Successful Blog

Bookcraft 2.0: Why Consistency Makes Authors Look More Intelligent

by

books

This week Phil and I reached a benchmark. We finished the first edit on the first of four parts of his book. This first section will serve as the prototype for the rest of the book. As the prototype section, we used it to test our ideas for how the book would work. Could the vision we talked about be a reality when we tried it out across a complete section of posts from Phil’s blog?

As we moved through the section, we were to careful keep to these standards.

  1. The content and structure work together.
  2. If one isn’t working, don’t force a fit. If the structure works for all but one page, that page doesn’t belong. If many pages don’t fit, the structure needs to be refit.
  3. Consistency is a value, a benchmark of quality, and a support for readers. It also makes authors look smart.

That’s right. Consistency makes us look more intelligent.
In fact,

It’s better to be consistently wrong than inconsistently right.

Why Being Consistently Wrong Is better than Inconsistently Right

When we meet someone who thinks and talks like we do, we call that person someone who “gets” it. We think people who think like we think are intelligent . . . and those who don’t, well, they’re not.

I can adjust when I talk to someone. I can put my “best brain” forward. I can listen actively and organize what I say to meet how someone takes in information. Teachers do that every day.

But how does an author do the same thing? Book readers think in many ways. An author can’t adjust for each reader.

The answer is one word, consistency.

Why is it better to be consistently wrong than inconsistently right?

You can spell the word house as hous, and if you do so consistently, readers will accept it as an alternative spelling. Miss once and they will see the mistake.

How Does Consistency Make Authors Look Smarter?

Consistency is key to a predictable book. When a book is predictable, readers know where you’re going without thinking about it — they “get” how you think. Giving readers consistency in every facet of a book means they can concentrate on what you’re saying. Your message and it’s brilliance can shine right through.

  • At the Book Level — A consistent structure offers orderly navigation. Readers know what to expect and what will come next. The experience is predictable and repeatable. Readers can feel safe that they know where the author is going. That can make an author look smarter, because readers feel the author is following a logical, predictable progression.

  • At the Detail Level — Many companies have a house style that determines how they phrase terms and spell certain words. Publishers and journalists follow a style manual for the same reasons. A consistent style provides credibility and accuracy. If an author is consistent in matters of detail, he or she establishes trust on matters of accuracy — inconsistency undercuts that bond and makes readers wonder whether the thinking is equally inconsistent and flawed.

Staying consistent lets a reader know how an author works and where he or she is going. Authors can’t adjust for readers, but they can make it easy for readers to follow their thinking. When authors do that, readers feel like the author “gets” it.

We all know that someone who “gets” it is really intelligent. — as intelligent as we are. It proves itself out consistently.

–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.

Related articles
Bookcraft 2.0: Find a Book in Your Archives the Way a Publisher Would
Bookcraft 2.0: Why Bloggers Choose Better Titles than Authors
Bookcraft 2.0: Book Research at Amazon, the Data Giant
Bookcraft 2.0: How Many Words Does It Take to Make a Book?

Bloggy Question 31: Do You Send Away the Idea of a Lifetime?

by

What Do You Say to the Guy Who Can’t Pay?

For those who come looking for a short, thoughtful read, a blogging life discussion, or a way to gradually ease back into the week. I offer this bloggy life hypothetical question. . . . posed ito me in another way by Drew McLellan the other day.


You’re making a living at your own business, but you’re not rolling dough. In walks a propsective client. You hit it off from his first smiling and intelligent conversation. What a powerful team you would make! He has the vision and a great idea. You have the experience and skills that fit right next to his.

The client’s idea is intriguing. It’s an idea that you find exciting and immediately inviting. It’s one in million and you’d die to work on it. Already you’re starting to think about the direction that you would take the planning and the action. The problem is that the client can’t afford to pay you.

Even worse than that, the project really calls for someone just like you. Everything about you wants to help him get going.

The thing is that the client’s idea is so rare and unsual that you don’t anyone who to send him to — the people that he can afford wouldn’t know how to do the idea justice. Those who would see the value would be just as expensive as you or even too expensive and too busy.

How do you respond?

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Related articles
Bloggy Life Question 30 — How Does He Get the Book to Readers?
Bloggy Life Question 29 — Will You Sell the URL to the Porn King?
Bloggy Life Question 28 — The Prince and the Pauper in the Blogosphere?
Bloggy Life Question 27 — Can You Spare a Ten?
Bloggy Life Question 26 — Do You Wish to Comment?

Katiebird Is a B.A.D. Blogger!

by

Blogger A Day Call: Hello is Katie there?

Katiebird has been incredibly busy at work for at least two months. She’s oveseeing the content revision and revamp of a nearly 3000-page WEBSITE that was built in the late 1990s. It’s getting a design, new navigation, and rebuilt with cascading stylesheets. Whoa! Exciting! Whew! Some work!

Oh did I forget to tell you where she works and what her role is? Katie is Librarian and Database Programmer for an urban library in the midwest of the USA. Yep, that’s right a library, and there’s 25 librarians working on the project. If you haven’t been to a library lately . . . keep reading libraries are really cool.

Half of our conversation was Katie bringing me up to speed on what’s going in libraries. Her library website is filled with pages of crafts, and games, and recipes, and booklists, and book reviews. One particular craft she mentioned, a paper flower designed by a library staff member, gets 10,000 hits a month from all over the world. That’s as many hits as the card catalogue, which is doing well, thank you.

