Not long ago, I was collaborating on yet another eBook project, this time with someone far away – half way around the world in fact. This creates both challenges and opportunities and I’d like to explain. Additionally, I’d like to discuss how two online article authors can take existing content to fill in the gaps, combine it, and create one great eBook which they can both use to promote their businesses without competing with each other, plus, perhaps, even modify the title and sell a secondary version.
Ah ha, now I have your attention, so let’s talk okay? You see, as soon as my co-author and I picked out a title, we were ready to go to the next step. He forwarded me all his articles, on the topic. In this case it is an eBook project for small business management, so entrepreneurs can grow and control their rocket ship as it continues to its targeted profit goals.
One thing I noted almost immediately, after I told him; “Meanwhile, I will read through all this and start putting them into a format of the eBook” – was that in essence this eBook is shaping up as a; Startup eBook to Help Manage Growth – and that we might have to modify our previously chosen title in that case? So, I asked him; what are your thoughts on modifying the title? We can do that at anytime of course.
Indeed, this is my point here. Don’t get too sold on a title in advance of such a co-authored title. There are some more reasons. If you go to get your book actually published, the publisher may require you to change the title anyway. Additionally, you need to be writing to topic, but not box’ed in by a title – think outside the box instead. See that point as well?
Now then, let me discuss the issues with Sub-Chapters and Chapter Titles with regards to Tables of Contents considerations. In an eBook it makes sense to keep the Chapter titles simple, perhaps only 5-6 words in the Table of Contents, but in the actual chapters it’s perfectly fitting to have additional wording. So, I explained to my co-author partner in this project the following;
“Regarding these titles we’ve chosen for the sub-chapters, if are you considering these longer version Sub-Titles for the eBook, they might be a little much to jam into a TOC [Table of Contents] for Chapter Sub-headings because, we need short Sub-titles for the Table of Contents, but in those sub-chapters we can have the expanded using these subtitles?”
If you want to co-author a book in your area of expertise and are looking for a co-author, then maybe we should be talking. Go ahead and email me and I’ll explain. Please consider all this.
