoir. Her story touched millions of hearts when she was shot on the streets of Pakistan for standing up for girls’ education. My former student and colleague, Adam Ellick, of the New York Times had cultivated a relationship with Malala and her father. Ellick had given her an iPad, which made her the envy of some and a target for others.

An escape, a journey, a transformation — these are the matters of memoir. Many of the recent farm memoirs follow a personal path to reduce their carbon emissions, increase their local fare, engage in physical labor, encounter wild life, farm animals, produce their own power, add veggie oil to their vehicles, raise free range chickens, go fishing, hunting, or butcher their own meat. The Dirty Life, Hit by a Barn and Goat Song are favorite examples from this subgenre. Food memoirs run the gamut from classics like Ruth Reichl’s Tender at the Bone and Frances Mayes’ Under the Tuscan Sun to modern celebrity chefs like Gabrielle Hamilton who wrote Blood, Bones and Butter and Georgia Pelligrini in Girl Hunter. Food memoirs are not typicaly filled with recipes and those that have attempted to mix the genre of memoir with cookbook.

Memoir is a genre that doesn’t blend well with others. Self-help and memoir don’t mix as well as oil and vinegar. How-to and memoir make a poor pairing. Within the genre of memoir, mixing types and kinds is acceptable and encouraged.

What kind of memoir are you writing?

The updated timeline layout banishes seperate boxes for friends, maps, photos and applications and replaces them with text tabs. The entire look is more minimalist and shifts ‘activity’ to one column while keeping important details about you and friend’s posts in the other.

Focus is now heavily weighed towards interests; instead of languishing in a hidden corner of the page, your favorite books, movies, and TV shows now take center stage (probably to increase the efficacy of their improved Graph search).

What do these changes mean for you?

• Take this opportunity to check your privacy settings; whenever there is a change to FB, use it as a reminder to update who can see what on your profile and what your profile looks like to a complete stranger.

• Get good photos of yourself.  Facebook has always been a visual medium, but now it’s making photos larger and take center-stage to a greater degree.

• Consider this a wake-up call to start using more apps. FB is now weighting activity on certain connected partners and giving them a staring role on your timeline. Aspiring authors need a Goodreads account, and now is a great time to get one. Also consider Pinterest, Netflix, or Instagram depending on your style and area of expertise.

Facebook will be changing everyone’s timeline over the next two weeks; don’t be suprised to wakeup to a leaner, image-charged page one of these mornings!

Jonah Lehrer published How We Decide in 2009 but it was only a year ago that his fabrication of quotes became public knowledge. His publisher pulled his new book, Imagine: How Creativity Works (2012) for its many errors and Lehrer’s failure to understand or appreciate the importance of facts and attribution. Non-fiction writing can be creative. But you can’t make stuff up and play it off as factual or real. That violates the implicit trust between the reader and author.

It’s been a decade since James Frey authored A Million Little Pieces and Doubleday published it as memoir. As allegations of embellishments and news reports challenging the book’s claims surfaced in 2006, Oprah Winfrey invited Frey back on her TV program. Frey confessed he had only spent a few hours in jail rather than the 87 days he claimed. Publishing veteran, Nan Talese admitted she had done nothing to check the veracity of the manuscript and accepted it on face-value as non-fiction.

The aftermath can be measured in legal expenses to publishing companies, loss of book sales, and much more careful vetting of manuscripts, particularly memoirs. Much of that vetting must be done by agents or book development editors.

Yet the distinctions between fiction and non-fiction continue to blur. One of the pet peeves of acquisition editors in cover letters is genre confusion. “Please find my fictional memoir,” or “I’ve written a novel based on the facts of my life.”

The book publishing industry adds to this confusion with a growing market for a new category dubbed Young Adult Reality-Based Fiction. Graphic novels as a marketing niche now includes documentary titles based on contemporary issues and historical events.

