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Welcome Spring with Wild Plants of Maine by tom seymour

4/1/2021

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"A hint of spring to winter-weary souls is akin to a shipwreck survivor floating about in a raft and spotting a distant ship looming ever larger on the horizon. Prior to this, the shipwreck person thinks, 'I know I’m in a shipping lane, and help will eventually arrive.' But until that hope becomes a reality, it’s hard to stay cheerful." -Tom Seymour, Hidden World Revealed
Nearly everyone in Maine recognizes cattails as they appear in autumn, but Tom Seymour wants you to start enjoying them this spring. Take some knowledge on your foraging expeditions with Tom Seymour's Wild Plants of Maine: A Useful Guide Third Edition! Here's an excerpt from the pages of Wild Plants of Maine detailing how to find what it takes to dig up "the supermarket of swamps."

"Cattails vie with evening primrose for the title of first wild edible of springtime. In fact, a determined forager could, with some risk of hypothermia, harvest cattail products in midwinter, by cutting holes in the ice and pulling up the rootstalks. But such chilly and potentially risky endeavors are not recommended. So the prudent forager waits until early spring when dried, brown cattail leaves and stalks from last season protrude from newly thawed ponds and waterholes," Tom Seymour writes about spring cattails. ​
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Buy the Book
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"​For me, harvesting cattail sprouts entails putting on hip boots and, with long-handled spade in hand, walking out in the shallow section of a nearby pond. There, I work the point of my spade under a cattail root clump and, with one hand prying on the handle, grasp the plant with the other hand and apply steady pressure until the muck releases its grip on my plant, something often accompanied by a loud, slurping sound. It’s a muddy, cold business but in late March [and early April], a very worthwhile one."

And that's not all you'll find in Tom Seymour's Wild Plants of Maine. You'll learn about dandelions and their lookalikes coltsfoot, blunt-leaved dock, jewelweed, and evening primrose. And that's just what you'll find outside right now, in early spring! In Tom's book, you'll learn about stag horn sumac, find out when to harvest the ostrich fiddleheads that make for such good eats, and read why lamb's quarters are one of Tom's favorite wild edible plants! 
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So when you go foraging this year, don't forget your tools: your knife, your weeding tool, your scissors, your basket, and of course, your copy of Wild Plants of Maine: A Useful Guide by Tom Seymour.
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Coltsfoot, the earliest harbinger of Spring, is commonly mistaken for dandelions.
"The coming spring is like that rescue ship on a distant horizon. We know it’s there, and headed our way. And all it took to realize this was one brief, fleeting vision." --Tom Seymour, Hidden World Revealed

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Tom Seymour, Maine writer and naturalist, has written over a dozen titles including: Getting Your Big Fish: Trolling Maine Waters, Wild Plants of Maine: A Useful Guide, Forager’s Notebook, Wild Critters of Maine: Everyday Encounters, and Hidden World Revealed: Musings of a Maine Naturalist from Just Write Books LLC, Topsham, Maine. Seymour has also written a multitude of monthly features including his popular “Maine Wildlife” for The Maine Sportsman Magazine.
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​​Nancy E. Randolph operates Just Write Books LLC offering consulting and coaching to writers.  With over 50 years of writing experience and two decades in the publishing industry working with dozens of writers, Randolph has learned how to produce a manuscript that is ready for publication. Randolph uses that knowledge to help writers and authors reach their publishing goals. An active community member along with two others she founded and serves as a member of the board of Save Our Swinging Bridge.Org to ensure the maintenance of the historic Roebling-designed and -built bridge connecting Topsham and Brunswick. ​

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New Release - Looking Back: New and Selected Poems by Diane H. Schetky

3/18/2021

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Just Write Books is pleased to bring you the latest collection of poetry from the pen of poet Diane H. Schetky, Looking Back: New and Selected Poems.

A collection of new poems and selected favorites, Schetky's poems will take readers exploring far-off places, like the Arctic and Antarctica, contemplating subjects like the environment and climate change. Others muse on life, memory, and the inevitability of age, all in free verse. As she notes, ​“nature bestows daily gifts upon those whose eye and ears
are ready to receive them.”