Katie and I discussed how libraries often aren’t thought of being on the edge of technology and how that perception conflicts with reality — that libraries and banks have actually pushed programming forward in some ways. She pointed out that if you go to a library you’ll see a sea of people on computers. Katie also told me about the Database at Home service that allows folks to use the library offsite, and how that’s going to grow in new ways as they integrate electronic books into their services. I was thinking, if people only knew . . . There’s so much to be explored and used.

“It’s an exciting time to be in a library. . . . It’s an exciting time to be blogging.” Katiebird said. “Oh yeah,” was the only appropriate response to that!

When topic turned to blogging, Katie wondered with enthusiasm at this medium that combines the advantages of so many others, bringing people together, making brilliant new kinds of connections. We talked about the people who self-select to become bloggers. She said she was surprised to find how meaningful blogging quickly became. We discussed the communities that form, that links are more than they appear, and how we come to make our blogs our own. Yes, we did say the word addictive, but we meant it in the most positive way. . . . I’m guessing that urban library is going to have a blog when that web site is finally done.

When we finished the call I couldn’t help but think This isn’t your father’s library. This isn’t even the one from college.

Then I wondered how Meredith Wilson would have rewritten Marion, the librarian, if he were commissioned to update his 1957 musical play, The Music Man.

B.A.D. Blogger Quote

I didn’t realize when I started a blog, that I was joining such a strong community of people . . . You’re talking to people who are there every day. You get to know them, their thoughts, and they become dearest friends, yet you’ve never really met in person.–Katiebird

Stop by Katiebird’s blog, Eat4Today, and say hi!

Thanks, Katiebird, you B.A.D. Blogger!

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Want to be a B.A.D. Blogger see the. . . a B.A.D. Blogger? page in the sidebar.

Let’s Help Delaney Find Great Books on Organizational Behavior

by

Dr. Kirk Doesn’t Want to Use Textbooks

At Tuesday Open Comments Night, Delaney Kirk told us that she was going to teach her classes using business books — not textbooks. She asked our suggestions and we mentioned some powerful selections.

On Saturday morning, Delaney and I continued the conversation. We talked about books and blogs that also could be useful.

Dr. Kirk still has time to put her list together. Won’t you join us in helping her? The topics include:

  • Leadership
  • Motivation
  • Communication
  • Organizational Change
  • Teamwork
  • Power & politics

You can catch up on what books we’ve recommended and get the details by clicking the title below.

Take a look at your shelves and your bedside table. Check your briefcase, your desk, the arm of the couch, wherever you keep business books you might have. It’s also a great excuse to visit your favorite bookstore. You can always say you’re helping the college kids.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Related
The Mic Is On and It’s a Thank-You Party!

Drew McLellan Is a B.A.D. Blogger

by

Blogger A Day Call: Hello is Drew there?

I can’t really remember the first 5 or 10 minutes of our conversation, because Drew and I started with a lovely and quick-paced game of verbal volleyball. It started when I mentioned the Des Moines Blogger Mafia and went rolling quickly out of control from there. I remember laughing, replying, laughing, listening, and laughing some more. That’s my story. You’ll get no more details from me.

As we walked off the virtual verbal volleyball court, the conversation turned to the plight of the father of a 13-year-old daughter. I recalled the days of a son that age. We bemoaned parenthood together. Guess you could say it was bonding to share the “Don’t embarrass me” rule with another parent within the first 20 minutes of saying hello. We discussed how kids that age have the knack of reducing us to mere transportation. Yet despite that they still try to teach us the drop dead importance of fashion statements — complex math clearly beyond our comprehension. Life is rough for the parents of teenagers.

Knowing our limits, we moved on to branding and marketing. Einstein would have said that relatively we had gone from the nebulous to the far more predictable. This was a jungle we understood.

In no time at all we were off again. Drew was explaining career in marketing. A not so great boss who just by existing convinced him to go it alone. Now over a decade later, he’s got a thriving business teaching folks that a brand is more than a name and explaining that customers care about different things than companies do. We talked about how many companies find that information hard to hear — or even more surprising, how many find that news an epiphany.

Drew said that the moment when his clients “get some idea that they never got before” that’s what makes it all worth it. We spent some time talking about why some folks see things and some folks don’t. We both recognized that part of any management or consultant role is teaching. I think we both kind of gravitate to that part of it. We talked about how much we like helping people do things.

It was two bloggers talking about the elephant in the room again. Only this time we were discussing the idea that quality is a given, not a value any more — customers expected a certain level of quality and competitors already have it. Drew and I mentioned clients who want to build “quality,” that customers can’t see, don’t need, or don’t want to pay for. We were back at the Tony D. Clark discussion of letting go — this time from a slightly different perspective.

Drew and I kept talking around the idea of why it’s so hard to get some people to see the way other folks look at the world. . . . I was going to say “to walk in someone else’s shoes,” but I remembered Drew telling me how many pairs of shoes a 13-year-old daughter needs. That simple fact baffled both of us.

I guess there are some things that we can’t see too.

Hey, no one said bloggers are perfect people.

The one’s I’ve met are still remarkable.

B.A.D. Blogger Quote

If you have a vision or a plan for your company sharing it with your employees is a great idea. —Drew McLellan

Stop by Drew’s Blog, Drew’s Marketing Minute, and say hi!

Thanks, Drew, you B.A.D. Blogger!

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Want to be a B.A.D. Blogger see the. . . a B.A.D. Blogger? page in the sidebar.