Ben Greenman, an editor at The New Yorker, filed a formal complaint in the New York Times on March 15, 2013 against “novels” marketed as fiction when they blatantly contain elements of truth. It’s a raucous mashup and genuine thinkpiece.

In his essay, “True Lies,” Greenman refers to Lance Armstrong’s interview with Winfrey when he confessed to have looked up the word “cheat” in the dictionary.

The media spectacle of shaming those who misrepresent facts for profit in the world of publishing, sports, books, journalism, and politics is all too common a decade after Frey’s debacle. Non-fiction, of which memoir is a genre, is based on the truth and facts. You can’t make up stuff.

Ben Greenman pulls out his book and reminds us of the definition of fiction: Prose literature, especially short stories and novels, about imaginary events and people. Greenman lists a few offending titles whose fiction is thinly veiled memoir.

Mary McCarthy, J.D. Salinger, Kerouac, Steinbeck. I’d throw in Harper Lee, Ernest Hemingway, even Herman Melville. Stories written with the details of an author’s own lived experiences cached in memory.

If you are writing memoir and seek publication in today’s media milieu, stick to the facts. Authenticity is one of the necessary qualities for a memoir to satisfy readers. An interview on Oprah Winfrey may not necessarily the best career move. Writers beware: don’t betray the reader with lies.

“Why, oh why, must I also build a website and blog, too?” I often get this question from clients who seek publication of their book manuscripts. Here’s why.

You don’t own your own real estate on any of these other social media platforms. When Facebook changes its policy or practices you have no control over how that affects your electronic presence. Likewise with Twitter and Tumblr. LinkedIn and Facebook now have stockholders who eagerly await new measures to monetize these platforms so they’ll get a return on their investments. The real reason to use these other means for connecting and engaging with others is to drive traffic to your site by pulling them with your writing.

The nice thing about internet marketing of content is that you can pull readers instead of pushing your book. Many authors shy away from self-promotion because they fear becoming the used car salesman hawking HUGE deals with a megaphone.

This broadcasting approach does not work in the blogosphere. Instead a writer needs to be true and authentic in their cyber-persona. And it is a lot easier to do that while you’re standing on solid ground. The website is an author’s homebase and provides the foundation for your book’s success. If you have accounts in social media, link them to your website and blog. You want to feed your blog to your LinkedIn account. And provide a link to your site in your Tweets, Tumblr posts and Facebook status updates. It is more important to drive traffic from Twitter or Facebook to your website than it is to feed your Tweets and Facebook updates to your website. Leverage one piece of writing grounded to a unique URL on your site across multiple social media sharing applications. This maximizes your exposure to new readers and wider distribution to those who connect with your words. Your publisher will want you to eventually work these social neural pathways to convert readers into customers of your book. Before you get a contract, a publisher wants to see your social media metrics. It’s one of the most frequent reasons a proposal is turned down: not a big enough platform to guarantee the costs of publishing the book will be covered by the sales revenues. Such rejections hurt literary souls, but such business decisions are made independent of the literary quality of an author’s manuscript.

People buy books because they like the author. The goal of your website is to create your author persona so that readers like you and will want to buy your book. So as you think strategically about your website, consider two very important questions.

1. What do you want your website to tell people?

2. What do you want it to say about you?

Your website will include a blog and this keeps your website fresh and easy to find in search engines. It’s also important to regularly update and review the other pages to your website. About the Author has your biographical profile and a good headshot, at the least. About the Book is your synopsis which you prepared for your book proposal. You may have a page that is a photo gallery, or media coverage, news and events or others specific to your book project. Perhaps you plan to include a short excerpt. If you are writing non-fiction and memoir, it is not recommended that you blog your book manuscript. Doing so is like giving your content away free. This makes it tough for a publisher to print for profit that which is available for free online.

Keep tabs on the author sites of books you list in your comparative title analysis. This will help you position and package your own book project in the online community of readers and writers. You’ll also observe your competitors’ social media marketing behaviors and learn what works and what doesn’t. And give yourself time to build a national platform; a year to 18 months before your publication date.

