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September 25, 2006

Archive Mining: How to Get From Working Book Title to Rough Cut Content

ME Liz Strauss wrote this at 12:07 pm

Bookcraft 2.0

books

When I left you in Find a Book in Your Archives the Way a Publisher Would, Phil Gerbyshak and I had agreed on two “working” book titles that can be built from posts in his archives and one “working” title that we’re going to write from scratch.

Phil and I chose one of the two “working” titles that drew from his archives. We made our choice based on these criteria.

  • the amount of content he felt sure was there
  • the success of his current book
  • what his readers would feel was a natural next step

With the working title in my head, I wrote a subtitle — the 25 words or less definition/premise of what the book would be about. That definition would be my tool for deciding what content to keep. Some folks call that statement the “elevator pitch.”

Armed with the premise as my tool, I could effectively mine Phil’s archives for relevant content.

Rough Cut Content Strategy

Rough cut mining for relevant content is what it sounds like, a systematic process of gathering the content that might be useful. Rough cut is the key term. I went to the archives to make a yes/no choice and move on. I used this criteria to gather the content to form the rough cut of the book-to-be.

    1. The content is original.

    2. The content ties to the premise of the book.

    3. The content is of a size worth picking up.

    4. The links are few and superficial (not integral to the point of the text.)

    5. Quoted text is secondary to original content.

    6. Link lists belong in an appendix, if anywhere. They are probably best left behind at this juncture.

The value of each point above changes depending on the type of book being built. The size of content chunk needed in Point 3 is larger, if the book will be running text and smaller, if the book will be a write-in work text. Point 4 changes completely, when my only goal is an ebook. Point 5 takes on new meaning, if the plan is to start each page with a meaningful quotation.

Rough Cut Content Tactics

I went right for the date archives and read them in order. I read to see whether each post meets the premise and the criteria set. Standard operating procedure for dealing with raw content is to get all content in pages of similar size and moveable form. So I also followed these procedures.

    Print each post separately.

    Make sure every print out carries the reference from where it came — in this case, the post date. If necessary, write it by hand. Captured keystrokes are valuable when the time comes to assemble the book.

The pile of pages on my desk is 140-150 pages deep. I’ll guess high and say that 30% won’t work. That would leave me with about 100 pages to play with. I can do plenty with that.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

If you’d like Liz to help you find or make a book from your archives, click on the Work with Liz!! page in the sidebar.

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7 Comments to “Archive Mining: How to Get From Working Book Title to Rough Cut Content”

  1. September 25th, 2006 at 12:57 pm
    Successful Blog - Bookcraft 2.0: Find a Book in Your Archives the Way a Publisher Would said

    […] Related articles Bookcraft 2.0 Archive Mining: How to Get From Working Book Title to Rough Cut Content Write a Book? Assemble the One in Your Archives! 1: How to Make Sure Real People Read Your Book 10 Ways to Make It Great!10 Ways to Make It Great! […]

  2. September 25th, 2006 at 3:08 pm
    Links 09-25-2006 - Orbit Now! Troy Worman’s Weblog said

    […] Archive Mining: How to get from working book title to rough cut content by Liz Strauss at Successful Blog.  Liz walks us through the process of editing Phil’s next book. […]

  3. September 25th, 2006 at 6:08 pm
    ann michael said

    Hey Liz - In some cases where the links are not superficial (are integral to the point of the text) - can’t Phil rework the page if the concept included is something you want in the book?

    It sounds like Phil is still going to have to write some to pull this all together and fill in the gaps. Or are you giving him some topic for his blog so that he can start “gap-filling” simultaneously with your effort?

    Ann

  4. September 25th, 2006 at 6:11 pm
    ME Strauss said

    Hi Ann,
    I’m still looking over what’s to be sure, but it seems inevitable that on any blog there would be some gaps to fill — unless the plan was to write a book from the start.

    Yeah, you could rework around links, but usually it’s not work the work to redo any content that isn’t already 90% where you want it. You might as well write fresh content then.

    Thanks for asking. Those were really good questions.

  5. September 26th, 2006 at 10:17 am
    Successful Blog - Bookcraft 2.0: Let the Sorting Begin said

    […] Related articles Bookcraft 2.0 Archive Mining: How to Get From Working Book Title to Rough Cut Content Bookcraft 2.0: Find a Book in Your Archives the Way a Publisher Would Write a Book? Assemble the One in Your Archives! How to Make Sure Real People Read Your Book 10 Ways to Make It Great!10 Ways to Make It Great! […]

  6. October 9th, 2006 at 5:08 pm
    Successful Blog - Bookcraft 2.0: The 90% Rule of Repurposing Content said

    […] When I left you on Friday, an editor friend and I were on our way to Milwaukee to meet with Phil to make a bookmap from the rough cut of his book. The rough cut had been built on a set of criteria that made choosing content from his archives an easy decision-making process. I outlined those criteria in Archive Mining: How to Get From Working Book Title to Rough Cut Content. Now, it was time for a finer cut. Armed with 5 categories of pages, I was sure that we’d sort them into 7 or 8 chapters and make a bookmap. That was the plan. […]

  7. November 6th, 2006 at 7:57 pm
    Successful Blog - Bookcraft 2.0: Why Bloggers Choose Better Titles than Authors said

    […] Related articles Bookcraft 2.0: Find a Book in Your Archives the Way a Publisher Would Bookcraft 2.0 Archive Mining: How to Get From Working Book Title to Rough Cut Content Bookcraft 2.0 Why Read the Date Archives Not the Categories? Bookcraft 2.0: How Many Words Does It Take to Make a Book? […]

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