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

Crowded mind? Here's how to take the pressure off

Crowded mind? Here's how to take the pressure off

If there is one thing guaranteed to hamper your efforts at writing – particularly when writing is just one of numerous things you’re trying to do – it is an overly crowded mind. How can you expect to think creatively if your head is full of ‘stuff’? It’s like trying to find a gemstone in a rubbish tip.

We all know how it goes. You wake up remembering that you need to ring your mother for her birthday. Then you get on with your day. Mid-morning, that task floats across your mind again. It returns at lunchtime, again mid-afternoon and again just before dinner. Then again … late in the evening when it’s too late to call.

Multiply that one thing by the multiple other things that will cross your mind during the day and you will quickly realise why your brain feels so full all the time.

Productivity guru David Allen has been preaching this point for years.

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Write and publish your book in a year – Step 11: Printing

Write and publish your book in a year – Step 11: Printing

You’ve got the book written, edited and proofread, the administration done and a beautifully designed interior and cover. You’re only one step away from having that precious book in your hands: printing.

When it comes to printing there are basically two choices available to you: short run (aka ‘digital printing’ or ‘print on demand’) and long run (aka ‘offset’). Your choice will depend on how many copies you want to print, which in turn will depend on how many copies you think you might sell and how much money you want to spend up front. Often – but not always – you will want to print an initial short run to test the market.

As with design, book printing tends to be a specialist field within the broader printing industry. Whoever you use to print your book, you’ll generally be better off dealing with people who print books, rather than brochures, for a living.

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Five great book titles ... and why they work

Five great book titles ... and why they work

There’s not much point going to the effort of writing a book if the end result won’t be noticed by anyone. Which means you need to invest in a) a good cover design and b) a snappy, unforgettable, ‘pick me up’ title and subtitle.

There are no absolutes when it comes to titles and subtitles, except that they shouldn’t be an afterthought. The two things I aim for when helping authors work on a title are: 

  • that the title and subtitle complement each other. Often this means the title is catchy while the subtitle provides a more explicit description of the book’s contents, and
  • that, especially in a business context, the title and subtitle combo sells the benefits to the reader of picking up your book.

Here are five examples of great title/subtitle combinations from the bookshelf in my office...

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The single most important rule when generating ideas

The single most important rule when generating ideas

I had a great idea for a topic for this week’s blog post. Believe me: it was a really good idea. The information I was going to share was pure brilliance. It might even have gone viral. But it won’t now. Unfortunately, I can’t share this idea with you … because I have no idea what it was.

If there’s one golden rule I’ve learnt in my career as a writer, and even before that in business, it is this: 

If you have a good idea, capture it now. Immediately. Straight away.

Otherwise it will likely disappear into the ether.

Unfortunately, even though I know this rule – and the risks of ignoring it – all too well, I still forget it from time to time.

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A handy weapon in the war on procrastination

A handy weapon in the war on procrastination

Confronting any writing task is a recipe for procrastination. After all, most writing requires some level of research, and that means jumping on to the internet – and while you’re there you might as check Facebook, and quickly find out when that new movie is showing, and what’s news in the football draft, and…

Then there is the challenge of staying focused on a difficult writing task. The challenged mind starts to wander off, body in tow, to greener pastures – a quick coffee, walk around the block or even, in a home office, a load of washing.

Is it any wonder you can get to the end of the week and wonder where the time went and why you don’t have much to show for it?

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Write and publish your book in a year – Step 10: Proofreading

Receiving your fully laid out book back from the designer is often the first time it feels like a ‘real thing’. Even though all you get is an electronic file – usually a PDF – it looks like a real book for the first time.

But the job’s not done yet. From the outset I have talked about the fact that a book is different from most other writing projects. It needs to be done right. More than right. It needs to be done as perfectly as possible. So the next step – proofreading – is as important as any other.

Proofreading is not copyediting. Yes, there are similarities of course. But where copyediting is like the final quality control check on a car (checking that nothing is missing, and that everything is in the right place), proofreading is like the final detailing before delivery – making sure your book really shines.

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5 reasons I find Dropbox essential to my toolkit

5 reasons I find Dropbox essential to my toolkit

It’s getting awfully overcast on the World Wide Web. More and more of everything we do is, or can be, stored in the cloud, accessed from the cloud and run from the cloud. Sure, using the cloud has its risks, as Jennifer Lawrence recently discovered, but if used carefully and knowledgeably those risks, in my view, are far outweighed by the benefits.

Over the years I’ve used various different services for online backup, sharing files and ‘access anywhere’. My favourite, mainly because of its ease of use, has been Dropbox.

Recently, Dropbox Pro, the paid version of the service, has become an even more valuable tool with its (practically) unlimited 1 terabyte storage allowance and additional security features. I really don’t need any other cloud service anymore.

Here are five things I like about Dropbox...

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Write and publish your book in a year – Step 9: Design

Write and publish your book in a year – Step 9: Design

Visit this blog’s ‘Write a book’ category page for previous posts in this series.

When I set out to publish my very first book back in 2005, I never expected to sell many of them (and I met my expectations!). It was more of an experiment: I wanted to prove that it was possible to produce a self-published book that didn’t look self-published.

I couldn’t understand why so many independently published books look, well, amateurish.

What did I learn? I learnt that my hunch was correct. Trade published books look professionally designed because theyare professionally designed. In contrast, many self-published books look like their design was an afterthought … because it was.

Bottom line: if you want your book to look the part, invest in a designer. In fact you may even need two designers: one for the inside of the book (the ‘layout’), and one for the cover. The skills for these two tasks are fairly different and many designers are better at one than the other.

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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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Quote me on this: using single and double quotation marks

Quote me on this: using single and double quotation marks

This is a small thing but being aware of it will help your writing appear more professional.

I’ve written in the past about the need to have a consistent writing style. Nothing shouts ‘amateur’ more than a mixture of American and British spellings on a website, the same word spelt in different ways or, worse still, a variable treatment of the way you spell your own company’s name. (It does happen.)

A common area for written content to become unkempt is in the use of quotation marks to mark speech and to emphasise words. I see this most often in blog posts. So let’s go to school on that.

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