As with anything in the English language, there are certain words that seem impossible for me to get right. I do have my moments, but really, there, their and they’re seem to be my writing kryptonite.

It must be a mental block or something. Time and time again, I can go back over a manuscript and find issues with the usage of these three words. It’s not just me, either. I can read various texts and especially on social media where these three words are always misused. So, why are there, their and they’re so commonly used incorrectly?

Let’s do a deep dive into what exactly these words are, starting with there.

According to Grammar-Time, the word there is a commonly used word that can be difficult to classify because of the various roles it can play in a sentence. There can be used as an adverb, pronoun, noun, or adjective, and sometimes as an interjection.

Well, that explains it. It’s because the word there has so many various uses. When it’s used as an adverb, it is used to modify a verb in a sentence. “They went there only to find out that it was postponed.” The word there is considered an adverb because it describes the verb went.

That sounds simple enough, but then here’s where it gets even more complicated. That’s when it’s used as a pronoun. First, let’s define what a pronoun is. According to Scribendi.com, “there are seven types of pronouns that both English and English as second language writers must recognize: the personal pronoun, the demonstrative pronoun, the interrogative pronoun, the relative pronoun, the indefinite pronoun, the reflexive pronoun, and the intensive pronoun.

Let’s use the relative pronoun so we don’t’ get too bogged down. When using there as a pronoun, the word there can be used to introduce the subject of the sentence. An example is “There’s a spider in the bathtub.” When used as a noun, the example is, “get away from there.” It can also be used as an adverb as in, “Wait there until I get back.” Used as an adverb, “stop right there!” and as an interjection, “There, that didn’t hurt so much, did it?” Well, yes, it actually did hurt. I think my brain is sprained now.

Let’s move on to the word their, which is considered a possessive pronoun. What exactly does that mean? It means that it shows possession. It’s something that is owned. An example is, “The car is theirs.” More examples of possessive pronouns are provided by yourdictionary.com, which include “my, mine, our, ours, its, his, her, hers, their, theirs, your, and yours. These are all words that demonstrate ownership. If the book belongs to me, then it is mine. If the book belongs to her, then it is hers.”

Clear as mud, right? Let’s make things even more difficult by using their as an adjective. When the word their is used in this way, as defined by dictionary.com, “a form of the possessive case of plural they used as an attributive adjective, before a noun: their home; their rights as citizens; their departure for Rome.”

Okay, that one is easy enough. But then there’s the word they’re. Which should be fairly easy to understand. It’s actually called a contraction, which is a combination of two words; they and are. This combines the pronoun, they and verb, are making they’re.

Some examples are, they’re going to the ballpark. They’re buying a new house. They’re going camping this summer. These sounds pretty easy, but why is it, that this gets confused with the other there and their? At least this is what happens to me.

According to dictionary.com, “the trio of their, there, and they’re can flummox writers of all levels. It’s confusing; they are homophones, meaning they have the same pronunciation (sound) but differ in meaning and derivation (origin). Even though they sound the same, they aren’t spelled the same.”

Well, now I understand what my difficulty is. That’s because I have Dyslexia and while these words sound the same, they are spelled differently. It’s no wonder I flunked Freshman English three years in high school. 

Thank you for joining me this week. Next time, I’ll dive into another set of words that, I not only have trouble with but see time and time again being used incorrectly. Those are to, too, and two.

Until next time, this is author Brian K. Larson, sparking imaginations, one book at a time. 

That is the question you should of thee. Being a self-published author has many advantages. One of them is having full control over your work. This means you can upload revised copies of your book as often as you need.

Those pesky errors in your manuscript can be quite distracting to many readers. They’ll be looking for your grammar, punctuation, spelling and the correct use of your words. I call these folks the ‘grammar police’ and they’re relentless and some can be darn right mean and hurtful. Keep in mind, Amazon does have a review policy and if they are attacking you on a personal level, you can ask Amazon to remove those.

Being able to upload fixed copies of your book will erase those issues

If you’ve made mistakes and republish, those low star ratings and reviews can still plague authors. There is a trick you can use at Amazon KDP to erase all those negative reviews. There are pros and cons to this and in this article, I’ll be explaining what those are.

First off, it’s important to get your manuscript as cleanly edited as you can before publishing the book. I know from personal experience that with even the best editing service, there can be mistakes missed. That’s why it’s always a good idea to have a cashe of beta readers to read your work after it’s gone through your editing phase. Even doing this, there are still risks of missing glaring errors. So, when it’s time to upload a new copy of your book after making those corrections, you have to do something that will erase those reviews.

That’s called creating a second edition. When you’re in the Amazon KDP book publishing page, all you simply have to do is change the edition field to ‘2’ and then continue with the normal process.

This does two things at Amazon. First, it publishes your book as a second edition which erases all the reviews and star ratings. The second thing is Amazon treats your published book as a new release and gives it preferential treatment over other books for a time. This can boost sales of your book, gaining new interest with prospective readers.

There are some downsides to this, that is, all your positive ratings and reviews vanish as well. It’s like starting over, but maybe that’s not a bad idea if the negative ratings are many, which will hurt you with new readers looking for a great read.

There is a way to publish a second, third or forth edition and keep all of your reviews. You would want to do this if you have a great number of positive ratings. This is something that the author must decide for themselves. How many positives over the negatives? How bad are the reviews? How many positive ratings are there and are there reviews you simply cannot ignore and face losing forever?

Once you decide you really need to republish a new edition, they all vanish. However, there is a way to try and recover them. It’s not a hundred percent full-proof and it’s up to Amazon to decide to bring them all back.