Your social media strategy should be specific and suitable to you, your book, and your audience. Swenson Book Development llc can help you find the right mix of traditional and digital marketing methods and practices to work for you.

I’m behind the dashboard seven days a week. I drive at high speeds and over rough terrain on the electronic byways of the internet. I keep clients’ motors running smooth and fix them when they’re not. I’ve got topnotch mechanics and superb copy monkeys in our garage dedicated to quality service and customer satisfaction. We advise our clients on proper care, maintenance schedules for tune-ups and replacement of parts, and provide roadside assistance on the internet highway.

So, with some embarrassment, I admit we haven’t taken our own advice on the care and maintenance of swensonbookdevelopment.com during the past year. It’s as though I hadn’t changed the oil since I drove the new model off the lot last March. I just kept filling it up with gas and ignored everything but the fuel gauge on the dashboard.

“You’ll drive that car right into the ground,” would be a good mechanic’s response to such negligence. This IS like your Daddy’s Cadillac. An author imbues their social status and personal brand with a website. Change your oil every 3 months, once a season, or every 3,000 miles. Such routine maintenance of an automobile is the owner’s responsibility.

Likewise, scheduled updates and improvements to one’s website and electronic persona need to be quarterly with an annual review. The link between routine oil changes and scheduled maintenance and development of one’s website is an important one. You want it to last and work and run like a Cadillac.

In our own long overdue makeover, we encountered a snag in the final technical execution and one, two, three of the team suddenly suffered various health crises. Claire Webber brought her technical skills and knowledge to the recent launch of our website redesign. And in so doing, reminded me that a website is never “finished.” There is no final version published. Your website is your real estate, just as much as you (or your bank) own your car. Make changes routinely and as needed.

This goes beyond the updates you post on your blog page. If you have a new magazine feature article published, that static page of your publications needs to be updated immediately. These tweaks are a driver’s way on the dashboard to steer the hills, bumps, and curves of the avenues you course on the internet highway. Get better mileage? YES. The search engines find your new content and send traffic to your website. Help pull readers to your writing, by routine care and maintenance of your site.

This year we encouraged you to track your social media metrics, using Google Analytics, in the first quarter. Claire Webber provided many useful posts about managing this information during the past three months. In January, we recommended you update your bio and your electronic identity. In February, the business of being an author involves organizing a lot of email. Claire Webber offered several posts on using Gmail as a writer’s resource and tool.

We hope you like our new website makeover. Though I loved that old model (sigh). 

But what we needed is more fuel efficiency, cleaner and simpler for today’s economy and road conditions. We’ve been taking it out on a number of test rides  and we like it, but it’s still a work-in-process. If you need a tune-up, driving lessons, a fix or technical question about your author website, we may be able to help you, or help you do-it-yourself.

In the coming season and through the end of the year, we hope to help you add a stereo system (radio podcasts), GPS system (webinars) and mechanic manuals and specs (electronic paid downloads) to your operating mode of internet transportation. The technological opportunities continue to expand for authors in pulling readers to their content and converting them into book customers. Making it a more pleasant ride for authors and readers for the love of books will continue to be the subject of future blogs here.

Please let us know what you think of our makeover.

Fiction and memoir share a structural emphasis on narrative arc. In fiction, this is called a plot line. After setting the scene and introducing the characters through some dialogue and action, there is an inciting incident which creates tension or conflict and pushes the plot forward in a series of escalating incidents that reach a climax and eventual denouement. Real life rarely follows such a clean trajectory of chronological events so the writer must take liberties with the structural development of the story. A memoir is more than a chronicle of events, it’s a hero’s journey of personal transformation. This should not be misunderstood as permission to alter the facts, but to rise to the challenge of writing your story to provide the reader with its intended cathartic effect.

