Technology
David Brewster
My book ghostwriting tools in 2021

Every now and then I’m asked about the various resources I use when I’m working on ghostwriting a book. These things change occasionally, so I thought it would be a good idea to share what I am using as my main book writing tools in 2021. So here they are: from recording interviews to organising to drafting to (almost) collaborating.

My book ghostwriting tools in 2021
Work Life
David Brewster
When to avoid showing your vulnerable side

Being willing to reveal a bit of yourself, especially through a bit of self-effacing humour, will lighten your text and give your readers something to connect to.

But this blog post is not about that sort of vulnerability.

No, this time I want to remind you of two of the less inspiring but just-as-important vulnerabilities every writer faces. Those vulnerabilities are backup and data security.

I was reminded recently about this by a rare computer crash that led to me losing a small amount of work. It wasn’t important and was easily recovered, but it could have been so much worse. Imagine losing a whole book to a hard drive crash!

When to avoid showing your vulnerable side
Write a book
David Brewster
No time, money or skill? You can still get your ...

If there’s one thing you learn from spending a chunk of your career in the world of books and writing, it’s that there are a lot of great stories out there. Personal stories of remarkable success against the odds. Business stories of risk taking and growth. Political stories of intrigue and persistence.

It would be great if all these stories could be told. As Spanish philosopher George Santayana famously wrote, ‘Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it’. Ideally, the stories would be recorded in books because books last. They go onto shelves and into libraries. They won’t disappear or become unreadable with new technologies.

Unfortunately, many terrific stories are never written down. Sometimes that’s because their owners don’t want to share them. Often

No time, money or skill? You can still get your book written
Reviews
David Brewster
The ghostwriter's nightmare scenario

Ghostwriter characters don't make it into fiction very often, but when they do they always seem to find themselves in jeopardy. 

In the 2010 Roman Polanski film The Ghost Writer, Ewan McGregor plays a ghostwriter working for a former British prime minister. In the end he knows too much and ... it doesn't end well. 

In the Netflix series House of Cards, Paul Sparks plays ghostwriter Thomas Yates who, after struggling to extract a decent memoir out of the president, fails to keep his professional distance, you might say. It takes a while – three seasons in fact – but it doesn't end well for him either.

And now we have Australian writer Richard Flanagan's latest novel, First Person, in which the narrator is a ghostwriter hired to author the memoir of a notorious conman. The story was inspired by Flanagan's own experience, very early in his career, of ghostwriting the autobiography of fraudster John Friedrich in 1991.

The ghostwriter's nightmare scenario
Writing
David Brewster
The joy of a good yarn

I love that my work as a ghostwriter gives me the opportunity to help people get their stories told. What I love even more is the fact that working on other people's stories gives me a front-row seat to those yarns.

Take Around the Grounds, for instance – a book that will be released by Finch Publishing on August 1. 

For this book I've been working with former ABC radio broadcaster Peter Newlinds. Peter's story is a celebration of sport, but from the spectator's side of the fence. This perspective gives the story a level of accessibility that most sporting memoirs, written as they are by former players, can't have. Few of us have the ability to play elite sport, but all of us are more than capable of joining in from the relative safety of the stands.

Of course we don't all have access to the commentary box as Peter did…

The joy of a good yarn

ms word

5 rules for writers when working with fonts

5 rules for writers when working with fonts

I was a bit misty eyed during the week after reading of the death of Hermann Zapf. Zapf was a typographer and font designer. He gave us the widely used Palatino typeface, Optima (one of my favourite fonts) and the Zapf Dingbats (you’ve probably used some of them), amongst others.

To be honest I hadn’t heard of Zapf before. What made me go all nostalgic was the thought of what this 96-year-old had seen over his life and that he will continue to make his mark, via his fonts, for many years to come.

I’ve always loved a good font. However, as a writer I’m also aware of the potential dangers of being a ‘fontoholic’. Believe me, there are a lot of fonts out there if you go looking for them.

Here are the five strategies I use in order to manage this condition.

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How long does my book need to be?

How long does my book need to be?

The title of this post is one of the most common questions I get from people looking to write their first book. It’s usually code for, “I have to write how much?”. Most people either have no idea how long a book should be (which is perfectly understandable), or they have a slightly off-centre idea.

Judging a book by its thickness

The thickness of a book is not really a good indication of how much work has gone into it. A book’s thickness depends on a host of factors beyond the number of words. For instance, the paper used: the ‘bulky cream’ off-white paper often used by mainstream publishers is lighter but about 1.5 times thicker than pure-white (office) paper.

Then there is the ‘trim size’ (i.e. the height and width)...

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The power of outlining in Microsoft Word

The power of outlining in Microsoft Word

Regular readers will know that I am not a big fan of Microsoft Word. That’s not to say that it doesn’t have some handy features – it’s just that too often those features are hidden underneath layers of complexity.

The ‘outline’ view is a case in point*. Outline view has been around since the earliest versions of Word, yet many people still don’t know about it or use it.

Depending on your version of Word, the outline view can be accessed via the ‘View > Outline’ menu item, the ‘Outline’ tab (some Windows versions) or the ‘Outline’ button at the bottom of the screen (left side for Mac, right side for Windows).

Here are three powerful things you can do with an MS Word outline:

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3 ways to share documents without the generation gap

3 ways to share documents without the generation gap

Anyone who regularly shares digital documents with others will be familiar with the occasional cry of “Sorry, I can’t open the attachment”, or words to that effect. While document sharing is much better than it used to be, problems still surface from time to time due to incompatibility issues.

The most common scenario I come across is with Microsoft Word. I send someone a file with the .docx suffix which can’t be opened at the other end. The reason? My correspondent is still running an older version of Microsoft Word that can only read.doc files.

Ever listened to a bunch of teenagers talking on the train and wondered that they seem to be speaking the same language as you, but you can hardly understand a word they’re saying? To avoid going into the technicalities, let’s just say the software generation gap is analogous to this.

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Color or colour? Are you writing your English right?

Color or colour? Are you writing your English right?

Ever noticed that your computer and phone speak a different dialect of English from yours? How they think 'colour', 'analyse' and 'centre' are spelling mistakes when you know for a fact that they are spelled correctly? For the most part, those of us who write the Queen's English have become so used to being erroneously corrected by our computers that we don't even notice it any more.

It's time to do something about it.

Very broadly, there are two main English 'dialects' when it comes to spelling. The main differences are in word endings...

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