Where you currently have | aaa | replace the aaa with the data from the first box. The "number" identifies "your" page as opposed to someone else. Take the code from the second box and paste it directly above the "/body" of the page. ANCILLARY BENEFITS
I'm sure you google yourself or your book from time to time. One of the great things about using sites like BookTour is you get more exposure on the Internet. First there are the listing from BookTour itself and since it is a fairly large site with lots of links it gets a high SEO ranking. This alone is worth listing your venues here.
Another benefit is many newspapers and other websites are "hooked" into BookTour and take content from it. For instance for this article I did a google and found 5 newspapers that were linking to events I had in BookTour and Goodreads also pulls events from it to present to its millions of online readers.
WRAPPING IT ALL UP
I'm the first one to admit that book signings are not the best way to spread the word about your book - they are time consuming for the amount of exposure and number of sales you actually get. However, they are great for "establishing creditability" for your work. If you are going through the time and effort you need to make the best of it and using BookTour is a great resource to utilize.
 www.netflix.comWe just saw this fabulous movie at a fabulous theater ( old and ornate) on the street where it all started. I have taken it for granted since we moved here that the Castro, where we spend much time, was not always a safe place to be gay. Acceptance happened not just from an overwhelming number of gay people moving into the neighborhood, but from the work of Harvey Milk and his "recruits." This movie illuminates both how far we have come and how far we have yet to go. Go see it now! *** Watching the Oscars right now, and Dustin Lance Black, screenwriter of Milk, won for Best Original Screenplay. He made an exceptional acceptance speech, thanking Milk for the courage he had given him to come out, and telling youth that no matter what anyone tells them, it is not wrong to be gay. Sean Penn just won Best Actor, thanking the "commie, homo-loving sons of guns." He also took the opportunity to tell the supporters of Proposition 8 that they should take the time to reflect on what they have done and how ashamed their grandchildren will be of them if they remain so anti-civil rights for gays. Apparently something happened to their cars on the way into the Oscars as well - some people can't even tolerate such a film. Such a shame.
As it turns out, the streetcar goes crazy Saturday evening. We usually take the subway from downtown to the Castro, but some sort of delays occurred, and the station was packed, so we headed above ground to the F Train. That's right. And the aboveground is a different world than the underground. The ride started out with someone slipping in the back door, a shouting match between two men blamed on either "Iraq" or "a rock" depending on if you ask me or my seat mate, a lady who got off after announcing to the train that she had bladder cancer and required a catheter, and a tourist with a giant camera who was taking his daughter to the Castro. While the underground is generally uneventful, apparently the streetcar is full of all the color. It reminded me of taking the bus in Albuquerque.
I love Will Smith. Unfortunately he may have been a little crazy in this movie. And I could have done without all the suspense. And probably with less religion. However, it does make one think about the unknown consequences of messing with biology and chemistry. Who knows when we will accidentally unleash something terrible (...or maybe I'm talking about global climate change)? Its short length of 90 minutes is the only thing that might tempt me to recommend checking out this movie just once. But you could also spend your time doing other things...
Figured we had to go see this if only to check out Heath Ledger's performance. Definitely creepy as the Joker, and of course sad that he died. I don't care much for Batman though, and could have done without this movie. Alas...
I have finally discovered what life was like before Target and Walmart. Welcome to Cliff's Variety, the Castro's store that has it all, and at reasonable prices! Who needs to take a train to the suburbs to go to Target when one can walk down the street to Cliff's and pick up kitchen gadgets, tools, gardening supplies, toys, art supplies, and liberal baby clothes? What a fantastic place! I have always loved Target, and hated Walmart, although I have known all along I should be supporting the stores that big boxes drive out of business. Now I have such a store to support. Before I even discovered Cliff's I was telling a friend that I loved San Francisco because you could do everything without ever going to a chain store. In our beloved Castro, we have restaurants, coffee shops, the Castro theater, a flower shop, book stores, PO Plus, and so much more. We have a phenomenal cookie shop and a chocolate shop that sells tasty organic peanut butter cups. And now Cliff's. What more could a girl want?