The writer of memoir is a narrator. The reader only knows what the writer narrates. The narrator in memoir must also be the protagonist, the major character in a story with which the audience with identify and champion. Many writers in their first draft of manuscripts haven’t reflected back upon how they have introduced and presented themselves to the reader. They’ve often given a great deal of consideration to the representations of other characters in their memoirs. Concerns about protecting privacy, anonymity, family secrets, legal and financial ramifications for those who might read about themselves in your book can blind you to your own self-presentation as a character.

Review your manuscript from the opening page to the last with your main character in mind. How do you introduce yourself to the reader? How do you deepen the disclosures of conflict between characters and within the protagonist? Do you use interior dialogue? Can you conjure a character sketch of yourself from what is revealed in  your manuscript? Does this sketch mirror your current biographical profile?

In book publishing today the author is the brand and the book is the product. In the genre of memoir this is paramount to preparing for publication. Not only  are your writing talents on review, but your personal story and experiences go under public scrutiny by every reader. That’s heavy. Fiction writers may be attached to their fictional characters but if someone doesn’t like a character or their actions they don’t dislike the author. What are the character traits you can highlight as marketing features? If you are the brand, how will you brand yourself in the marketplace of memoir writers?

The presentation of self as an author in your manuscript is a process of personal construction through careful editing. Publishing is going public and unlike other genres your sense of self and personal identity are intimately tied up with contents of your book. Before you submit your manuscript to an agent or acquisition editor, a final self-reflective reading of your manuscript for your own character’s sake is highly recommended.

Has all of this made you self-conscious? Effect intended. Self-consciousness is a good thing for writers. It’s not the same thing as self-editing and stuffing down those uncomfortable feelings. Instead explore them. Readers like narrators who are flawed humans situated in interesting circumstances. Your readers want to you know that you are not okay. Finding your authentic voice as a narrator and telling your truth is the literary challenge to memoir.

What kind of narrator are you? Paint a portrait of yourself as the protagonist in your hero’s journey.

Write two pages drawing upon your memories for each of these prompts.

• Recall a time when you wore the wrong shoes for the occasion. Describe the occasion, your apparel, and the resulting mismatch.
• Do you remember someone who told you a secret? Did you keep it or not? What was the secret? Why was it a secret? And what did you do with the secret?
• What is one thing you lost and have never found?
• What are you afraid of that you don’t want others to know you fear? How do you keep this phobia undercover?
• Imagine you are listening to live music. What songs do you hear? Where are you? With whom? When?
• Remember the last time you knew you were in real deep trouble? 
• When did you apologize for something you did not do? Describe the situation and your decision to accept blame.
• Describe your most embarrassing moment.
• What do you always have close at hand?
• What is the one physical activity you enjoy alone? What is that experience like for you?
• Sun. Wind. Water. Earth. Stone. Fire. Pick one of these elements and your own personal connections and associations to your memories. 
• Picture in your mind a time and place where you tasted fish. Write about that moment. Where are you? Describe the scene. Who are you with? Introduce the characters in your story. What are you doing? Action and dialogue and perhaps a bit of plot. 

If you write two pages for each of these you’ll begin to see recurring characters, themes, patterns, and threads common across the shimmering images you paint with words. This kickstarts the process of turning personal essays into a memoir with a narrative arc.

What does a book development editor do?

• Professionally assess your manuscript or book concept for its publishing potential
• Offer critical feedback and editorial guidance
• Serve as writing coach as the author completes a manuscript
• Collaborate in the development of a winning book proposal
• Position and package the book concept to specific publishers
• Research what publishers are looking for in the current market
• Conduct market research on target audience and how to reach your readers
• Identify competitive titles in the current marketplace of ideas
• Create a marketing strategy and assist in building an audience platform
• Provide guidance in the business of publishing

A book development editor functions as:

