I have used Atticus to format books for clients and for my own projects for a few years.
Atticus does a great job formatting all of the standard trim sizes for Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) and IngramSpark, as well as an eBook format for Kindle and other readers.
The Atticus platform is also great for writing. It is chapter-oriented, and reorganizing chapters is as simple as dragging up or down in the side panel.
Using Grammarly or other writing assistants provides a powerful writing and editing environment.
There is no extra step between the writing and formatting stages. All done with grace in Atticus.
Collaboration
Atticus creator Dave Chesson said he was working on the ability to collaborate on book projects. It has been on my wish list for a long time and would simplify the editing and review process.
A few weeks ago, Atticus sent a notice about a major update to the software. Dave Chasson didn’t say what the update was but said we could probably guess.
Sure enough, that was it was the collaboration feature that was new.
While it is too late for this year, here is how the collaboration feature would have saved A LOT of time and trouble with Tales From The Turkey Table by Bill Allman.
Bill called me in late November last year to say he was ready to go with Tales from the Turkey Table.
Given that we often were able to take a finished manuscript to formatted and submitted for printing in a few days ago, I said we could do a quick edit pass and format for printing.
Given that Bill is a good writer and editor himself, we assumed it was ready to go. And for what we were doing, it was.
The writing style and punctuation was quirky, but very readable. I certainly was not going to be heavy-handed with editing.
Although the formatting was tricky, I created PDF that I sent out for review.
Some of the most minor things like the table of contents not fitting on a single page became a sticking point.
Then various friends started complaining about minor things. Editing by committee is usually a bad idea because people have opinions that are often wrong and not helpful.
Assuming that the author had done a thorough read of the review copy and considering the time crunch, we submitted, printed, and sold copies.
After Christmas, the author decided to do a close review and edit to make it better.
Nearly a year later, he said he was done with the edit comments in a PDF with comment tracking enabled.
I spent a good week applying some 550 minor changes.
Now we have time to print for Christmas and get into retail shops.
Now that the collaboration feature is available, here is what we could have done last year and this year that would have saved much time and trouble:
I would have set up the author and editors as collaborators and reviewed the text and formatting within Atticus.
Atticus would track and report changes and comments.
The author could have made most of the changes himself, which is far easier than explaining the changes.
All collaborators and editors can review the formatting within Atticus and export PDFs for closer review.
Once approved, the formatted book will be ready for submission and printing.
Working With Book Clients Moving Forward
The writing and formatting features of Atticus are all I need for my books.
The collaboration feature makes working with new book clients easier regardless of stage. I can help with book development, writing, editing, and formatting.
So I will encourage, if not insist, to get the book project into Atticus as soon as possible and collaborate there. That means that the author and editors would need their own Atticus accounts.
Linda Hollender commissioned us to capture her father’s life story. We usually shot videos, but Robert was reluctant to speak on camera.
Instead, we used a microphone and a smartphone to record his story, which we transcribed and assembled into a book with photos that he gave away to friends for his birthday party that year.
Last year, Linda gave away copies at his memorial service.
See tellyourstory.productions/robert-hollander/
The Rocket Norton Vault
I worked with Vancouver musician and author Rocket Norton for decades on many projects, including concert promotions, publishing his books, selling his How to Coach Baseball to Kids video course, and driving a Lincoln Town Car for his driving service.
Much of that I collected into a multimedia portal called The Rocket Norton Vault.
I also helped promote three cancer benefit concerts related to his battle with cancer. Rocket organized and performed at the first two concerts. The one this year served as a memorial.
I had the honour of creating a memorial video shown at the concert.
Preserve Your Personal and Family Stories
My encouragement is for you to capture the stories of your loved ones while they can still share. Our time on earth is fleeting.
You can start with taking photos, video, and audio with your SmartPhone at family gatherings. I have created videos on the process in the past and am working with new resources to help you.
I am also available to craft new and existing content into story productions.
You can create folders on Google Drive to start organizing the media for sharing and using for Story Productions
You can name the folders something that makes sense to you.
