OK, this one’s a quickie: If you are trying to publish a book, check out O’Reilly Media’s So You Want to Write a Book? O’Reilly publishes all kinds of tech-oriented books, and this is their guide for authors who are submitting manuscripts to them for publication. Although aimed at O’Reilly’s authors, the information here applies pretty well to the process at most publishers (except O’Reilly is a lot more honest than many others, as illustrated by the very fact that they’ve made available this incredibly open guide to their publication process, where other publishers might prefer you underinformed).

So You Want to Write a Book? explains how to write a proposal, walks point-by-point through their contract and explains what you should be looking out for, and then explains what to expect from your editor and the design and marketing staff responsible for making your book sell. Having been through the book publication process blind, I can say first-hand I wish I’d found this resource before I ever sat down to write my proposal! I would have been a lot better prepared for the year-long wait, interrupted by urgent demands (we need these copyedits reviewed and returned to us asap! we need the proofs reviewed in two week! we need an index!) that seemed to always come when I was least prepared to deal with them.

O’Reilly Media is known for being one of the “good guys”, so the website has an unintended side effect: it lets you know what an honest contract looks like. Most authors have no idea how to read their publishing contract, and while an agent, if you have one, should give you an idea of what you’re looking at, it pays to have a little knowledge of your own. And if you don’t have an agent (I didn’t — academic books are rarely published though an agent), knowing how to read a publishing contract is essential.

If you’re pitching a book, make sure you spend some time looking through So You Want to Write a Book?

This is a guest post from education writer Karen Schweitzer. Karen is the About.com Guide to Business School. She also writes about online school for OnlineSchool.net. Enjoy!

The most productive writers know how to use the web and other tools to meet deadlines and achieve writing goals. If you are looking for new sites to inspire and new tools to help you write and edit your next piece, this article can guide you to 15 resources guaranteed to make you more productive on a daily basis.

Writing.com — Created for writers of all levels and interests, this online writing community is a wonderful place for writers to hone their skills, learn new techniques, and become a more productive writer. After signing up for a free membership, site users can create a writing portfolio, participate in writing activities, and utilize Writing.com’s many writing tools.

Writers Write — Writers Write is a comprehensive resource for writers who are looking for information on writing and getting published. The site features a blog, articles, book reviews, author interviews, news, writing jobs, and much more.

NaNoWriMo — NaNoWriMo (short for National Novel Writing Month) is an inspiring site for writers who want to adopt a seat-of-your-pants approach to novel writing. Every November, community members pledge to write a 50,000-word novel in 30 days.

WritingFix — This site offers free interactive writing prompts for writers who are having a hard time coming up with something to write on. Simply click on the prompt generator until you find a prompt that sparks your interest.

365 Pictures — Launched in April of 2009, 365 Pictures is a collaborative project that provides a new picture and thought-provoking writing prompt each day. Pictures include photos, illustrations, mixed media imagery, and other artwork.

Seventh Sanctum — Perfect for writers who have a difficult time naming their characters, equipment, or organizations, this site offers multiple name generators for nearly every occasion. Seventh Sanctum can also be used to come up with writing ideas and plot lines.

Grammar Girl — Productive writers can study grammar on the go with this amazing podcast from Grammar Girl Mignon Fogarty. Each episode is devoted to a particular grammar issue and includes quick and dirty tips for remembering grammar rules.

Style Guide — Given to everyone who writes for Economist.com, this handy guide makes a great reference for writers who need to quickly find answers to style questions. The guide covers everything from capitalization and punctuation to abbreviations and titles.

AutoCrit Editing Wizard — AutoCrit is a paid service, but writers can use it to edit short, 800-word pieces for free. The Wizard searches for overused words, repeat phrases, and sentence length variation.

Booksie — Booksie is a good site for writers who want to electronically publish novels, poems, short stories, and articles and receive critiques from other people. The site allows writers to build a profile, interact with the community, and retain full rights to all of their work.

yWriter — yWriter is free novel writing software that keeps writing organized by separating it into chapters and scenes. The software also backs up work automatically so that you never have to worry about losing a piece in progress.

RoughDraft — RoughDraft is a free, award-winning word processor for older versions of Windows. Features include live spellchecking, instant backup, genre-specific formatting, an HTML converter, a dictionary and thesaurus facility, and much more.

Wridea — Wridea is a free web application for writers who want to organize their ideas and better manage the writing process. The app can also be used to share outlines and brainstorming sessions with friends.

