by Dave Giorgio
Recently, I was responding to an author’s email when he asked me to google his book. I did, and found some intriguing semi-book-related content. I told him that it looked interesting. He then asked if I had read his book. I had not.
It was at that moment that I realized that since I have been a book publisher, I don’t choose the books I read anymore. I only read books that come my way due to my work. In a sense, you could say that I don’t choose them, they choose me.
That’s not a bad thing, mind you. Sure, super geeked out sci-fi isn’t my first choice, but the authors I work for are all good writers and it’s a pretty cool gig.
So let me tell you about the most recent book that I have “read.” It’s by Dan Poynter of parapub.com. He is the world’s foremost expert on self publishing. I am an audio book producer and director, and I got to work with Dan in our studio recording a 1-Hour Audio version of one of his recent books.
As you can imagine, I have worked on all sorts of titles from many places. Books originally published by Random House, Simon and Schuster, Grand Central, 12 Books, FaithWords, etc. So the books that I get to work on are all pretty good.
Which leads me back to my recent session with Dan Poynter. I am not usually compelled to blog about specific books or authors. But this guy is a winner. For several hours in the studio, Dan read his book as I read along, doing my usual directing and recording gig.
Dan’s written over 127 books and has lectured and taught virtually everywhere. So I could see how an author like this could be so together with his writing. The bottom line was that I walked away from the recording session totally impressed with what he wrote. That doesn’t happen often.
It goes back to something I wrote in one of my earlier blogs, about how good content can be the driving factor in the success of an audio book. And in this case, I was certain that what I was hearing and reading was great content. I know this book will be successful. I know that the reason why will be the great content written by the author.
So the point is to make it great. Put everything you have into your writing. Read the classics for inspiration and guidance, research everything possible, including books on writing, have the book edited, etc.
And as you’re finishing up your excellent book, think about some handsome and talented guy sitting in a recording studio, listening to your book, smiling. Well, I’m the guy sitting next to him, also smiling. :-)
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Photo courtesy of Robert Aichinger.
