Last month, in our first edition of Book Synthesis, we discussed the first few pages of the front matter of your book: the first blank page, the title page, and how to format both the front and back of these pages. This month we’re moving forward just a few pages and discussing the copyright page and the table of contents. Obviously, the copyright page is a must for your book, and a table of contents if completely optional.
I have to admit that I’m not usually a fan of historical fiction that takes place in time of war. Battle scenes and descriptions of armory bore me, but I decided to give Luke Jackson’s book, The Wrong Choice, a read mainly because I’ve been researching the Civil War a lot lately for a project of my own. I thought reading something else from that genre might help or inspire me.
Just this week, The New Podler emailed me asking for my participation in A Symposium: The Function of Self-Publishing at the Present Time:
The publishing industry is undergoing change in how books are delivered. It is not unreasonable to presume that in a decade electronic devices such as the Apple tablet or the Kindle will be the premiere platforms delivering text to millions of readers. On the other end of the spectrum there is the democratization of the publishing process itself. Once reserved only to a chosen few, publishing has become available to anyone wishing to publish his or her book either through traditional means or as an ebook.
In November 2008, we posted a list of “book boo boos” that we commonly see in self-published books. To this day, we still see a number of mistakes and formatting problems in previews of books and proofs we are considering for review. Authors who are new to this are still not seeking out assistance or doing research when it comes to putting their best book forward. That’s why I decided to start a monthly post which I’m calling “Book Synthesis.” Synthesis is defined as “the combining of the constituent elements of separate material or abstract entities into a single or unified entity.” In book terms, those elements are your title page, copyright page, table of contents, dedication page, body of text, etc. which all together make up your single book.
With no preview and a descriptive blurb consisting of only two sentences on Lulu, I took a chance on reading and reviewing Stephan Zimmermann and Bill House’s very short published work, The Dogwood Murders. It’s definitely a chance I’m glad I took as this is a very nice short story, and being that is probably it’s only drawback. It’s so good that it’s a shame that it is so short. This could definitely be developed into a nice novella or longer piece of work. I see it working great in a collection of similar short stories, that had I read, this particular story would have definitely stuck out with me.
Recently, Mario Lurig, the creator of NovelRank, left a comment on LLBR and added all of our reviewer’s books to his site. Mario’s site tracks your book’s sales on Amazon, and his service is free. It’s a great tool for authors and Mario is always posting lots of useful information on the blog portion of his site. Look for a post later today highlighting the “best and worst of Lulu.” We caught up with Mario to learn more about NovelRank and how it works.
It is ironic, is it not, how everything seems so poetic in death, yet we rarely see the poetry in life?
I couldn’t think of a more truer statement than this, spoken by a God-like king on the first page of Cheryl Anne Gardner’s book, The Splendor of Antiquity. True, we’d expect our Gods to say such profound things and the narrator of this book does not disappoint with such expectations. After all, he has been dead for centuries and our lead female, an archaeologists named Joliette Deneauve, is about to dig him up.
I was given the privilege of reading LK Gardner-Griffie’s new book, Nowhere Feels Like Home, while it was still in its infant stages before publication. I was first introduced to LK’s writing when reading her first book, Misfit McCabe, the first in a series of three books following the teenage days of Katie McCabe. Katie becomes displaced from her routine after her father gets sick and passes away and she has to go live with Uncle Charley and her cousins. The book came to a climax when Katie was kidnapped by her school bully, Harvey Denton Jr., and left in the hills all alone. After almost drowning, then getting bit by a rattlesnake and breaking an ankle, Katie finally made it home alive.
2009 was a great year for LLBR. We started off by adding Dan Marvin to our review team. We celebrated our one year anniversary. We changed the look and name of our blog. We broadened our short list to include a handful of other POD companies outside of Lulu. Then, we threw the short list out the window and opened ourselves up to all POD books! Oh yeah, and we reviewed 77 titles this year too, not counting Julie’s Quick Picks.
It was perfect timing that David Hennessey queried us with his book, A Cricket’s Christmas, last week. This time of year I usually enjoy searching Lulu.com for holiday publications, but I’ve somehow let this month get away from me without doing that. Once I’d read the preview of A Cricket’s Christmas, I immediately wanted to read more and was glad that David provided the manuscript so quickly. And who doesn’t enjoy a good holiday story where the main characters are all animals!
Do you love to read?
Do you support the POD community?
Can you be critical, yet positive?
Do you like to review books?
If so, we'd love to hear from you. LLBR is looking to add a few more reviewers to its team. Email us at llbookreview@gmail.com for details.
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