Now, having read all 5 books that were shortlisted in 2008 for the Giller Prize awarded for Canadian fiction, here is the order that I would rank them in...
Drumroll please...
1. Through Black Spruce - Joseph Boyden 2. Good to a Fault - Marina Endicott 3. Barnacle Love - Anthony De Sa 4. Cockroach - Rawi Hage 5. The Boys in the Trees - Mary Swan
So I agree with the judges, who also chose Through Black Spruce as the top book of the year. It was a brilliant book, and I have since purchased Boyden's first book, Three Day Road, and look forward to reading it - watch for future postings. And the story and characters of Good to a Fault have stayed with me beyond the first reading - I will probably go back and re-read it in the future - the sign of a good book.
Interesting to note that two of the shortlisted books this year deal with the "Immigrant Experience".
And I am doing my very best to forget The Boys in the Trees. It has not grown on me with time.
This year, I should try to read all of the books after the shortlist is compiled, before the winner is announced!
This is the fifth and final Giller nominee, my reading of all of the shortlisted books having been interrupted by a few library books. This book is different from the others, in that it is a collection of 10 interconnected short stories - each one can be read independently of the others, but read together they form the portrait of a family. In the first half of the book, the head of the family, Manuel, arrives in Newfoundland in the mid-1950s after being "lost overboard" from a Portuguese fishing boat and gradually builds a life for himself in his adopted country. His background is gradually revealed - his abuse by the parish priest as a child, his mother's reluctance for him to move away from his village and her rejection of his wife, and Manuel's eventual rejection of his mother.
The second half of the the book is set a few years later in the late 1970's as Manuel's children struggle to live a double life - as "normal" Canadian children when out of the house, while being the children of immigrants when at home. This is where the tone of the book focuses. Manuel's hopeful ideals of his new country are being shattered, as he comes to grips with the lack of reality of his dream. I think that is where the crux lies - Manuel always had a "dream" of a life in Canada, but that dream was never defined, not even to himself. So an undefined dream can never be fulfilled.
Very good writing in this book, and an interesting plot and characters, but the story probably won't stay with me beyond the reading. It was a great story while I was reading it, but somehow, it just wasn't that memorable (and I only just finished it an hour ago). And I also found the ending to be very clumsy. Almost as if the writer was thinking "In writing school, they told us that ambiguous endings would make the readers think, and therefore your book will make a greater impression."
Now on to sum up the nominees....
I need help. I have always followed my mother's advice to use a daily moisturizer with SPF on all exposed skin; of course to help prevent skin cancer. As I have been moving toward organics in all my beauty products, I searched for a moisturizer without parabens and sodium laurel sulfates, but I also wanted to try a non-chemical sunscreen. So I paid a fair penny for an organic daily moisturizer with mineral sunscreen. The problem? It basically makes my face white. No matter how little I put on, and how much I smooth it in, I look ghostly pale. I tried to put my powder on over it, but it won't do the trick. Does anybody have experience with or recommendations for non-chemical sunscreens?
One of my favorite lines that I quote all the time comes from The Princess Bride. Westley comes back to life and needs to know what is going on. Inigo's response is "Let me explain....No, there is too much...let me sum up". That is the inspiration for today's post: Summing up your book. It takes a ton of marketing materials to promote your book: Posters for books signings, bookmarks, postcards, ads, online postings. The list goes on and on. In all of these materials there are two things I use over and over again: Headlines and Blurbs. HEADLINE
The headline is probably the hardest to develop because you have a limited number of words. I suggest you limit it to 15. This needs to be short and snappy. It should be featured prominently in the design (Large lettering on a poster or at the top of an ad) and it needs to draw people in to find out more. There are two techniques that I've used commonly in my advertising career and they work well for books.
