Juiced On Writing » Non-Fiction Writing

The Four Functions of a Good Title

Michelle — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 13:58:44 +0000

Trying to come up with a good title can be a difficult thing. But it helps if the following functions of a good title are kept in mind -

A good title allows the reader to predict the content.
A good title catches the reader’s interest
A good title reflects the slant or tone of the writing.
A good title contains keywords that will make it easy to find via a computer (or internet) search.

Notice my keywords in the title chosen above – functions, good, title. And it couldn’t be any more reflective of what this little piece is about, could it now?

So saying that, I always go off and break the rules. Don’t you? But if I really want the article found – particularly if publishing on the internet, then I’ll stick to the functions.

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One of A Thousand on AddsYou

Michelle — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 20:44:30 +0000

I am excited to confirm that I’ll be participating in the launch of AddsYou.com, a social publishing network that pays authors for their written works.

AddsYou will provide a site which combines novels, blog posts, news articles, short stories, poems, screenplays, how-tos, school papers, information, reviews, etc. and more etc. AddsYou is positioned to become the world’s largest database of knowledge, and an excellent way of profiling your work through the one site.

The AddsYou alpha trial begins 28th November, and I will be providing you through the AddsYou platform with a fresh lot of content and excitement.

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Ebooks : Neither E, Nor Books

Michelle — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 20:41:39 +0000

Cory Doctorow has an ebook out – on the subject of ebooks at Book Glutton. This was the first time I have encountered the Book Glutton beta site. And it’s a very interesting concept.

Sign in – registration is free – and you have access to an online reader which has chat and annotation functions on each ebook read. Users – and groups of users can use these facilities to discuss the books they are reading – in fact consider this from an online reading group perspective.

Authors can upload their own books to allow these discussions and receive feedback on their work, and the Book Glutton site itself (launched in January 2008) holds over 1000 books at this time, with many groups of readers also.

Cory Doctorow’s Ebook, entitled Ebooks : Neither E, Nor Books, is currently sitting on the homepage books list. The ebook – based on a paper presented at the O’Reilly Emerging Technologies Conference, 2004, makes for interesting reading (even before the arrival of the Kindle and Sony e-readers).

Here are a couple of quotes -

For starters, let me try to summarize the lessons and intuitions I’ve had about ebooks from my release of two novels and most of a short story collection online under a Creative Commons license.

No, if I had to come up with another title for this talk, I’d call it: “Ebooks: You’re Soaking in Them.” That’s because I think that the shape of ebooks to come is almost visible in the way that people interact with text today, and that the job of authors who want to become rich and famous is to come to a better understanding of that shape.

Go to Book Glutton to read this dissertion on ebooks, and to join in with reading several other books online, and chatting over them.

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Owning Books and Not Owning EBooks

Michelle — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 12:06:09 +0000

This is an old entry quoted from March 2008 and Matt Buchanan on the Gizmodo blog, and one which is fascinating reading from a copyright perspective. Whereas I’ve always considered when paying for something that I retain some rights of ownership (and usage), my own ideas must be seen to be incorrect when comparing a real life printed book with it’s electronic counterpart.

If you buy a regular old book, CD or DVD, you can turn around and loan it to a friend, or sell it again. The right to pass it along is called the “first sale” doctrine. Digital books, music and movies are a different story though. Four students at Columbia Law School’s Science and Technology Law Review looked at the particular issue of reselling and copying e-books downloaded to Amazon’s Kindle or the Sony Reader, and came up with answers to a fundamental question: Are you buying a crippled license to intellectual property when you download, or are you buying an honest-to-God book?

In the fine print that you “agree” to, Amazon and Sony say you just get a license to the e-books—you’re not paying to own ‘em, in spite of the use of the term “buy.” Digital retailers say that the first sale doctrine—which would let you hawk your old Harry Potter hardcovers on eBay—no longer applies. Your license to read the book is unlimited, though—so even if Amazon or Sony changed technologies, dropped the biz or just got mad at you, they legally couldn’t take away your purchases. Still, it’s a license you can’t sell.

Further discussion can be found on the Gizmodo entry linked to below.

Link : Amazon Kindle and Sony Reader Locked Up : Why Your Books are No Longer Yours (Gizmodo site, March 21, 2008)

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