Here is a sample:
Aunt Martha Miles
Notes
Videos
Early Days
Wedding
Adventures
…
Photos
Category 1
Category 2
Audio Recordings
Document
Story Productions
When you are ready, you can assemble the photos, video, audio, and notes into media for sharing.
I have created presentations in the following forms:
Print Book
eBook
FlipBook
Video clips
Audio
Slide presentations for weddings, anniversaries, and memmorials.
Multimedia Digital Experience Edition
Website
Blog post
Social media posts.
…
Story Production Tools
I use a lot of tools, including PhotoShop (images), FinalCut Pro (video), ClarityScribe (transcription, AI writing), Atticus (writing, print and eBook formatting), Heyzine (flipbooks), Kartra (membership portals, email, video hosting), WordPress (websites), and others to create Multimedia Story Productions.
Greg Dixon Is Available to Help
I am available to help coach you through the collection of the stories and crafting them into story productions.
A real tree is a true miracle of creation and life that transcends human description, including poetry and sacred texts. The discussion here is limited to symbolic analogies.
First, let me share my appreciation for the Tree of Life symbol, such as this Celtic-inspired AI image provided by satheeshsankaran on Pixabay.
The Roots
The roots connect with Earth and all life on Earth.
Years ago I visited the Theosophical Society Headquarters in Adyar, India. The centre has many original manuscripts and artifacts from all religions and philosophies in the world.
The had a tree in the garden that was a sapling from the Bodhi tree where Siddhartha achieved Enlightenment.
I sensed that the tree was still connected to the original tree through the earth and through a spiritual connection.
The roots in all trees help the tree withstand the weather, provide a base, and provide nutrients.
Marketing Analogy
The roots can be the base that sustains your business, including your education, experience, and your network of connections.
Your mailing list, professional connections, business systems, and support network all support you like the roots of a tree.
Build Strong Roots To Thrive.
The Trunk
The trunk in the Tree of Life represents Strength and Unity.
Marketing Analogy
You can see the trunk as representing you and your business. Your strengths. Your processes. Your unique offers.
The Branches and Leaves
The branches and leaves of a living tree reach out to collect energy from the sun and perform many gas exchanges and chemical processes that enable the tree to thrive.
And without the oxygen created by trees and plants, we would not be here.
Symbolically, the leaves and branches could represent reaching out for knowledge and experiences.
The tree branches can also represent past and future family relations or our evolutionary tree.
Marketing Analogy
The branches and leaves of the tree can represent the connections of you and your business to other people and businesses.
Also your public face and active marketing campaigns.
The 7 Essential Elements of Sales Success come into play here:
Your Golden Offer
Compelling Offer Presentation
Effective Online Profiles
Searchable Articles and Posts
Contact Capture
Engagement
Expansion
Networking, advertising, speaking, and public relations are all ways to expand your reach into the world, like the branches and leaves of a tree.
The Golden Circle
The golden Celtic circle that unifies and connects all of the components of the tree in a continuous strand.
Perfection ~ Unity ~ Connection ~ Divinity ~ Flow
The perfect model for your life and business.
Greg Dixon can help you implement your Tree of Success.
Greg Dixon set up a website at https://allmyrelationsbook.com/ for writing and publishing the content for the book as part of his publishing adventure.
I register a domain name and create a WordPress website on Cloudways.
The home page will introduce the book and provide a working table of contents.
Writing and Publishing Chapters
Over time, I will write the chapters in Google Drive and publish as blog posts on the website.
More steps coming as the project progresses.
Do You Want to Join the Adventure?
You are welcome to follow along with what I am doing online with your own book project.
If you want my help with creating the Google Drive folders, setting up a website, and cheering you through the process, sign up for my most affordable retainer at $88 per month. I provide everything you need.
Emphasizing the Unlimited part of Shared Visions Unlimited Publishing, I encourage and help you to publish your book in multiple formats on multiple platforms, including:
Printed Book and eBook through Amazon and IngramSpark Put your book out far and wide forever and possibly make some money.