3 Sentence Technique
This is a great format because it can have a nice rhythm--a kind of meter that rolls of the tongue. The sentences need to be exceptionally short and to the point. We used this technique for "The Crown Conspiracy" it's headline is: They killed the king. They pinned it on two men. They chose poorly. Yes, it a bit of a play on Indiana Jones and the Lost Crusade but that's not such a bad thing. It also sums up the story pretty well as TCC is about two guys who are framed but ultimately catch the real killer. We have gotten a ton of people who have said "You had me at...." that headline so I think its proven to be a good one.
2 Sentence Twist
Another technique is the "2 sentence twist". This format uses a very simple straightforward statement and then has a twist that makes go "hmm". We used this for "Avempartha" it's headline is: She hired them to save her father. The wizard had other plans. This is designed to illicit questions. What did the father need saving from? What did the wizard want? How did he interfere with the original goal? This book is not out until April 2009 so we'll know if it works or if we have to adjust it as time goes on.
BLURB
The blurb is a single paragraph (no not 2 or 3...it is 1) that you would typically see on the back of a book. If you were published through a traditional publisher your blurb is probably written for you...but don't feel just because they wrote it that you must use it. I've seen some pretty bad blurbs done by very large publishers. If you are fortunate enough to have a good blurb - your task is easy - enter it into your computer and have it easily accessible for copy and paste.
Keep the cat in the bag
Part of the problem with the blurb is you don't want to "give too much away". We toiled and toiled over the blurb for "The Crown Conspiracy" in it how the two main characters get out of jail is quite interesting. If we had "spilled the beans" on the back of the book we would definitely hook people...but they would also get a "spoiler" to the book and not come across this plot point on their own. In the end we decided not to put it in there but the temptation to "say too much" is tough and you should your best to not go too far.
Less is More
I recently finished a book by a new author (I try to support new authors whenever I can - something I encourage all other authors reading this post to do - we need to help one another) and after reading I went to the back of the book and read the blurb - Oh my God. It was a complete summary of the entire book! It's like some of those movie trailers that you see before the main feature and after watching you go - well good I saved $10.00 no reason to see that movie now. If you follow the first rule - 1 paragraph the likelihood this will not happen but since I've seen it happen too often it is worth pointing out.
Tease, please
The point of the blurb is to get someone to want to read the book. Sometimes the best way to do this is to end the blurb in a cliffhanger or to trail off. Ending in a question also works well. What you want to do is engage the reader so don't be afraid to leave the blurb with a bit of a teaser.
Learn by example
Writing a good blurb is not easy but there have been many of them written over the years and sometimes a trip to a library or a bookstore and reading the back of each book will help you to see patterns and develop a blurb that is compelling. Here are the blurbs we created for Michael's too books: The Crown Conspiracy
Royce Melborn, a skilled thief, and his mercenary partner, Hadrian Blackwater make a profitable living carrying out dangerous assignments for conspiring nobles until they become the unwitting scapegoats in a plot to murder the king. Sentenced to death, they have only one way out…and so begins this epic tale of treachery and adventure, sword fighting and magic, myth and legend. Avempartha When a destitute young woman hires Royce and Hadrian to help save her remote village from nocturnal attacks, they are once more drawn into the schemes of the wizard Esrahaddon. While Royce struggles to breech the secrets of an ancient elven tower, Hadrian attempts to rally the villagers to defend themselves against the unseen killer. Once more, what begins with the simple theft of a sword places the two thieves at the center of a firestorm — but this time the outcome could change the future of Elan. PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER
Think long and hard about your headline and blurb. Work them over and over and if you have one that doesn't work don't be afraid to revise it. They are the main tools you have to get the person to buy the book so invest in them wisely and it will directly effect your bottom line.
     We had $75 in free zipcar credits about to expire, so we took a Prius down to Santa Cruz for a little 24-hour trip. Crappy weather, again. Also don't go to Santa Cruz when the Amgen Tour of California is coming through, or you won't actually be able to go anywhere. Will go back in summer.