Diane Schetky has channeled much of her feeling into a deeply personal work. Having lived for more than eighty years and struggling with early Alzheimer's, she feels concern over her losses, and has assembled some of her older poems to save memories of the past and reflect and share them with friends and readers. The result is an intimate look into her life through a flow of eclectic compositions, where old is followed by new, ending on a selection of poems focusing on finding serendipity in a changing world. ​
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Diane H. Schetky
Here's some praise for Looking Back: 

​"Perceptive, poignant, and lyrical, Diane Schetky’s wordplay combines the wisdom of aging, wonder at the natural world, and sensitivity to a changing world. Reading her poems is an experiential process, inviting empathic “Looking Back.” or recognition of “Right Whales Wrong Climate”. Schetky’s verse captures the reader with eloquence and insight"
—Ellen Rothchild, Clinical Professor of Psychiatry Emerita, Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine

"I love experiencing the world through Diane Schetky’s poetry. Her reverence for Mother Earth, her knowledge and love of music and the natural world are deftly braided throughout this collection. But, Unfolding is more than that. In this collection, perhaps her most personal yet, the poet also includes poems about significant people from her childhood, loss, a failing memory, and aging."
—Maggie Butler, MSW, Certified Amherst Writers & Artist Facilitator
Looking Back: New and Selected Poems by Diane Schetky is available to preorder now on jstwrite.com and Amazon!
GET YOUR COPY HERE

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Nancy E. Randolph operates Just Write Books LLC offering consulting and coaching to writers.  With over 50 years of writing experience and two decades in the publishing industry working with dozens of writers, Randolph has learned how to produce a manuscript that is ready for publication. Randolph uses that knowledge to help writers and authors reach their publishing goals. An active community member along with two others she founded and serves as a member of the board of Save Our Swinging Bridge.Org to ensure the maintenance of the historic Roebling-designed and -built bridge connecting Topsham and Brunswick.  ​
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Longfellow Days - Remembering H.R. Coursen

2/4/2021

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​​February marks the start of the Longfellow Days in Brunswick! While in-person events are not being held this year, the Longfellow Days committee is still finding ways to celebrate the work of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow through this year’s theme of letters and letter writing. This year, we’d like to make our own contribution by remembering a man whose love of poetry inspired the Coursen readings that are normally a part of the annual Longfellow Days celebrations - Herbert Randolph Coursen.​
​A student of the University of Connecticut with a Ph.D in English, a teacher at Bowdoin College, Clemson University, Ohio University, and the University of Maine at Augusta, a fighter pilot during the 1950s and one of the original members of Maine Veterans for Peace, H.R. Coursen was a man of many talents. According to Nancy E Randolph, publisher with Just Write Books, wrote this in a front-page obituary for The Times Record, “Herbert Randolph (H.R.) Coursen- a talented, brilliant, witty and sometimes irascible man- was passionate about Shakespeare, poetry, sports, music and politics. They enlivened his conversation and defined his life.”

​​Robert Chute of Poland Springs, with whom H.R. Coursen shared numerous poetry readings, had this to say of his friend- “I knew Herb as a fellow U.S. Air Force veteran in Veterans for Peace — his war Korea, mine, World War II. I knew him as a fellow poet, exchanging, without offense or favor, suggestions, edits, corrections. He was an insightful scholar and a writer of astounding diversity. His life, as are all lives, was many things, but much of it was Literature, with a capital L.”
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H.R. Courson.
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One of Herb’s particular talents was the recontextualization of works by writers of the past. He rewrote in modern verse the works of Ovid, Euripides, and Virgil, with works like The Iliad, The Aeneid and The Golden Fleece transformed by his pen. One that speaks to the strengths of his writing and his strengths as a person was Longfellow’s Evangeline: An Adaptation in Modern Verse. 

