Monday, April 19, 2010

My Favorite Part of Authoring

Epigraphs. Yeah - I didn't know what that meant either when I first came across the term (well other than the Epi part). An epigraph is a quote that starts off each chapter of your book.

I love trying to find the perfect quote to kick things off. I'll spend hours upon hours looking for one. The big caveat is you need to pick quotes from public figures or people who have been long dead to avoid having to seek permission.

I ran into this a few times while writing my book. For example, a Mario Andretti quote about control I really liked - "If you feel like you're under control, you're not going fast enough." Unfortunately, getting permission from Mario's handlers became more trouble than it's worth and I had to remove the quote from the final copy of the book.

So my advice, and my publisher's advice, is seek out old dead people! Here are a few from the book that I wish I could weave into everyday conversation more often:


"It is better to be beautiful than to be good, but it is better to be good than to be ugly." --Oscar Wilde (from Portrait of Dorian Gray - awesome book BTW)

"Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication." --Leonardo da Vinci

"A small leak can sink a great ship." --Benjamin Franklin


For more fun quotes and a whole lot of tutorials on ASP.NET MVC you can check out the final copy of my book on Amazon.com