eBook Authoring... by Glenn Dietzel
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This article was printed from Teachers.Net Gazette,
located at http://teachers.net.
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There's A Book Inside of You!
You Have To Think Out of Both Sides of Your Brain
The Big Picture Step of your eBook authoring excursion really comprises two separate tasks. Much like building a home requires the perspectives of both the architect and engineer, the Big Picture requires you to think from both sides of your brain. It requires you to see the reality of your dream in very concrete terms.
Just as an architect helps to convey the reality of your ideal dream home seen by your mind's eye, the Big Picture Step is where your fanciful (your architectural right brain viewpoint) and realistic (your left brain engineering perspective) hemispheres converge.
Both hemispheres of your brain must work cooperatively to help you see concretely the outworking of your imagination. You must clearly see the scope of your subject area. This naturally follows the Reflection and Commitment stages (Steps Two and Three) of the eBook authoring journey.
Compared to the first phase of the Big Picture which is very much a right brained activity, the second phase requires the engineer in you to appear. You need to think openly and without any ambiguity from your published eBook as discussed in a previous issue. You also must be able to frame this is in a definable Table of Contents (TOC).
The importance of spelling out distinctively your TOC cannot be overstated. Successfully completing this sub-step ultimately will allow you to write productively and efficiently in Steps Five and Six, the Editing and Writing stages. Shawn Fawcett in his very practical eBook on effective writing, "Writing Success Secrets: Practical Tips and Tricks for Everyday Writing" discusses the necessity of creating a very specific TOC.
Mr. Fawcett states, "This should be more than a rough draft TOC. It should be a carefully thought out breakdown of what you imagine your TOC to look like…" Mr. Fawcett goes on to say that, although this sub-step in the Big Picture stage does require some real laborious thinking, the dividends will be reaped when you actually begin to write your eBook. This will ultimately save you time and effort.
Your TOC is similar to the blueprint for your dream home. Blueprints are not abstract works of art---well maybe they are if you're not a builder. The genius of the blueprint is in the details it provides the contractor to make your dream happen. Nothing is left to guesswork and chance. Directions which do not lend themselves to an accurate detailed picture of your dream home lead to wasted time and money.
The more specific you can see your eBook as revealed in your TOC, the easier the rest of your journey will be. The TOC positions you to chunk effectively in Step Five. It shows you where you will have to do some research, ask for assistance from your team or gather feedback from your students.
Measured in nanometers because of its smallness, your DNA has the unbelievable ability to produce you---the big picture. The TOC is your eBook's DNA. It provides the blueprint to help you launch successfully into the Chunking and Writing Stages of your eBook authoring voyage. A specific TOC will inoculate you from the dreaded disease called "Writer's Block."
In the next month's issue, we look at Step Five of the eBook authoring journey, "You Need To Organize Your Information."
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