Aussie Bloggers

I’m still fairly young at 25-years-old and I only owned about one or two mobile phones before predictive text became ubiquitous in mobile devices so I didn’t really get into the whole SMS language thing with messages like “c u soon” and “wat time u ova” where saving individual letters meant shaving half the time off writing a text message. I admit I’m no master of the English language but I like to spell my words properly and completely with capital letters where appropriate and punctuation – so it’s good to see that SMS culture slowly died off with the introduction of predictive text, mobile devices with full QWERTY keyboards such as Blackberries, web-enabled devices, the availability of email on mobile devices and uptake of short message micro-blogging services such as Twitter, Jaiku and Plurk.

Why the ACT Government has only in the last year or so decided it was cute to try and use SMS language on anti-DWT (Driving While Texting) awareness signs like the “DRIVE N TXT U B NEXT” is beyond me … they missed the boat by about 10 years and is embarrassing.

I wonder how many people still use SMS language and shortcuts given that technology nowadays means its no longer necessary. From what I’ve observed people in general want their messages to be well-formed, correctly spelt and appropriately punctuated and formatted – and that applies to phone SMSs and other short messages such as those posted on Twitter.

What are your thoughts on SMS language? Is it dead? Is it cute? Does it have its place still? Was it a temporary travesty of the English language?

Don’t let anyone tell you any different: writing is hard. If it’s not hard, you’re either fabulously talented and I hate you, or else you’re not doing it right.

Failure to keep up a regular writing schedule is probably the killer of most blogs. I’m terrible at it, myself. But for new bloggers who are feeling the pinch and wondering if it’s all worth it, I have wisdom from my years of blog battling (ok, I’m probably a slow learner): practice enough, and it does get easier.

Here’s some other tips I’ve learnt to help the words flow easier:

• If you have a fragment of an idea for a blog post: write it down. Even if it’s just a headline. I use Windows Live Writer to draft posts but you can use any kind of note-taking application or – shock horror – jot them down in a paper notebook (you know, with a pen).This means I always have a ton of blog post ideas – some are no more than a link and a few words or a title. Some have a paragraph or an opening sentence that stuck in my head. Next time I want to write something but have no inspiration, I look through my drafts and see if there’s something I can continue with.
• Set aside distraction-free time to write. You don’t need to tell me this is difficult – I know only too well. But switch off email and IM and Twitter and Facebook and divert the phone and close the door – then just write. If you’re in a quiet, comfortable place, you’ll be amazed at how much easier it is!
• Not sure where to start? Stuck in the middle? Easy – write the end first! I quite often jot down rough notes about what I want to put in the introduction, body paragraphs and conclusion and then flesh out whatever sections are already in my head. This works well with my first tip.
• Experiment with different kinds of posts. Everyone loves lists – so try writing one. Wondering something about your readers? Run a survey (there’s always at least two posts in a survey: the survey itself, then the summary of the results). Know someone interesting? Interview them. Following a topic getting lots of blog coverage? Write a summary of what you think are the best posts out there.

So over to you – what gets your blogging mojo pumping? Got any tips to share for struggling writers?

Last year, I went up to the Perth Hills for a bushfire awareness session. I don’t live in the hills and after that briefing I think it is unlikely I ever will.

Everywhere I looked I saw a fire hazard. Thick mulch on the gardens. Fire hazard. Trees growing snugly against a house. Fire hazard. Woodpile. Fire hazard. Timber fence. Fire hazard.

I saw windy picturesque roads that would be difficult to negotiate in low visibility with fire trucks screaming past.

I’ve seen Scorched.

No, despite the undisputed beauty of the place, I couldn’t imagine living in summer in the hills.

Apart from anything else I confess to a little household laziness.

The gutters on my house have more flowering plants than my garden.

You need to be prepared for fires.

How do I know this?

I’ve just read Ian Mannix’s Great Australian Bushfire Stories. Now before I go on, let me make a disclaimer, I know Ian well. A respected ex foreign correspondent, Ian is passionate about emergency communication. Beyond passionate.

Anyway over a few drinks one night he told me about some of the stories he was collecting for his book and they were extraordinary, so when his book came out I was prepared to give it a go.

I didn’t have particularly high expectations. It’s his first book and how interesting can a collection of bushfire stories be?

After all it’s all much of a muchness isn’t it? Fire comes along. You stay or you go. If you stay you fight the fire. And I’d heard what I thought must be the best of the stories anyway.

Wrong.

First of all the fires are different, they act in strange ways, they don’t do what they are supposed to.

