Michael N. Marcus discusses writing, editing, design, publishing, marketing, language, culture, politics, food and other things.
This blog started in 2008, was on hiatus for the summer and fall of 2017, and restarted in December.
We publish on Monday,
Wednesday and Friday in most weeks.
---The members of Booksie.com named this blog one of the Top 100 Writing Sites.---
Monday, June 15, 2009
Advice for authors: don't get too specific
You're inviting trouble if you have "internal referrals" in a book.
You may think you're helping your readers by saying that there's more information about a topic "on page 213" or "in chapter 14."
Pages and chapters often migrate as a book evolves, and it's easy to lose track of your referrals. If you send a reader on a wild goose chase to the wrong page or chapter, she'll waste time, get pissed-off, and you'll look stupid.
It's much safer to say something like "later on in the book."
Similarly, it's dangerous to refer to a photo or illustration "above," "below" or "on this page." Re-write the referral so it's vague but truthful.
I doubt that anyone will refuse to buy a book because of the lack of page-specific referrals.
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