Initially resistant to the idea of a modern recontextualization of Longfellow’s Evangeline, he wrote in his introduction to the work, “I remembered the narrative as a sentimental story that explained why Longfellow’s longer poems had faded into obscurity. The poem might appeal to Victorian sensibility, but the skeptical and epigrammatic Emily Dickinson seemed much more appealing to current tastes- or at least to mine.” 
​However, when convinced by publisher Nancy E Randolph to give Evangeline another try, he described how his opinion pivoted. “But when I reread Evangeline, I realized that, while the sentimentality was there- a cloying idealization and conventional piety- the story also captured something of the 20th century, and beyond. It is a story of loss, and of searching for people trampled in the shuffle of tyrannies and their wars, of the disruption of cultures, of the shattering of expectations, of the punishment of those who have done no wrong.” Seeing Evangeline in this new light, he took to his modern retelling, and in many ways, both the work itself and the story behind how he came to write it encapsulates the man of Herbert Randolph Coursen himself. 
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​Intelligent and witty, a man who hated computers and loved poetry, H.R. Coursen is remembered by his friends and loved ones as a passionate man of literary power, and by the town of Brunswick, Maine through the Coursen Readings held during the annual celebration of Longfellow Days. Thank you for taking the time to join us in remembering a talented writer, poet and educator and a profoundly one-of-a-kind individual. 

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​​​Nancy E. Randolph operates Just Write Books LLC offering consulting and coaching to writers.  With over 50 years of writing experience and two decades in the publishing industry working with dozens of writers, Randolph has learned how to produce a manuscript that is ready for publication. Randolph uses that knowledge to help writers and authors reach their publishing goals. An active community member along with two others she founded and serves as a member of the board of Save Our Swinging Bridge.Org to ensure the maintenance of the historic Roebling-designed and -built bridge connecting Topsham and Brunswick.  

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New Release Out! Grandkids as Gurus: Lessons for Grownups

11/21/2020

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Just in time for the holidays, Just Write Books reveals Grandkids as Gurus: Lessons for Grownups by Susan Lebel Young.

Grandkids as Gurus shows how children can be our greatest teachers. In this charming collection of stories, remembrances, and anecdotes, as well as a collection of artwork from the gurus themselves, Lebel shares the unexpected lessons learned from her own grandchildren, and shows that sometimes the youngest can teach us the most important things in life.

“I knew how to be a grandparent, I had four great ones, fine role models. Being grandma would be simple, like my certain truth that we succeed best when we cooperate,” Lebel writes. “Being one generation removed from worrying about memorizing times-tables and flashcard homework, about not-throwing food and table manners is bigger than giving them back to their parents.”
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Here are a few things that have been said about Grandkids as Gurus: Lessons for Grownups.

“In chapters organized by themes like, ‘Beginner’s Mind,’ ‘Joy,’ and ‘Stop Adulting,’ she gives us vignettes of her experiences of being with her grandchildren and her ways of loving them that all grownups—grandparents or not—will understand.”
           —Patricia Dodd Hagge, meditation teacher, former Telling Room teacher and volunteer

“Children laugh on average 400 times a day,; adults 40. Becoming an adult does not mean giving up wonder, joy and curiosity. In this book of listening and observation, Susan Young relates glimmers of the original self of childhood which we all carry within us hidden beneath the self we built to cope with the adult world. Dive in and recall what will enrich your life.”
          —George Dreher, MD

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“It takes a wise and attentive grandparent to move beyond delight in her grandchildren’s sayings to seeing their inherent wisdom, wisdom even for guiding adults. Sue Lebel Young is that singular grandparent, and the result of her careful listening and disarming insights is Grandkids as Gurus. It should prove thought-provoking for her readers of all ages.”
    —Peter Monro, former journalist & blogger at DesignForWalking.com


Grandkids as Gurus: Lessons for Grownups is available at jstwrite.com, Amazon.com, and you can visit the author’s website at susanlebelyoung.com for an autographed copy!
BUY HERE
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Joy of the pen 2020

9/25/2020

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    Just Write Books is pleased to be sponsoring the Maine-Related Nonfiction Award within the Joy of the Pen Literary Awards again this year! While we are not currently accepting submissions for publication, our specialty is Maine books by Maine authors telling Maine stories since 2005. What could be more appropriate than that we sponsor this non-fiction literary award for Maine-related nonfiction?
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Joy of the Pen is the Topsham Public Library’s annual writing competition, and is open to Maine residents, both amateur and professional writers alike, and it’s currently open for submissions!