You do this by submitting a support ticket to Amazon. You have to provide them with the new ASIN along with the old number and if there are any changes to your ISBN. Amazon doesn’t require an ISBN number, but they assign new ASIN numbers which you have no control over.

After requestion via Amazon’s help desk, there is a good chance that those reviews will get moved to your new edition. Again, there is a risk that Amazon will not do it and there isn’t anything you can say or do, more than the support ticket, to make them.

So, this is why it’s very important to understand the republishing of your work. You must carefully choose making a new edition.

With Amazon, you can upload new copies of your book and not make changes to the editions. Leaving it blank or if you used the number ‘1’ when submitting it, it will not erase your reviews and ratings. However, as I mentioned above, if you have glaring negativity, if will be a huge benefit to creating that second edition.

Perhaps there are no errors or negative reviews, but you make a significant change to your manuscript that changes the outcome of the book or it changes the plot. Maybe you decided to add a twist that wasn’t included in the original publication.

For this type of upgrade to your book, you really should discard all those reviews anyway and publish it a new edition. In fact, Amazon requires a new edition if there were changes to the story and you can be in hot water with them if they discover you haven’t created a second or third edition.

One last thing to discuss on this topic, is once you’ve decided to republish a new edition or simply upload corrected copy of your manuscript, you can ask Amazon to make available a new download for anyone who’s purchased or ordered your eBook in the past. Again, you have to explain to Amazon why there were changes made and they will decide to send a push notification of your readers. They will scold you in their reply, stating that you should have ensured your manuscript was fully edited prior to publishing.

To republish or not to republish, that is the question that you must ask of yourself.

Thanks for joining me this week.

Until next time, this is Author Brian K. Larson, sparking imaginations, one book at a time.

Book covers are extremely important aside from the contents that you labored and toiled over for months. If you want people to read your awesome writing, you have to entice them to get it and you do that with the book cover.

Book covers tell your story before the reader even turns one page. There are several elements that are needed in order to compel readers to pick your book over the thousands of others in the competition. Those elements are focusing on the big picture, a clear focal point, book title and subtitle along with your name. Seems fairly simple, but I’ve seen authors leave out important details or choose cover art that is confusing and cluttered.

 Let’s take a look at one that I designed recently. This is actually a new cover for a book already published. As you can see, I am drawing the audience to the focal point on the cover. The dragon head coming at you demands your attention. Next, the title of the book is fixed at the top with the subtitle below. Since this is an anthology or collection in a bundle, I added the titles in smaller font near the bottom. This tells the reader what books are included in this title. Finally, my name, with a slightly larger font than the text above, yet smaller than the title.

The first thing the reader sees is that dragon head. That conveys a clear message that there are dragons within. Dragons are a key part of this work, so it makes sense to display one in all its glory. Next, the title ‘Warlords’ communicates that there are wars and battles inside those pages and the subtitle of ‘Saga’ tells the reader this is a lengthy story. Readers love long reads and there’s a clear picture painted for the prospective reader by telling them what books are included. This one has four volumes; Warlords of Antares, Empress of Antares, Blood Scroll of Antares, and Rise of the Warlords.

Your name as author is just as important as the title. Some authors choose to display their names at the top in a much larger font. This works if you’ve built a successful reader base that is looking for your work. I chose to put my name at the bottom since my main focus is the title and its contents.

There is a familiar term that is widely known and that’s, ‘don’t judge a book by its cover.’ Well, that is absolutely false when it comes to choosing your cover. In fact, that couldn’t be farther from the truth. Covers are extremely critical in catching the reader’s eye. Pictures are really worth a thousand words. It has to get the reader interested in what’s inside. Once they open the cover and start turning pages, your writing prowess will keep them interested and turning pages.

You can hire a book design artist and spend hundreds of dollars on your cover, but truthfully, if you have a good imagination and a few basic editing skills, you can do it well under a hundred. I use Shutterstock royalty-free images. This means when you purchase an image, it’s yours to build and use. There are a few restrictions, one of which is the limitation of how many downloads if you are buying the standard licensing. However, you can by the extended license, that comes with a commercial usage that covers any media. I typically buy a package of five downloads for under fifty bucks.

Next is using some software to place your text. Again, you can spend hundreds, even thousands, on software. You don’t have to break the bank to design your own. I use two software packages; both are free to use and are called iPhotoDraw and GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program). Using this free software is extremely versatile. With iPhotoDraw, I can choose any font, size and placement. You can add special effects, such as shadowed text or glowing and radiant. Remember, you don’t want the cover to be too cluttered; keeping is simple is always best. With GIMP, I can manipulate images, and add to or take away elements. I can also change the image resolution, which is very important when printing. I set all my covers to a resolution of four hundred. The industry standard is a resolution of three hundred.

With book covers, if you’re not getting a good response from your readers, it’s okay to change them out once in a while. I’ve done that a few times and I always seem to get a bump in sales. If you’re not getting a lot of action on a book, try changing out the cover.

To recap, it’s very important to choose a book cover that will call the prospective reader to open it up and look inside. Keep the covers simple, yet informative by ensuring your title, subtitle and name are oriented appropriately. Choose an image that will pop and bring attention to a key element in your book. It’s more cost-effective to make your own if you have the skill set. However, you can find reputable book cover designers. If you go that route, take your time and work closely with the designer so they will capture the necessary elements.

Next week, I’m going to talk about the book synopsis and teasers.

Until next time, this is author Brian K. Larson, sparking imaginations, one book at a time.