Last Christmas, my inlaws got me a page-a-day calendar of The Lazy Environmentalist. I recently discovered it at the back of the shelf and realized I hadn't looked at it since December 7th. That's beside the point. The whole calendar has been filled with some iffy suggestions, but I found the entry for December 17th quite peculiar.  Apparently Smencils are ecofriendly because they are made of recycled newspapers instead of wood. That's nice. However, this point seems to reduce the greenness of the product: "Choose from scents like cherry, cinnamon, grape, bubble gum, and orange. Each comes in a tube to keep the smells fresh." Really? Is it a good idea to make a recycled pencil that requires extra packaging, each in its own tube? And the website adds that the recycled newspaper pencils are hardened (in an unidentified process), soaked in fragrance (of unknown origin), and wrapped in stickers (presumably not recycled). Awesome. That is super ecofriendly. People, beware of green washing!
 This walk was nothing we hadn't seen before, mostly because everything was closed by the time we got around to doing it. Cannery Building:  Ghirardelli Square (where we didn't have any ice cream, possibly for the first time ever):  What we missed: S.F. Maritime Visitor Center, Hyde Street Pier Maritime Park, and Maritime Museum. Perhaps we shall go back some time.
 We woke up. It was pouring rain. We walked to the bus stop. It was pouring rain. We entered the subway. The first train did not show up. We got on a bus. A 5K stopped us. We arrived at the Pier, several minutes after the ferry should have left. We got lucky. Continuing our good luck with ferries, a mechanical problem had resulted in a change of boats, delaying departure long enough for us to make the trip. It was still raining. You may wonder why we chose to go to Angel Island on such a lovely day. The truth is, we are cheap. In honor of the re-opening of the Chinese Immigration Station, ferry tickets were just $2 and there was no park entrance fee. The rain apparently didn't stop anyone else either. Although the ferry looks pretty empty in this picture, imagine hundreds of people packed together in tight quarters in the warmer, drier inside cabins.  Visiting the Immigration Station was an excellent experience. Although we chose not to participate in the 1.5 hour ceremony because we had hiking to do, we stopped at the station to learn about the detention experience for thousands of immigrants. Although we originally imagined that maybe Angel Island was not such a terrible place to be detained, as it is quite beautiful, it turns out that the detainees were hardly even allowed to go outside. Miserable. The walls are filled with amazingly carved, inscribed, and painted poetry.  Next, the hike around the island's perimeter road including some old military stations and beautiful views.     Then up the 781 foot Mount Livermore for more views.   The weather and light changed throughout the day, resulting in beautiful views most of the time. It also resulted in pelting rain and slight misery some of the time. I highly recommend this walk, rain or shine. I am glad Matt kicked me out of bed at 6:30 on a weekend morning in the rain. And that's saying something.
I must confess that the first Salman Rushdie book that I read was The Satanic Verses, and that reading was inspired by the controversy that the book itself had inspired. But in reading The Satanic Verses, I discovered an author whose books I continue to enjoy.
The Enchantress of Florence is his latest book, published in 2008 and winner of the Booker Prize. It is vintage Rushdie, with all of the elements of Phantasie (deserving of the old-fashioned spelling), ambiguity and time-bending of his other books, drawn together by beautiful writing. I think that is what I enjoy most about Salman Rushdie's books - he is a true craftsman with the English language, with not a word misplaced. A few excerpts, describing Jodha, the phantom queen created by the Emperor Akbar:
"The creation of a real life from a dream was a superhuman act, usurping the prerogative of the gods. In those days Sikri was swarming with poets and artists, those preening egotists who claimed for themselves the power of language and image to conjure beautiful somethings from empty nothings, and yet neither poet nor painter, musician nor sculptor had come close to what the emperor, the Perfect Man, had achieved."
"She was a woman without a past, separate from history, or, rather, possessing only such history as he had been pleased to bestow upon her, and which the other queens bitterly contested. The question of her independent existence, of whether she had one, insisted on being asked, over and over, whether she willed it or not. If God turned his face away from his creation, Man, would Man simply cease to be?"
