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

pdf

PDF: still a great way to securely share your documents

PDF: still a great way to securely share your documents

There is a lot of talk in these and other pages about the use of the ‘ePub’ and other ebook formats formats to get your book onto the digital market. However there will be times when you don’t want to go to any trouble: you just want to share a document, ideally with some level of security to prevent it being easily duplicated.

In these cases the good old-fashioned PDF file may well be your answer. PDFs have a number of advantages for quick and easy sharing:

  • They are easy to create from any application’s ‘print’ menu.
  • They can be read on virtually any computer, tablet or smartphone, no matter the operating system, and normally without the reader having to install additional software.
  • They replicate the formatting and layout of your document, no matter what sort of device the recipient chooses to read it on.
  • While not absolutely bullet proof, they can be made secure in a number of ways.
  • They are often smaller files than their word processor equivalents.

The PDF is as close as you will get to a ‘digital photocopy’.

Posted by

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.

Posted by

Demystifying ebook formats: what every self-publisher needs to understand

Publishing your own work these days is ridiculously easy compared with the ‘olden days’ (aka the twentieth century). Pretty much anyone can compile an ebook and have it for sale, or giveaway, within hours. However, if you have something you think would be worth publishing – an ebook, an e-brochure, a collection of blog posts – you will quickly find that navigating the e-publishing world can be like swimming in soup.

One of the most confusing aspects of e-publishing is the variety of file formats available. Do you publish your ebook or other e-work as a PDF file, an EPUB file or in ‘Kindle’ format? Or all three? Or something else?

It’s important to understand that there is no right answer to this question. The format(s) you choose will depend on what you are publishing and how you want it to be received by your readers.

Posted by