• Advocate for an author and his or her intellectual property
• Doula who assists with the birth of a writing project
• Editor for that last push before submission
• Critic who will tell authors what they need to hear in order to improve
• Matchmaker who knows specific acquisition editors at particular publishers for your project
• Negotiator who will fight to get the best deal for an author
• Mediator between author and publisher to fix problems
• Liaison between the publishing community and the author
• Champion for an author’s work including subsidiary, foreign and dramatic rights
• Mentor who will assist in developing an author’s career
• Marketing strategist who has your brand as an author in mind
• Career coach for all aspects of your profesional writing profile
• Educator about changes in the publishing industry
• Manager of the business side of your writing life

A book development editor is NOT an agent, which means s/he does not work on commission of the sale of your intellectual property. The book development editor charges you for professional services; and the fees may vary according to the type of service you contract for. Your editor is not compensated by agents or publishers for referrals.

A book development editor is NOT a publisher and discourages most authors from self-publishing. While self-publishing and e-books have their place—wedding albums, company histories, scrapbooks, family stories, gift books, church directories, cookbooks—the bulk of self-publishing initiatives are poor investments. These ventures usually take more money from authors in publishing fees than they generate in book sales.

A book development editor IS an editor and someone the author hires—often before the manuscript is completed—to provide editorial support, advice, and guidance. The development editor tells that writer what works, what doesn’t, what needs to happen and how to do it. A writer hires a developmental editor to deliver the truth and to provide options for making the book come to life.

Many book development editors specialize in genres (fiction or non-fiction), even subgenres, and they do not accept all clients for their services. A book development editor usually has particular areas of expertise with a particular network of agents and publishers. A book development editor maintains professional relations with these agents and publishers, and knows what they are looking for in new material.

Many publishers are delighted to know the author has invested in working with a developmental editor. It implies the author will be able to deliver a manuscript according to stylistic and digital submission requirements in a timely fashion, build an audience platform using social media prior to book launch, and has someone to assist with the stresses, complexities and demands of publication, marketing and sales.

If you are serious about publishing your memoir or narrative non-fiction book manuscript, then a book development editor may be what you need. Let Swenson Book Development, LLC help you navigate the headwaters of the publishing industry in these turbulent times.

The Business CENTS program at AFCU provided direction and guidance in the formation of Swenson Book Development LLC. Their workshops and programs continue to provide valuable resources to the growth of the business. And its clients.

In fact, I highly recommend an upcoming workshop at AFCU to local writers. It’s a 7 part series facilitated by Matteo Wyllamz (@mouselink) starting March 22nd. Internet Marketing is the best introduction for an author to the secrets of building an audience platform online. Especially valuable is his Do-It-Yourself and On-A-Budget perspective.

The success of any new small business depends on results. For Swenson Book Development LLC the proof is in our clients’ publications. Next month Cathryn Prince has a new book, Death in the Baltic: World War II Sinking of the Wilhelm Gustloff, released by Palgrave-Macmillan. In the past two years, our clients’ books make their own kind of spine poetry. Honored to work with these clients and privileged to bring good books to life.

There are some emails that we want to be alerted to, but don’t need associated with the urgency of an unread message. To have messages like package tracking updates or weekly newsletters enter your inbox unbolded, create a ‘Mark as Read’ filter with relevant keywords or emails.

Automatically Attach a Label to Incoming Messages

If you’ve already created a label structure, you can have messages enter your inbox already labeled. For instance, if you use Gmail to manage multiple email accounts, you can have emails sent to a certain email get attached to a label to easily find messages to that account.

Automatically Group Messages From Different People

I get a lot of messages from the team at Swenson Book Development. If you have a group of people that have some connecting tie, like family or work friends, you can automatically group them with a label. When creating a filter, just add OR between their different email addresses.

Automatically Mark Messages as Important

There are certain phrases that tip you off that a message is important – ‘Urgent’ ‘Emergency’ ‘HELP!’. To create a filter that automatically marks these messages as important, add the terms you want to use to the ‘Has the words’ text box (seperated with OR and between quotation marks if it’s a phrase). Click off the box for ‘always mark it as important’.