Secondly and most interestingly the human reaction is so different.

These are ordinary people doing amazing things. As Ian says in his book:

None of the people in this book believes their actions were perfect, none believes they were acting heroically. They just confronted the difficulties in the best way they knew how, and they wanted to keep their families safe.

And the stories are inspiring.

A man shelters under a blanket – a blanket! – in his vegetable patch and survives.

Another family run to the sea – you can see the video here – metres in front of the flames.

You get the feeling that while everyone in the book survived physically – there is still a lot of emotional trauma to be dealt with.

The whole glass back door was being smashed repeatedly by large sticks and debris, which were alight. Some of the sticks were massive. The fire was chucking everything at us. We all thought the door would break and the fire would get inside.

The wind grew louder and extremely strong. It tore a hundred-year-old gum tree out of the ground by its roots and laid it on its side. There were massive gum trees all around the area toppled over by the wind. Their tops were twisted out and tossed on the ground. Then everything went black.

Chances are, that if you write a blog, then you have considered turning your hand to writing a book.

Now, if you are like me, the idea of sending off your manuscript to a publishing house seems a little daunting. Not only do you have to find the publisher’s submission guidelines, make sure that your manuscript conforms, and then you have to wait to hear back. This can take months…
But there is an easier way — self publishing.

Before the web, self publishing was a pretty expensive operation. You had to prepare the manuscript, hire or pay for someone to lay it out nd design a cover, and then find a printer who would do a small print un for you. Now if you can use a basic word processor, you can pretty much publish a book. And as the self publishing sites use print on demand, it means that you don’t have to pay anything up-front — the purchaser pays for the cost of printing, a small commission and the royalty amount that comes back to you, the author. Sounds easy, huh?

There are now a number of sites scattered across the web that allow you to self-publish, including:

* Lulu
* Blurb
* Amazon

And while each of these have their strengths, let’s take a quick look at Lulu as an example.

Step 1 — write your book.
It sounds obvious, but anyone who has written a blog for more than a couple of months will know that writing is hard work. Spend some time, think through your subject and then get writing. Save it as a Word Document.

Step 2 — think about size

Because Lulu is print on demand, your book cost is directly related to the size of your book (called the format eg A4) and the number of pages. Think about the format that you would like and check out the options on Lulu. There are quite a few templates that you can download from Lulu and use without modification. You can either type directly into the template or copy and paste from your existing Word Document.

Step 3 — edit the book
If you are the author, try to have someone else edit it. While this can be daunting, having someone else edit your work will vastly
improve its quality. If you want to go professional, check www.elance.com for an experienced editor near you.

Step 4 — prepare the prelims

Don’t forget, you are the author and therefore the copyright owner. Make sure you assert your ownership in the preliminary pages of the book. In general you will want a Title page as well as a copyright page (counted as pages 1 and 2). You can also add-in a Foreword, Introduction, Table of Contents etc. This is all up to you!

Step 5 — print your whole book

This is not good from a conservation point of view, but it will help ensure the quality of your book. Make sure that the Title starts on page 1 (or page i if you are using roman page numbers for the prelims) and that all the odd pages start on a layout that is specified for the right hand side of the book. Often this just means that the page number appears on the right hand corner of the page (though you can always centre your pages).

Step 6 — upload your book

After you have checked and rechecked your book, it is time to upload to Lulu. Simply create an account and start a new project. Specify the size that you have used and begin uploading. When you book is uploaded, Lulu will automatically convert it to PDF in preparation for printing.

Step 7 — create your cover

Lulu allows you to upload a cover or use an online cover creation tool. Make sure to put the title of your book and your name clearly on the title and on the spine of the book.

Step 8 — publish your book
Generally you will need to order, receive and approve a copy of your book before it can be released for general purchase. So after you have received the first copy of your book, check all the pages are in order and that there are no glaring errors (don’t be surprised if you find typos and other errors — almost every book has them). If you are happy with your book, approve it for publishing on Lulu.

Step 9 — set the price

Pricing can be a little tricky — but most sites provide you with a calculator. Every page costs. A cover costs. Your choice of colour or black and white costs. Lulu charges a commission for every book printed. And then there is your royalty — the amount that comes back to you as the author.

Step 10 — setup your bookshop

Lulu allows you to create your own online bookstore to sell your books. You can create a banner and change the design of your store to match your website or your book. These ten steps to publishing your own book cover the basics. There is much more that you can delve into — and Lulu has excellent support and FAQs designed to explain each step of the publishing process — but if you want to easily publish your first novel or your family history, it really can be this simple.

Good luck!