Web-Chops — Web-Chops is an excellent tool for writers who conduct their research online. The tool makes it easy to quickly collect information from around the web and place it on one web page.

Joe’s Goals — Establishing goals is a good way for writers to get on track and stay productive. Joe’s Goals is a simple way to establish and monitor all of your writing goals.

For writers looking to improve their blogs quickly, Darren Rowse’s “31 Days to Build a Better Blog” program might be just the thing. Rowse runs Problogger, one of the top blogs on the Internet and the place to go for information about making a living as a blogger. For the next month, starting April 6, he’ll send out an email every day to everyone in the “31 Days” program with a quick, 10–15 minute task they can do to make their blog a little bit better.

I know little beyond that — like you, I’ll have to wait until the 6th to see what kind of tips Darren is sending out. But, Darren is a) super-smart about blogging, b) very good at explaining things, and c) about the nicest guy you’ll ever meet, and therefore one ofthe givingest, so I’m sure the tips will be effective, well-written, and generous.

The program is free — you just need to give your name and email address to receive the daily emails. IF you need to get your blog in order — or maybe even get your blog started — this looks like a good, quick way to pick up a little steam.

Image by ilmungo via Flickr

One of the profound ironies about writing a site about being a productive, efficient writer is that the better I am at what I write about, the less time I have to write about it. The last couple of months I’ve been getting more work than ever, even while I struggled to deal with a difficult semester (my day job is teaching anthropology and gender studies to college students) and an even more difficult break-up and move.

My guest writers helped a lot – Aaron Peters, Kelly Kilpatrick, and Stephanie Stiavetti stepped in to take some of the load off as I got moved and then buried under end-of-the-semester grading, and I’m immensely grateful to them all. It’s been fun having guest writers on the site, and I’m definitely up for more.

The Writer’s Technology Companion has changed quite a bit since I started it. When I launched the site last March, I thought I would be primarily reviewing software and writing how-tos. Those kind of posts have been common on the site, of course, but I find that the ones I enjoy writing the most are the ones about being a more productive writer, and so that will be a bigger focus in the year to come. These posts take quite a bit longer to write, especially since – as anyone who follows my work at Lifehack will have seen – I’m struggling mightily with the notion of “productivity” and how to integrate efficiency, meaning, and passion in our lives. But I think it’s a worthwhile pursuit, even if it means slightly longer gaps between posts here.

To help fill some of those gaps, I’m going to try to do regular posts bringing together some of the best posts around the Internet on writing. I come across tons of great stuff out there, and it’s time I start sharing with my readers. Now, as a general rule, I hate link posts, so my promise to you is that I’ll never post just a set of links; I’ll always make an effort to bring some kind of value to the material I’m linking to, so that even if you never click a link, you’ll walk away with something useful.

Since goals and resolutions are on everyone’s mind as we move into the new year, I thought I’d start by sharing with you some of the great posts I’ve come across on that theme.

Better Resolutions for Writers

No-Fail Freelance Resolutions: How To Succeed in 2009: Jenny Cromie offers some great advice for setting writing goals for the new year. Especially welcome is her emphasis on spending some time to know yourself as a writer – check your commitment level and learn what motivates you now, so you’re ready when the writing flags and just about anything else seems preferable to working towards your goals.

“He shoots…he scores!” (or, writing goals): Jane of Seven angels, four kids, one family offers a crucial piece of advice to writers setting goals for 2009: focus on things you actually have control over. You can write the greatest work ever and the most stunning queries of all time, but in the end you cannot control whether your book gets published. “Get book published” might be setting yourself up to fail; “Submit manuscript/proposal to one publisher or agent every month this year” is  something you can make sure happens.

Writing Goals and New Year’s Resolutions Tips for Writers: Laurie Pawlik-Kienlen offers her take on writers’ resolutions for the new year. with a special emphasis on financial goals. Writers often ignore finances (which makes us especially easy to take advantage of, unfortunately) – if you want to make writing your life’s work, though, you’ve got to take the money side seriously.

Stress Relief for Writers: Four Ways to Achieve Your Writing Goals: Angela Booth tells writers to relax – and provides some strategies for doing so. Though many writers seem to thrive on chaos and deadlines, the reality is that our minds think and work best when they’re at peace. Clear your mind and let the ideas flow!