Banish Spam to Trash or Automatically Delete Unwanted Messages

Google has a spam filter, but if you’re getting messages you know you don’t want send them directly to the shredder with a filter

For example, I was getting messages from a mailing list that wouldn’t believe me when I said I wanted to unsubscribe. Instead of getting upset, I got filtering. I created a filter that would automatically delete messages from them – and haven’t seen those messages since.

There are lots more ways to use filters – let us know your fresh ideas in the comments.

Search Gmail by a Date Range

Click on the downward arrow on the far right of your Gmail search box to open search options. Enter a date range and any additional search operatives. In this case, I’m searching for messages from Jill Swenson that arrived within 1 day of February first.

Tada! Messages from Jill from a one-day range of February 1st.

Search Gmail for Attachments

If you are looking for a specific attachment, start by clicking the downward arrow for search options. Choose a relevant keyword and select the ‘Has Attachment box’.

Bingo. Quickly find the attachment you’re looking for.

Search within a Certain Label

While in the search option box, click the ‘All Mail’-labeled dropdown message. You can choose to search through a specific label instead of through your entire mail archive.

Search Gmail for Messages With One Phrase and Without Another

I’m trying to find a message from Jill about a book review that’s not about one of our favorite authors and clients, Cathryn Prince. To do this, I add “Book Review” to the ‘Has the words’ text box and ‘Cathryn’ to the ‘Doesn’t have’ text box.

And there I have it – all my messages with one phrase and without another.

You may not have folders in Gmail, but you certainly have more computational power. Combine these searches to find anything in your Gmail archive – there’s no need to ever file your email messages again.

Gmail makes the likelihood of this nightmare almost an impossibility with Archive, an action that effectively files your email out of your inbox while keeping it incredibly close at hand.

What does Archive do in Gmail?

Archiving a message moves it from your inbox to your ‘All Mail’ label. Think of your inbox like your kitchen table and your ‘All Mail’ like a filing cabinet; you only want items you are actively working on out on your table/inbox – everything else is stored safely out of site.

To access all mail, click on the ‘More’ tab located on the left hand navigation.  ‘All Mail’ will be towards the top.

Finding Items in Your Archive

The thing about ‘All Mail’ is it really is all your mail. It’s a huge, glutted pile of all of your interactions - just scrolling through ‘All Mail’ is not a very productive pursuit.

Luckily, Gmail is a part of Google, the absolute monarch of search programs.

There are two ways to find items in your archive – through labels or searching. Labels are great, but it’s an absolute waste of time to create labels for individual people or companies. Instead, the bulk of your email finding will be through searching.

Searching in Gmail – The Basics

Using the search bar at the top of the page, enter the name or email address of the person whose messages you are trying to locate. You can enter their name OR email, but chances are Google will guess who you’re looking for before you finish typing. Hit enter, and voila – all the messages this person has sent you, including archived messages

There Aren’t Folders in Gmail

The biggest change to get used to for people who use Windows Live Mail and Outlook is Gmail’s lack of folders. Here’s the thing – you don’t need folders at all! Instead of taking the time to file your email, the archive button is a one-step process for everyone. With a powerful search engine at your disposal, you can let Google do the Grunt work.

Coming up – Advanced Gmail Searching

You have some automatically created labels when you sign up for Gmail, but labels become infinitely more useful when you customize them to your emailing habits.

Managing Labels in Gmail

To see and manage labels you’ve already created, click on the gear icon on the right hand side of the page and select ‘Settings’. Click ‘Labels’ – it’s just to the left of the ‘General’ tab.

‘Show in Label List’ means showing up on the left hand navigation bar – if you choose to hide a label here, it will still be accessible when you click ‘More’ but it won’t be right at your finger tips. To keep things tidy, only have your most important labels show up here.