The story is a good old-fashioned fairy tale - a princess abducted from the Mogul court who ends up in Persia, the Ottoman empire, Florence, and finally the New World. There are phantoms, magic, and witchcraft galore. The tale is not told in a linear manner but rather jumps back and forth in time and locale. I'm sure that the book isn't to everyone's taste, but I thoroughly enjoyed it!
Now back to finish up my Giller Prize read-athon...
I was having a discussion with an author on-line on GoodReads. He was a bit upset because no one was buying his books. I decided to "checkout his books". In just a short time it became completely clear to me a big part of his problem - I could not (even with a lot of searching on my part) find any sample chapters. Sample chapters are essential, especially for new authors. People would like to "try before they buy" as it were and if you don't give them a place to investigate your work you'll be fighting an uphill battle. WHERE TO PLACE SAMPLESYou should not just think about one way for people to get at sample chapters. You should use a series of weapons in your arsenal including: - Amazon Search Inside the Book
- Google Book Search
- Authors Den Book Excerpts
- GoodReads Excerpts
- Author's Website
- All-in-one Book Page
AMAZON'S SEARCH INSIDE THE BOOK We discussed this a bit in another post I'll refer you there rather than repeat myself. But one thing I should point out about this source of getting a "sample out" - You have no control over "what" is posted. They are going to do a few pages from the front of the book and where it stops may not be at the best place for your book. For "The Crown Conspiracy" the first chapter is a red herring, because the people you are first introduced to are not the "main characters" but bit players. Many people reading about it on Amazon might get the wrong impression so for the chapters I have control over I actually post an excerpt from chapter 2 which does have the main characters in it. GOOGLE BOOK SEARCH
This is very similar to Amazon's Search Inside the Book Program. An example of Michael's Book which is in the program is shown above. It also indexes the entire book but shows a few pages. Again you have no control over what pages are shown in fact in Michael's version it starts (for some inexplicable reason) on page 2 instead of page 1. One of these days I have to fix this. AUTHORS DENOne of these days I have to do an entire post about this site as it offers a ton of great opportunities for authors and is highly ranked in the search engines so it is a good way to get your books high up on Search Engine Optimizations. But one thing I'll bring up for today's post is that they you can post your books and in that posting is a place for putting an excerpt of your book. I HIGHLY recommend that you take the time to pay attention to the formatting when putting into this format. When I cut/pasted from Word there were line and paragraph breaks that were not ideal. So I took the time to put it into notepad, make all the paragraphs on individual lines then pasted it into AuthorsDen. This made a much more attractive and easier to read post. (This is where I eventually found the author's excerpt that I stated above and he did not do this - the overall effect was on of " unprofessionalism"). Remember anything worth doing is worth doing properly so take a few minutes to put your best foot forward. GOODREADSIf you don't have an author profile on GoodReads you really need to. Like AuthorsDen this deserves a post of its own but suffice to say they have an area where authors can showcase their writings as well. Here are some tips for when you post your samples chapters on this venue: - Description is 2048 characters and will allow for html formatting so use for bolding and for italics. I suggest you put the "blurb" from your back of the book and then select a few "choice" reviews and put them here.
- Make sure you set the genre drop down to the most appropriate category for your book if you can't find one that makes sense use "Literary & Fiction" for novels and "Non fiction" as your best "generic" categories
- Tags: On this site tags MUST be single words so take this into account when making your tags
- Don't forget to add your ISBN for the book that the chapter relates to - this ensures a picture of the cover is included and provides a quick link to the Goodreads page for that book
AUTHOR'S WEBSITEAgain I've already covered the importance of an author's website elsewhere on this blog. But it bears repeating that having a books page with a sample chapter with each book is essential. I always recommend having a page where you have the "Blurb" from the back of the book and THEN a button for the sample chapter - so many people drop the readers right into the sample chapter and without context they are lost. Give them the same information that a reader in a store would have.