Rules of Entry:
  • Residents of Maine only
  • Unpublished work only (work that has been self-published or has appeared online, on a personal blog for example, is NOT eligible)
  •  Writers are limited to one piece in each category (5 pieces total for adults and 3 pieces total for teens and kids – a collection of poetry counts as 1 piece)
  • Work that does not adhere to word/page limit will not be read/considered
  • Joy of the Pen is judged anonymously. Please do not put your name on the work itself, only on the application. Likewise, the judges will remain anonymous until the awards are announced.
  • Topsham Public Library retains first publication rights to the work of the winners and runners-up (all other rights automatically return to the author after publication)
  • Submissions in the Maine-Related Nonfiction category must be between 2,000 and 5,000 words

Preferred Manuscript Format for Fiction, Nonfiction and Maine-Related Nonfiction
  • Include the word count in top right corner of page 1
  • Always use 12-point, Times New Roman or similar font.
  • Double-space paragraphs
  • Keep text justified to the left (Word default)
  • Indent new paragraphs (use tab button) rather than leave a line space
  • Use 1-inch margins (standard Word margins are fine)
  • Include a top-header with the story title and the page number in top right corner, beginning on page 2
  • Use a pound sign (#) to separate any line breaks

For more information on the other categories you can write for and to submit your work, visit the Topsham Library’s website here!

We’re looking forward to seeing your work!

Submit to Joy of the Pen
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​​Nancy E. Randolph operates Just Write Books LLC offering consulting and coaching to writers.  With over 50 years of writing experience and two decades in the publishing industry working with dozens of writers, Randolph has learned how to produce a manuscript that is ready for publication. Randolph uses that knowledge to help writers and authors reach their publishing goals. An active community member along with two others she founded and serves as a member of the board of Save Our Swinging Bridge.Org to ensure the maintenance of the historic Roebling-designed and -built bridge connecting Topsham and Brunswick. 
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10 things the waiting author can do during a pandemic

6/16/2020

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​    The global pandemic of COVID-19 has brought our world to a screeching halt. Even as states start making tenuous steps to reopen, stores remain closed, events remain cancelled, and many of our day-to-day activities remain frustratingly out of reach. In such a situation, the newly minted author might find themselves frustrated, unable to do book launches or book signings, and not able to get their works out into bookstores because all the bookstores have shuttered their doors to events and gatherings. With this in mind, we have compiled a list of things you can do while we await a return to normal.
    1. Develop a mailing list.  Both email and snail mail. Postcards are a great and charming way to get in touch. 
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   2. Out of that mailing list, make a separate list of important people who might be able to help you. Fellow authors and publishers are good to have in your corner. 

   3. Update your website. Even if it's not something you use or visit often, it's the hub of your social media web, so keep it up to date. ​

     4. Make a social media plan. Plan out what social media you use for what purposes and plan accordingly. 
          -Facebook
          -Twitter
          -LinkedIn
          -Tumblr
          -Pinterest
          -Instagram
          -Blog
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     5. Sign up for a service that lets you manage multiple social media accounts at once. Here at Just Write Books we use Buffer for its convenience and ease of use. There are other similar services: hootsuite, sproutsocial, etc.

  6. Create a media list. Take the time to call journalists, reporters, editors that might be interested in your story.  Ask for their help. Pay attention to deadlines and don't call during those times when all you will get from your conversation is, "Why are you bothering me now?"


     7. Be on a mission to learn all you can about book marketing, promotion, and publicity. Look at your Amazon author page. Fill it out with images and text that will interest your reader.

   8. Write a media release for your book launch. We'll be posting a blog on how to launch for your book digitally, so keep an eye out!

    9. Develop some images for your books. Your prospective readers will love your posts on Instagram. 

   10. Keep an eye towards the future! Our world is changing rapidly around us, and for those of us stuck inside, it can be difficult to see what the future holds. But if you use your time wisely and prepare to meet the world on the other side of this pandemic, then you'll be in a great place to continue to get your works out into the world. 

    Use this time wisely and prepare to meet the world on the other side of this pandemic, then you'll be in a great place to get your works out into the world. ​​

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​​Nancy E. Randolph operates Just Write Books LLC offering consulting and coaching to writers.  With over 50 years of writing experience and two decades in the publishing industry working with dozens of writers, Randolph has learned how to produce a manuscript that is ready for publication. Randolph uses that knowledge to help writers and authors reach their publishing goals. An active community member along with two others she founded and serves as a member of the board of Save Our Swinging Bridge.Org to ensure the maintenance of the historic Roebling-designed and -built bridge connecting Topsham and Brunswick.  
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10 Steps to creating your book's index

6/4/2020

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    So, you've done your research, cited your sources, made sure your information is accurate and up-to-date, sent your manuscript off to your editor, and finally, you've written your nonfiction​​ book. But if you think you're done and ready to get it published, not so fast--your work isn't done until it's got an index. 