47 Ways Copyblogger Can Help You Keep Your New Year’s Resolutions: Although this is primarily a “sneeze post” for Copyblogger (a “sneeze post” is a post written primarily to direct you to other work in the site’s archive – it’s a good traffic generating tool, but typically not especially exciting content), Sonia Simone provides lots of good advice for writers in between the links to other Copyblogger posts. And, to be honest, you can do a lot worse for yourself than to spend some time with Copyblogger’s usually excellent writing posts.

Top 10 Resolutions for Writers: A simple, to-the-point overview of the ten resolutions that should top a writer’s list of resolutions.

Ten health hazards for writers: Writing seems like a pretty safe work option, compared to say driving the ice roads of the Arctic or doing humanitarian relief work in a warzone, but it’s not without its own particular on-the-job hazards. Tumblemoose Writing Productions offers tips for avoiding 10 health risks that can stop your writing in its tracks. Don’t fall short of your goals because you’re too sick or injured to write!

And don’t forget my own post, How to Set SMART Writing Goals, which isn’t about resolutions per se but which has plenty to say about setting goals that work.

via videosift.com

Image by sirwiseowl via Flickr

In my series on collecting and organizing ideas, I discussed mind-mapping as a brainstorming tool. Mind-mapping is a kind of free-association method in which ideas are generated by association with a central idea, and then each of the generated ideas in turn becomes a source of inspiration for further brainstorming. Mind-mapping is an interesting blend of right-brain creative exploration and left-brain order-making – although the graphic format and unboundedness of mind-mapping allows for unfettered ideation, the linking of ideas creates a self-organized final product. In fact, most mind-mapping software includes an option to export the seemingly unstructured “blob” of thought that appears on the screen into a neatly-formatted traditional outline, complete with Roman numerals and sub-headings.

Chuck Frey emailed me in response to my mention of mind-mapping to tell me about a post he’d just written on the future of mind-mapping software. His blog is “The MindMapping Software Blog, so we can probably assume that Chuck has spent more than a few minutes thinking about the subject.

According to Frey, mind-mapping software is still barely out of its infancy, and we can expect to see some interesting developments ahead as programmers develop software that allows us not only to visualize the connections between ideas in our heads, but the connections between those ideas and the vast wealth of data on the Web. “The mind map needs to become more of a ‘knowledge hub’,” he writes, “where information can be gathered, manipulated and analyzed.”

Returning to the present, one of the premier mind-mapping applications out there today is iMindMap, the only mind-mapping software officially endorsed by Tony Buzan, the main figure responsible for developing and popularizing mind-mapping. The developers of iMindMap have taken great pains to make the experience of creating mind-maps on the computer as close as possible to the experience of drawing them with pencil and paper. In addition to brainstorming, iMindMap supports a wide range of planning activities, and integrates well with both MS Office and OpenOffice.

iMindMap’s Ultimate version retails for $295 USD, putting it well out of the reach for many writers (including yours truly). But Emily Van Keogh of Buzan Online has offered to give away one free copy of the Ultimate edition to one of my readers.

Which means I get to have a contest!

Now, I could make it easy on you and ask you to send me an email and pick one at random, or something like that, but I want to get into the spirit of the thing. So to enter, I’m going to ask you to answer that oldest of questions posed to writers:

Where do you get your ideas?

You can enter in one of two ways. First, you can leave a comment on this post with your answer. The other way is to write a post of your own, in any public forum you have access too – your own website, LiveJournal, even Twitter if you’re that concise – and put a link to your post in the comments on this post. Just make sure that anyone can read your answer, wherever you decide to post it. (I’d appreciate a link back to the contest, too, but it’s not a requirement.)

Enter by the end of October – that’s the 31st of October for the calendrically-challenged – and I’ll randomly select one entry as a winner. Buzan Online will supply a download link and registration code. Make sure you include your email address in your comment so I can contact you if you’re the winner!

I’m looking forward to seeing your answers to this totally clichéd question. Let’s try to be creative and informative – maybe we can come up with the perfect answer and then nobody will have to ask it any more! And feel free to spread the word – the more the merrier!

It can be hard, though, to find good ones on writing. To help you out, here’s 10 podcasts about writing I think are pretty good. Where possible I’ve provided links for both your RSS reader and for iTunes; if you use a separate podcatcher, you might have to right-click on the “RSS” link to “Copy link location” and paste it into your podcatcher manually.