‘Show in Message List’ means showing up in your inbox. If you choose to hide messages here, they’ll still be accessible by searching, by clicking on All Mail, or by clicking on the label.

To add an eye-catching color to a label, click on the downwards-pointing arrow that appears when you hover over the message in the left hand navigation. (You can also edit or manage your labels through this menu).

When to Use – or Not Use – Gmail Labels

It’s tempting to create a label for every person you communicate – don’t.

Instead, think of labels as broader connections between messages. Create a label for extra email accounts you manage through Gmail, or for emails about planning a vacation, or messages you need to act on in the future. Having too many labels gunks up the effectiveness of the ones you have.

Instead, use labels that connect ideas instead of individual people’s messages or a single subject area – your productivity will thank you.

I want you to imagine what your inbox looks like.

Is it crammed with over 200 messages? Are your important emails rubbing shoulders with expired coupons? Is it enough to make you consider moving to an off-the-grid hermitage?

It doesn’t need to be this way.

If you use Gmail, you have access to filters – you can automatically manage the flow of email to your inbox. On it’s own, Gmail can archive, sort, label, and delete your incoming messages.

How do I create a Filter?

• While in Gmail, click the gear icon on the right hand corner of the page. Select ‘Settings’ from the dropdown menu.
• Click ‘Filters’ on the next page – it’s between ‘Accounts and Import’ and ‘Forwarding Pop/Imap’
• Click on the link that says ‘Create Filter’ – this will be at the bottom of the page once you start creating Filters. This is also where you will manage Filters after you’ve made them.
• Create the Filter according to your needs.

Don’t know what kinds of filters you can set up? Let’s create one to solve a very common inbox bloat offended – coupons you want, but don’t want in your inbox.

Create a Filter to Keep Online Coupons out of Your Inbox

• Start by creating a Label called ‘Coupons’ or ‘Deals’ – something that’ll tip you off to its content
• Follow the instructions above to get to the Filter creation menu.
• You have a couple of options to alert the filter that an incoming message is a coupon. If you know the email that’ll be sending you deals, add that to the ‘From’ text box. Multiple emails can be input at one time – Just separate them with the phrase ‘OR’.
• You can also use words or phrases to tip off a filter. For example, a common phrase in coupons is ‘shipping on orders over’, as in ‘free shipping on orders over $50’. Toss that phrase in the ‘Has the words’ text box to filter coupons before you’ve gotten the first one. Remember to put phrases in quotation marks, though – otherwise, anytime an email contains the individual words ‘shipping’ ‘on’ ‘orders’ or ‘over’, it’ll get nabbed by your filter.
• Click on ‘Create filter with this search’
• We’re creating a filter to keep coupons out of our inbox – to do this, we can select ‘skip the inbox’ and ‘apply label:coupons’. If you already have an inbox full of these messages, you can select ‘also apply filter to X matching messages’ to perform the operation on pre existing messages.
• Click ‘Create Filter’.

With this filter in place, coupons won’t go to your inbox; they’ll be archived and can be reached either by searching for them, or more conveniently through the label you created. Your coupons will now be accessible when you want to look for a great deal but won’t clog up your inbox.

What else can I do with Filters?

Stay tuned for more ideas to keep your inbox tidy and productive!

“After 5 years, eBooks is a multi-billion dollar category for us and growing fast — up approximately 70% last year,” said Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. “In contrast, our physical book sales experienced the lowest December growth rate in our 17 years as a bookseller, up just 5%. We’re excited and very grateful to our customers for their response to Kindle and our ever expanding ecosystem and selection.”

But just because the eBook is exploding doesn’t  mean you need to buy a new device to experience this new frontier in reading. Alternatives are cropping up all over, and most of them have the best price of all – free.

The Smart Phone as eReader

If you have a Smartphone, consider adding eReader to its roster of features. eBookstores are rolling out apps, and there are options for any device and carrier. Take a look at the Kindle App, Kobo App, Nook App, and iBooks – or search for eReader in your devices App store to see the latest trending native programs.