    What's an index, and why does it matter? An index is an alphabetized list, at the back of the book, of all the subjects covered in your nonfiction book. Just about every nonfiction work that sells itself on being informational needs one so that your reader will be able to quickly find what they're looking for. Luckily, we're here to help with ten steps to help you get your book indexed. 
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Nancy Randolph's Low-Tech Index Creation
  1. Start with your final page layouts. What that means? You must have finished all editing and have all you pages with text, pictures, illustrations and captions set into pages as they will appear in the book when it is printed.
  2. Go through the pages and highlight each word, name or phrase that you want to be listed in the index.
  3. Open up your word-processing program. Name the file “index to my book.” Type each work, name or phrase with a tab afterwards and the page number where it is located. (People’s names will have to be entered in the form of Randolph, Nancy E.) Each entry will be on its own line.
  4. Have someone other than yourself check this typed list against the page layouts.
  5. Correct the list.
  6. Sort the file alphabetically.
  7. Review the list for misspellings, consistency of terms, etc. During this process you find that you have Senator Smith, Mr. Smith and John Smith and John E. Smith and they are the same person. Decide how you want to index Smith and change all the entries to your choice. (Sort again.)
  8. When you find words misspelled; go back to your actual set pages and check and see if it was a typo in the page or in the typed index entry.
  9. Create the entries by collecting the page numbers after the first appearing entry or the same phrase, name or word. Finish the entire list.
         Tilton, Abram . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .2 7
         tower of toilets . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53-54
         Town’s End . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .2 6
         Twambly, Fred . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .6 0
         Twombly, Andrea . . . . . . . . . . . . . .7 0
         Twombly, Charles “Jack” . . . . . . . 60,
           61, 66-71, 73
         Twombly, Helen Belle Gooch . . . . 51,
           53, 60, 61, 65-67
  10. Now you have a great index. (Proofread it one more time.) Flow it into your desktop publishing program or send it to your publisher. I like to set the index into two columns.
And now that your index is finished, you have completed work on one of the least thought-about, but most essential tools to nonfiction writing. Your book won't win any awards or be driven onto the bestseller list solely because of its index, but every time one of your readers turns to your book for information and uses the index to find what they're looking for, they'll be thanking you for the effort. 

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Nancy E. Randolph operates Just Write Books LLC offering consulting and coaching to writers. After fifteen years of publishing Maine books by Maine authors telling Maine stories, Randolph developed a reputation as a publisher of quality Maine books. Now Randolph is offering her  An active community member along with two others she founded and serves as a member of the board of Save Our Swinging Bridge.Org to ensure the maintenance of the historic Roebling-designed and -built bridge connecting Topsham and Brunswick. ​​
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10 Key Points to Getting Great Book Blurbs

5/28/2020

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One does not often consider book blurbs, but they’re a key element to selling your book. They inform prospective readers why your book is worth looking at and will often clue them in as to your book’s contents. But how does one go about getting that all-important blurb? 

1. Know what you need. What is a book blurb?  A celebrity-written endorsement of your book about three to eight lines on the back.
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2. Decide who you will approach. Pick several authors or individuals who have some relation to the subject of your book. It helps if you know the person, or a friend knows the person. Contacting the person is probably the most difficult part of the process. Allowing them to have enough time is critical. Offer to allow at least three months for them to read your book and write the testimonial.

3. Send a nice small package. It should include a cover letter, a synopsis and press release about the book, sample endorsements, and the book itself.

4. Write a thorough cover letter. The cover letter should tell what the book is about and how they might benefit from having their blurb on the back of the book, on your book's website, etc. And of course, tell how it would help you.
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5. Include a synopsis of the book. Short, sweet and full of the best of your book.  Remember, the key here is short, so succinctness is extremely important.
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6. Insert a generic press release for a book event. Whether it’s the book release party or a signing, include an event so the person writing the blurb knows you’re planning to market the book to live audiences.