ALL-IN-ONE-BOOK PAGE This is something that not many people have - but I think it is essential. This is a page that is "independent" of your website (i.e. you would not land on it as a part of your website but it contains everything you would ever want to know about your book in one spot. Again I'll go over this page in more details in a future post but suffice to say that the ability to access the sample chapter must be on this page. FORMAT FOR POSTED SAMPLE
For the pages that you have control over I highly recommend you post them in a . pdf format on 8 1/2" x 11" with ample spacing such that it looks like what it would look like if it were in book form but "blown up" to the larger page size. In other words make it look as much as possible like a real book but allow it to print nicely on their printer. Make sure that on every page you have the following: page number, author name, book title, URL to "All-in-one Book Page". They just might give it to a friend and then they will have all the information required to order their own copy. PICKING THE RIGHT SAMPLE
When posting a "sample" it is not always necessary to choose the first chapter of the book. Although in most cases this will be the logical choice. When I first posted a sample chapter for "The Crown Conspiracy" I started getting some interesting feedback - people didn't like the characters and were being "turned off". As I mentioned these were not the "real characters" and so it was giving the book a wrong impression. So for that sample chapter I choose a lively piece near the beginning of the book that shows the main characters and the rapport between them. PICKING THE ENDINGWhile I'm not a huge Twilight fan I will admit that I was impressed with the sample chapter that Stephanie Meyers put in the first book. The reason is where she ended it. It definitely ended in a place where someone would want to rush right out to get the book to see what will happen next. Now it turns out that her Chapter 2 was a huge let down from the build up but the technique worked. So choose carefully where you end your sample even if you don't publish the whole thing. In Avempartha there are three sections in the first chapter. The first two are compelling and end with the main characters going off to find someone. The third section is really just them "finding" the person - not much really going on there so I ended the sample chapter for that book after the first two. WRAPPING IT UPWhen posting sample chapters make it easy that anyone can find them no matter where they "find" your book. Use every avenue at your disposal. The disadvantages of Amazon and Google (can't select which pages you wish to showcase) is a sever limitation so be sure to use the other venues so you can pick "the perfect" pages for showcasing each book.
 Once again UK news agencys report the story of Christian 'Persecution.' This time a five year old was the cause. The child told a fellow pupil what would happen to her if she didn't believe in Jesus. Hell was mentioned, and as we know the lost are offended at the very mention of coming judgement, whatever the age. Interestingly the very same thing happened to my daughter. She told her fellow pupil the same thing. She then went home and asked her mummy if hell was real. Her mother made a complaint to the teacher who reprimanded my daughter. I was upset on the grounds that every human being has the right to express their faith and I doubted whether the same fuss would have been made if my daughter was a Muslim! However I did not contact the press or e-mail all my Christian friends. I accepted that this was part of 'Being a Christian' and went to the Lord for my guidance(He is the expert on handling rejection and persection). There are thousands languishing in prisons with no media to court and have the Lord and him only to rely on. Christians must not peddle equiality in faith. We can never be equal with other faiths. Persecution is inevitable, let us rejoice when it happens and question our Kingdom activity when it doesn't.
You know those stupid things that make you type in letters to prevent you from spamming or scamming (like the one I have enabled on my comments)? Today I happened across one that made me type: 50,000 drinks Seriously? I think someone was drunk when they created that.