1. I Should be Writing: Mur Lafferty is a self-described “would-be writer” who actually has quite a few credits to her name, now. ISBW covers the ins-and-outs of writing, from coming up with ideas to self-publishing to writing queries. (RSS | iTunes)
2. Lifehack Live: Pardon me for plugging my own show, but I have lots of great writers on — as well as productivity experts, life coaches, and entrepreneurs, all of which have something to say to writers, I think. Lifehack Live is on hiatus at the moment, but there’s plenty of good stuff in the archives. (RSS | iTunes)
3. Freelance Radio: FreelanceSwich’s podcast features John Brogher, Cyan Ta’eed (co-author of the awesome book How to Be a Rockstar Freelancer), Kristen Fischer, and Dickie Adams discussing the insand outs of freelancing, with a focus on practical business-related questions like “how do freelancers get insurance” and “how do you say ‘no’ to a client?” (RSS | iTunes)
4. The Writing Show: Author Paula Berinstein tackles everything from where writers find inspiration to where writers can get published, with probing interviews of writers, publishers, editors, agents, and otehrs. There are several “threads”, including ongoing “reality show” series tracking beginning writers through the process of submitting and revising their work for publication, and more traditional “one-off” shows featuring guests talking about whatever topic they’re particularly knowledgable about.  (RSS | iTunes)
5. PerfCast: The official podcast of Performancing, covering all aspects of blogging including the business aspects, generating revenue, and promotion. Some of this might be off-topic for most writer’s blogs, but there’s a lot of good advice for turning your own writer’s blog into a blog powerhouse — and if your preferred form of writing happens to be blogging, this is required listening. (RSS)
6. Litopia: Litopia consists of two podcasts. The first, “Litopia Daily”, is a short daily round-up of news of interest to writers. The second, “Litopia After Dark”, is a longer weekly round-table dscussion of issues in the writing and publishing worlds. (RSS | iTunes)
7. The Creative Writing Podcast: Tom Occhipinti offers tons of advice for fiction writers, from tips on characterization or setting to overviews of genres. (RSS | iTunes)
8. Grammar Girl: Mignon Fogarty offers “quick and dirty tips for better writing” in this twice-weekly show on the ins and outs of English grammar. More fun than your Third Grade English teacher, by a long shot! (RSS)
9. Writing Excuses: A recent discovery for me, this podcast features three writers (Brandon Sanderson , Howard Tayler, and Dan Wells) talkinga bout various writing challenges, either amongst themselves or with guest interviewees. Short — because, they say, “you’re in a hurry and we’re not that smart”) — fun, and surprisingly helpful considering their self-professed lack of brain power… (RSS | iTunes)
10. HotForWords: I debated whether or not to add this one — it’s video instead of audio, it’s risqué, and it’s quite simply weird. A young, attractive, and often sexily-clad woman with a rich accent discusses the origin of odd words and phrases in the English language. It would be deeply offensive (and maybe it still is) if it weren’t so fascinating! (RSS | iTunes)

Hopefully you’ll find at least one or two on the list that really get you going. Go ahead and load up your mp3 player and start listening! And let me know your favorite podcasts for writers in the comments.

Dustin covers all those techy things which you should know as a writer, but were too scared to explore, like MS Word styles and Master Documents.

Check out Angela’s site — there’s a ton of great advice for writers, including lots of good information to help you make money writing.

I posted an epic piece about writing effective blog posts at Problogger yesterday, and I think a lot of my readers here would get a lot of value out of it. The basis of the article is a chapter in one of Bob Bly’s books. Bly, if you don’t know, is one of the masters of copywriting, and since copywriting is all about writing compelling, persuasive prose, I thought that what he had to say about ads could be adapted well to blogging. And maybe all writing — after all, what we want more than anything is to change the way people think about their lives, whether it’s about what kind of toothpaste they should be using or how they should think about the nature of humanity.

Anyway, have a look and let me know what you think.

Here’s how it works — you start reading a story, choosing options to move the story forward, and working your way though other people’s contributions until you reach a part that hasn’t been written or hasn’t been provided with options to move the story forward, what they call a “fragment”. Then, you start writing. Your segment will become one branch of the story’s structure, and others can rate it. Once it’s written, you only have 60 minutes to make changes before it’s locked for good (so that others aren’t caught out using elements in their new branches that you’ve deleted from the branch they’re building on).

Protagonize seems to have built up a fun, active community of writers — there are hundreds of stories and authors working on them. While it probably isn’t the place to write your next best-seller, if you’re looking for a fun way to connect with other authors, Protagonize might be just the thing.

Protagonize (Free)