7. Write and include a page of sample endorsements. Provide at least three, ideally five, that the celebrity can pick, that will fit the style of the person you are asking.

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8. Why include the book? Would you write a testimonial about a product that you hadn't seen? Most other people won't either.
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9. Send your package early. Call six months before publication to ensure the correct address and to ascertain if your target celebrity is interested in providing endorsements/review blurbs. Send the complete package at least three months before publication.

10. Why is it important? When you see the cover of the book, you pick it up and turn it over to see what others say. Nearly everyone wants to know what others say about a book that they are considering reading. You and your book gain credibility from an expert in your field supporting your book.
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Nancy E. Randolph operates Just Write Books LLC offering consulting and coaching to writers.  With over 50 years of writing experience and two decades in the publishing industry working with dozens of writers, Randolph has learned how to produce a manuscript that is ready for publication. Randolph uses that knowledge to help writers and authors reach their publishing goals. An active community member along with two others she founded and serves as a member of the board of Save Our Swinging Bridge.Org to ensure the maintenance of the historic Roebling-designed and -built bridge connecting Topsham and Brunswick.  
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10 surprisingly manageable steps to put together your memoir

5/21/2020

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Nearly everyone has a book that others say, “You should write that.” Many of us have a story we would like to memorialize about a family member still living or deceased. Sometimes we have a trove of photos, letters, and paraphernalia that seems overwhelming. We’ve put together ten steps to help you.
1. Determine why you want to write the book. Is it for your family or do you think this book will sell to a greater circle of friends and acquaintances? On the other hand, do you think people who are neither your relatives or friends will be interested in your story? Regardless of the answer, the same approach will be used to produce the first rough draft of your autobiography. Your answer to “why” may be used as your introduction.

2. Begin by gathering your materials. That includes photos, journals, letters to and from you, newspaper articles, clippings from magazines, baby books (if one of your parents was nice enough to do this), school writing projects, souvenirs, yearbooks, email messages, blog posts and anything else that you might have written or might have been written about you. I suggest that you have a box in which to put everything.
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Put together a collection of images and photographs to tie the memoir together.
3. Make a timeline of your life. Since it is a timeline, keep it simple and chronological. Include all important events—marriage, graduations, certificates, birth(s) of children, travel, death of loved ones, jobs, promotions, volunteer work, membership organizations’ events, household moves. You get the picture. A printout of the timeline could be placed in a three-ring binder.
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4. Look at your timeline and start writing the things that easily come to pen or keyboard. Name the incident, event, and write it into your timeline, showing that you have it. Add the file name and location.
5. Create a schedule for writing. Write for 30-60 minutes once a day, three times a week or every weekday. Whatever you schedule—stick with it and write. Just write. Continue to write your memories, aided by your collected materials until it becomes difficult.

6. When it becomes difficult, connect with a friend, family member, or acquaintance who may be able to fill in gaps of memory or knowledge. They may have more information about other family members who are deceased, events that happened when you were too young to remember, or enhance your memories with another view. Write those events/memories. Keep notes of the names of people who gave you more info and link it to the info given. File these new writings and keep the timeline up to date with location and file names.
7. Put all your writings into one document in your timeline order. You now have your very rough draft.
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8. Before you begin polishing your rough draft, work with someone unfamiliar to your story. Print out a hard copy for your reader. The reader will read your rough manuscript (don’t have them fix the typos now—you may delete part of the story or rewrite much of this anyway). The reader’s job is to write questions in the margin. Who is this? Why was this event significant? Where were you? All the questions to which you know the answer but have forgotten to write in your closeness to the story. I suggest that you have three readers using three separate clean manuscript copies. You then take all comments and put them onto one draft. Some authors might use a clean draft on which to write all notes and questions. On the other hand, one of your reader’s drafts may have the most significant edits and questions—I would use one and add the other comments to it.
9. With that marked-up draft, begin filling in the blanks. Continue with your writing schedule until you have a completed rough draft of your book.

