Search
× Search

Using Tech for Book Marketing

Kate Gingold from Sprocket WebsitesKate has been building websites with her husband Don since 1996 for all sorts of clients, including authors.

Kate regularly writes about online marketing for Sprocket Websites and provides tips and techniques for entrepreneurs and small-business owners. Since being an author today is not really different from being an entrepreneur with a small business, most of those tips are just as useful to authors.

Kate is an author herself. She writes books on local history, including the award-winning "Ruth by Lake and Prairie," a fictionalized account of the true story of Great Lake pioneering to the shores of Chicago and beyond to found Naperville, Illinois. 

Learn More about
Ruth By Lake and Prairie

Author Tips and Tales

How Google Helped Me Learn French, Sort of
Kate Gingold Host
/ Categories: Author Tips

How Google Helped Me Learn French, Sort of

What did we do before these amazing online translators?

I’m really dating myself here, but in my youth, “wild and crazy guy” Steve Martin had a routine in which he said “Boy, those French! They have a different word for everything.” He was not wrong.

I took German in school, not French, so for years, I’ve just used the context to guess the meaning of Hercule Poirot’s frequent French phrases. Occasionally, I’ve run into an edition that put an asterisk next to some words to point to the translation at the bottom of the page. It didn’t seem like I was missing much. 

While working on this Agatha Christie manuscript, I faithfully recorded all the French quotes. I figure if I don’t know what they mean, there must be other folks who don’t. There are plenty of phrase books available and several online translators, so I thought it shouldn’t be too hard. 

What I discovered is that there are literal translations and free translations. Most of the time, the general idea of a free translation is all that is needed to move the story forward, but I like words and I like history, so many times, I wandered off the path to learn how the word evolved or what the connotation of a word is as opposed to its denotation.

For instance, take the phrase “sacré bleu.” No doubt you’ve heard some French stereotype exclaim “sacré bleu!” in some movie or television show over the years. You get the gist, an irritated French person, without having to know what the words mean. 

If you google “sacré bleu,” you get “expression of exasperation.” That’s a free definition. If you run “sacré bleu” through a translator, you get “sacred blue,” which is the literal definition. That’s when the historian in me wonders why someone would say that. 

So down the rabbit hole we go! A person would say “sacré bleu” because it sounds like “sacré Dieu” which means “sacred God.” Since it has been forbidden since the time of Moses to take the name of the Lord in vain, “bleu” was a good substitution. Although one wonders if Moses should have discussed the connotations and denotations of this commandment. 

So that’s an interesting bit of knowledge to add, but there’s more. The phrase “sacré bleu” is rarely used by any actual French people. It really is a stereotype and has been for quite a while, even when Agatha Christie was writing her earliest Poirot novels. I assume Christie had much more experience with France and French-speaking people than I have ever had, so does Poirot say “sacré bleu” because English mystery readers would expect it? 

That answer I may never know, but I did spend some time trying to figure it out. And that was just one phrase. It’s no surprise that this manuscript has taken so long to research! Without the resources on Google, I would be working on this forever. But it’s been so interesting and once the book is out, I hope readers will find it as interesting as I do. 

Image “Traditional French Man,” by Kim, licensed under CC0 via Flickr

Previous Article Researching Ends (Boo!) and the Editing Begins (Yay and also Boo)
Next Article How High Tech Is Elevating my Agatha Christie Manuscript
Print
436 Rate this article:
4.0
Please login or register to post comments.

Search in the Blogs

Archive

Authors Need Websites!

Do you need to get a domain name for your book or name?

Want a website to promote your books?

Get started now without blowing the budget at the SprocketStore.

Full disclosure:  Writing for Sprocket Websites is my day job, so if you have questions about digital marketing, I'm happy to help!

 

Marketing Author Interview

Following a presentation for In Print Professional Writers Group, Kate's husband (and publisher!) Don was interviewed by author Louise Brass for WBOM Radio. During the conversation, Don shared many of the marketing tips from his presentation. You can listen to it online here.

The Sprocket Report

The Sprocket Report is published every other week with Internet marketing tips, tools and techniques. The archive features articles from 2011 up to the present. You are welcome to read how business owners are using technology to market themselves and apply those tips to your author business.


 

 

Get a Book Siging Checklist and our Sprocket Report

Kate will be happy to send you her brief Book Signing Checklist. Treat your book promotion like a business - because it is!

AND, since much of your efforts will be online, she'll also enroll you in her Sprocket Report, an email newsletter sent every other Tuesday, that includes 2 Internet Marketing tips and a post from a guest blogger on related business.

No worries! She won't use your email address for anything else, and you can unsubscribe from the newsletter anytime, but the checklist is yours to keep.

Any questions of Kate? Leave them in the message field and she'll get back to you ASAP.

Your Contact Information

Your Feedback

Terms Of UsePrivacy StatementCopyright 2024 by Gnu Ventures Company
Back To Top