 Today's post is as the result of a request. I love it when people email me with topics to cover. Feel free to email me anytime at robin.sullivan.dc@gmail.com with a suggestion or just to let me know that you read the blog and find it useful (or not so useful). Knowing that people actually read some of what I write here makes it worth writing down. If there are only crickets out there I have better things to spend my time on. Anyway I was emailing with an author about podcasting and mentioned that Tee Morris (author of Podcasting for Dummies and Advanced Podcasting Techniques for Dummies) is coming to do a guest lecture for my writer's group. They asked if they could use "For Dummies" in the title of their next book - so I did some research for them. FIRST A BIT ABOUT TITLES Book titles are not copy rightable (okay not a word but you get my point). An author can not "reserve" a title for them and them alone. Elie Wiesel's "Twilight" was published in 1988, Nancy Pickard wrote "Twilight" in 1995, Meg Cabot has a "Twilight" from 2005, Erin Hunter's "Twilight" is from 2006, Christtie Gordon's "Twilight" was published 2008, and I think there is a s somewhat well known person called Stephenie Meyers who used it in 2005. ;-) These are just a few that I found and I'm sure there are others. NOTE: Always consider if your title is used by others before selecting it - it is important to have a title that has a good Search Engine Rank - obviously any of the authors above will have a difficult time getting Google's attention against the Meyer popularity. Books in Print (put out by Bowker - the US ISBN agent) is a great resource for determining if your title has been used before. Also a quick search on Amazon is helpful. So no one can stop you from using "For Dummies" in your title. But.. BRANDS ARE COPY RIGHTABLE 
Everyone has seen the hugely popular "For Dummies" books - Their trade mark yellow and black with distinctive font and the triangular headed big eyed geek (known as "Dummies Man"). These images are definitely copy rightable and are - Notice the ® around both the cartoon guy and the "For Dummies". It is not the words that are copy written it is "the look" -those particular words written that particular way - (i.e. colors, font, etc). So if you attempted to "emulate the look" of the For Dummies then Wiley will definitely be coming after you. You will open yourself up for a huge financial liability. This organization has spent millions investing in this "brand" and I'm sure they have a whole department that works on ferreting out people who abuse it and they will have a legal department that is not worth tangling with.
WHO OWNS "FOR DUMMIES" There are over 150 million "For Dummies" books in print and 1,400 titles. More are developed all the time by Wiley (AKA John Wiley & Sons) A leading non-fiction producer of: reference books, text books, and brands such as Cliff Notes, For Dummies, and Frommer's. A LITTLE HISTORY
The first "For Dummies was published in 1991 "DOS for Dummies". It was initially met with skepticism — most bookstore chains didn't want to carry the book at all, claiming that the title insulted their customers and readers in general. But the publisher prevailed arguing the title was a "term of endearment" that readers would immediately relate to and identify with. Their success speaks for itself. I HAVE A GREAT IDEA FOR A FOR DUMMIES BOOK At one time you could approach the "For Dummies" publisher (the people who owned the brand before selling it to Wiley) with an idea - basically "pitch" them the concept and your credentials and if they liked your idea they would take on the project. If you have an agent you can still do this. If you don't have an agent then the best you can hope for is to be placed in their database. Basically they have a stable of "For Dummies" authors then when they decide a books should be written they look to see who has the best credentials to write it. This is an excerpt from their site. "It is Wiley's policy not to accept unsolicited proposals for books in the For Dummies series. You may send us a copy of your credentials for our files or contact a literary agent to submit a proposal on your behalf. If you choose to submit a proposal through an agent and do not already have one, we suggest that you consult a publication like Literary Market Place that offers contact information for literary agents. Please be aware that Wiley Publishing, Inc., retains the right to publish a book, at any time, on any topic." Which basically means if your agent suggests a good idea -- they might do it anyway without you ;-) HOW MUCH DO THEY PAY Once I talk to Tee Morris I'll learn a bit more about their royalty structure. My guess is it will be less generous then industry standard because they are putting the lion's share of their money into promoting the brand and I'm sure the supply of authors wishing to be "For Dummies" authors is higher than the demand. This is only speculation on my part -- call it an "educated guess".
WRAPPING IT ALL UP
Being in the "For Dummies" stable would certainly be a feather in the cap of any non-fiction writer. While you "could" use that in your title - I would not suggest it. I did a search on Amazon and didn't find a single book with "For Dummies" that wasn't part of the Wiley offerings. I'm 100% sure that Wiley is very protective of this brand and anything close may be challenged.
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