10. Now is the time to get someone to edit. You need to ensure that everything is spelled correctly and the facts are as true as you know. The editor will also see when transitions are missing and will either prepare suggestions or notes for you regarding what needs to fixed. Notes such as “needs transition,” “you haven’t introduced this person to your readers” or “time sequence seems off.” Fix those and then prepare for another round of edits. 
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Brian Barlow took nearly a decade to write his memoir Only One Child.
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Nancy E. Randolph operates Just Write Books LLC offering consulting and coaching to writers.  With over 50 years of writing experience and two decades in the publishing industry working with dozens of writers, Randolph has learned how to produce a manuscript that is ready for publication. Randolph uses that knowledge to help writers and authors reach their publishing goals. An active community member along with two others she founded and serves as a member of the board of Save Our Swinging Bridge.Org to ensure the maintenance of the historic Roebling-designed and -built bridge connecting Topsham and Brunswick.  
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10 Easy Things You Should Do  to Prepare Your Manuscript for Page Layout

4/30/2020

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    ​I’ve been working on a manuscript for two days, just cleaning up the copy, removing multiple tabs, excessive spaces, and de-capitalizing all-caps to make this manuscript workable. As I entered the second day of editing, I found myself wondering, how could that be? The author edited, proofed, and edited the work a second time. Why did I need to go over it again?
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    ​Because the author took it upon himself to format the script in MS Word in order to make it look better. While it might have looked better to him, within the unprinted formatting lies a hundred  manuscript mines, ready to detonate when put into another publishing program, blowing the whole thing to smithereens and  sending the format of the manuscript into chaos. 

  And while your publisher is perfectly capable of performing the following tasks, a few ways you can make your job and your publisher’s job easier is to take care of a few things in your document.​
1. Remove all double spaces after sentence-ending punctuation. A leftover practice from the days of typewriters and monospace fonts, this method of formatting has been rendered unnecessary. In fact, it’s often detrimental, with double spaces leaving ragged-looking spacing when using properly-spaced fonts. 

2. Spell out your numbers in non-technical text. All numbers under 100 should be spelled out. If you’re describing forty-eight of something, it’s forty-eight, not 48. Larger numbers get spelled out when rounded or approximations, with some exceptions. Just Write Books uses the Chicago Manual of Style for direction on numbers.

3. Remove all the -st, -th, and -nd suffixes after numbers in a sequence. As people read, they’ll naturally add these sounds as needed in the document. Although in British writing, these letters are printed, this is not written out in American English. 

4. Remove super and subscripts, except for footnote superscripts. These will be properly formatted during the typesetting process. 

5. Spell out all abbreviations and acronyms. Avoid confusing your reader with these unknowns. If you mention something the first time (with the abbreviation or acronym in parentheses), you can then use an acronym for it in subsequent uses. For the sake of clarity, don’t refer to something by its abbreviation or acronym the first time. 
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6. Don’t use jargon. When writing about an industry that uses specific terminology, it’s up to you to explain inside jargon or lingo or find other, more common terms that serve the same purpose. 

7. Remove extraneous formatting. Remove all tabs, multiple spaces and other unnecessary formatting from your document. These will be handled in the typesetting phase. ​
8. Use automatic page numbering. Using the page numbering function instead of adding page numbers manually helps with the editing and typesetting process.

9. Be consistent with how you handle the names of states.
Whether you abbreviate state names or spell them out, do it consistently throughout the entire document. If you spell out Connecticut the first time, don’t use CT later. Yes, spelling out Mississippi every time is kind of a pain, but if you do it the first time, do it every time. 

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10. Separate your document into chapters. Come up with good spots to break up your work, and try to keep their lengths somewhat consistent. You can use simple numbers or you can name your chapters, but it’s key to have a plan to follow. ​

All in all, it’s consistency and a lack of excessive formatting that will help your publisher streamline the editing process, and help you get published sooner. Follow these steps, and you’re sure to make your life, and the life of your publisher, much easier. 

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Just Write Books LLC, offers publishing consulting and coaching for writers.  JWB uses its proprietary High Point Publishing System with state-of-the-art technology mixed with old-fashioned writing, editing, publishing, and marketing skills to help writers become authors and authors reach their publishing goals. ​

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    Nancy E. Randolph operates Just Write Books offering consulting and coaching for writers.

    An active community member she co-­chaired the rehabilitation effort of the Androscoggin Swinging Bridge and guided the planning and creation of two riverside parks at each end. Along with two others she founded and serves as a member of the board of Save Our Swinging Bridge.Org to ensure the maintenance of the historic Roebling designed and built bridge connecting Topsham and Brunswick.

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