FlipBook Easy distribution and support for multimedia elements. Help people, build authority, and increase influence.
Digital Experience Edition Secure multimedia portal for your book content and support material. Great potential for direct sales.
Audiobook A market for those who prefer to listen.
Video Versions Illustrated readings, training, …
Today, I suggest adding a blogging website to the mix and possibly starting by writing and publishing your book on a blogging website.
Why You Would Consider Publishing Your Book As A Website
This is for you if your reasons to write and publish a book are along these lines:
You have joy in the creating and writing process itself.
You have insights or stories you want to share with the world.
You want to increase your authority and influence.
You may want to use a book as a lead magnet for your products and services.
You want to engage your readers with your content and get feedback to improve the print book.
You collaborate with an editor or writing coach.
This is not for you if you are a perfectionist who wants everything perfect before sharing.
I build high-performing and search-engine-optimized WordPress sites for marketing and various other purposes. Here is why this approach can work for your book and why I am going to use this approach for my own books:
WordPress provides a great platform for writing and collaborating on posts and articles.
Attention to Search Engine Optimization and submitting to Google Search Console can boost your search presence.
The pages can have rich multimedia content and links to related resources.
WordPress provides a good search function for the site itself. This is fabulously useful.
The Google Translate plugin can translate the site instantly. I still think this isamazing! Check out the language selector at the bottom-right of this window.
You can invite feedback and comments for your content as you go.
Sharing to social media platforms is easy.
Linking back from social media platforms and YouTube is easy.
Writing Live and Testing Content
I have a few books in mind: The First Book of Lazy, All My Relations, Adventures in Moving, and The Golden Publishing Sales Machine.
I will create a website and start writing at least one of those books live soon.
Here is the plan:
Register a domain name with the working book title.
Create a website with key plugins, including Yoast SEO, Google Site Kit, and Ultimate Blocks.
Create a home page with a book description and a working outline of topics.
Write the first chapter.
Submit the site to Google Search Console for indexing.
Write a chapter regularly. I will aim for at least three a week.
Post a link to each chapter on social media.
Consider doing a broadcast for each chapter.
I use Grammarly to keep my writing somewhat under control!
If I get readers and interest, I will combine and publish in some or all formats such as a print book, eBook, flipbook, audiobook, and Digital Experience Edition.
At the very least, I will have fun writing and publishing the chapters:-)
The main service I provide for our book publishing is formatting the manuscript for print book and eBook publishing with Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing and IngramSpark.
The tool I use for that is Attiticus at atticus.io.
Atticus supports all popular book trim sizes like 6 x 9 inches.
It includes many book themes that can be customized in many ways.
The platform provides good previews of the formatting of the eBook on various devices and the print format.
Writing
Usually, the manuscripts from our clients come in Microsoft Word format that is imported into Atticus for formatting.
Atticus provides a great writing platform for writing and editing books.
Each book section and chapter is treated as a separate block, which makes restructuring your book a matter of dragging the section up or down on the list on the left panel.
The formatting within each section or chapter is highly style-driven in the sense that all headings and all paragraph styles will be the same across the entire book.
This is a good practice that will frustrate style hackers who want to vary fonts, styles, and colors paragraph by paragraph.
I use Grammarly for writing style and correctness. Other writing tools could work for you within Atticus.
Proofing
Atticus outputs a PDF file optimized for uploading for printing. This file represents the book formatting with high accuracy.
We have been sending the PDF to authors and editors for feedback. Adobe does support review comments, though it is awkward.
My current practice is to use the PDF to create a flipbook with Heyzine at https://heyzine.com/.
The flipbook provides a great presentation of the formatting and can be the preferred way to share books where your intention is to share rather than make sales of the book. Like a lead magnet:-)
There are dozens of flipbook creators. Heyzine is easy to use, offers a lot with the free plan, and the paid plans are inexpensive. Heyzine can also publish multimedia magazines.