If you’re independent minded, there’s Stanza, an iPhone phenomena – or snag Eucalyptus, which comes preloaded with 20,000 books.

eReading on the Desktop

We’ve explored the beauty and ease of Calibre, and it still stands as this reader’s desktop-library of choice, but you do have more options.

Google Books is partnered with the Partner Program and the Library Project to bring you hundreds of thousands of titles searchable with Google’s best-of-the-best engine. In addition to the myriad of full, free books available, Google Books functions much like a bookstore – browse chapters (and even search to see if it fits your needs!) then purchase the book through Google Play.

Mantano is the eReader desktop of choice for Academic institutions – if you need a user interface focused on managing citations and e-learning, this will quickly become your eReader alternative of choice.

If the digital reading bug hasn’t bitten you yet, maybe one of these programs will do the trick!

Do you have a favorite eReader alternative I didn’t mention? Let me know in the comments!

Why on a desktop? If you’ve got an eReader, you might not see the point in having a eReader program on your home computer.

But consider:

• Being able to click on links and access websites through the document without the limits of your device
• If you forgot your eReader before a business trip, you’ll always have some reading material at hand
• Accessing DRM-free materials without compromising the integrity of DRM-locked device

If you aren’t the eReader-type, give reading on a screen a try – and if you need convincing, think about:

1. Having access to thousands of free classic and educational books through Bartleby, Project Gutenberg, and the Open Education Resource Commons.
2. Take advantage of content that’s not available anywhere else. Take Stephen King’s essay Guns – it has all of its proceeds going to the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, and is only available digitally.
3. Pay less for reading – Join an eBook lending library, don’t pay for the hardcover version of the latest new release pulp thriller, or consider that Apple is rolling out e-textbooks at $14.99 or less.
4. Giving away eBooks for free is a tried-and-true eReader marketing tactic – take advantage by snagging titles while they’re being given away!

Don’t leave these files strewn about your computer willy-nilly, though – use an eBook manager to keep organized, track your reading, and possibly make your computer your home library.

Read eBooks on your Computer with Calibre

Calibre is a free and open-source eBook management system that does more than just access your eBooks. It’s a fully searchable digital library wunderkid.

First off, if you have an eReader device, don’t worry – Calibre supports virtually every eBook format and can sync with most of them, too. You can switch between reading on your device and your desktop without breaking a sweat.

But it goes beyond books – Calibre can be set up to be your own paperboy, automatically fetching full articles from the New York Times, The Economist, The Guardian, and over 300 other sources.

Best of all, you can connect to your Calibre account through any browser on any computer in the world – you never need to be without your library.

Its author, Guy Kawasaki, wrote most of this bestselling eBook from a 5-by-5 closet of a dorm in UC Santa Barabara, and he had a few choice words about any authors with finicky writing styles in an interview with Upstart Business Journal:

Writers should disavow themselves of the concept of an “ideal venue for writing a book” because it leads to “wimpification”: “I cannot write because the conditions are not ideal.” If you wait until conditions are perfect—the kids are asleep, making straight As, the house is clean, and global warming has been reversed, you’ll never write. A great writer can write under any conditions—not only ideal conditions.

But don’t be fooled by his humble writing venue – he’s a successful startup engineer, entrepreneur, former Apple Evangelist, and possibly the epitome of a new breed of author brand.

As Swenson Book Development wrote about close to two years ago, there are some hard truths about publication and self promotion authors need to understand, and most of it rests on getting out there and making yourself known.

It’s definitely not ‘ideal conditions’ to be an author if you don’t like playing the marketing game. once upon a time all marketing was done by a publishing houses’s sales team, but those times are past; until you’re flipping titles like JK Rowling, there’s an expectation for you to promote your material – and yourself.

Would Mr. Kawasaki think your strategy is ‘wimpified’? Take a deep breath and start the new year with a brave new plan.