Marketing Style

Author Bios, Bylines, and Strings

Ampersands, Postnominal Letters, and Serial Commas in Author Strings

As a general rule, when an ampersand takes the place of the word “and” in a series with three or more elements, the serial comma is omitted.

A second general rule calls for the setting off of postnominal letters with commas except in cases where the postnominals are immediately followed by sentence-final punctuation (periods, question marks, and exclamation points.)

The commas that bound postnominal letters serve to set off the credential abbreviation, not to clarify elements in a series. Accordingly, bounding commas should be retained in author strings where the “and” is replaced with an ampersand.

This preference does indeed lead to some unusual combination: If in a string of three authors that includes an ampersand, the second author uses postnominal letters, the series would be punctuated thus:

                Mary Smith, MD, Ross Spangler, PhD, & Helen Brown, MA

But if the second author does not use postnominal letters, the series is punctuated thus:

                Mary Smith, MD, Ross Spangler & Helen Brown, MA

Among New Harbinger titles, this situation is mostly likely to occur when Patrick Fanning is the penultimate author in a series. Otherwise, the situation is very rare; most authors use postnominals, and those who do not are generally the final named author.

Capitalization

Refer to the capitalization rules found elsewhere in the guide and follow them scrupulously. Authors are prone to overcapitalization. Note that house style calls for all psychological models to be lowercased.

Credentials and Honorifics

Follow the style guidelines in the Author Credentials section of the New Harbinger Style Guide. Note that author honorifics and postnominal letters should only be used (according to the guidelines) on first reference. Should subsequent references to an individual be required, refer to him or her only by last name.

Foreign Spellings

In general, always use American spellings. Excepting this rule are the names of foreign institutions. For example: “…[Canadian psychologist] Martin Antony specialized in the cognitive behavioral treatment of anxiety…” but “Antony is a faculty member in the Department of Behavioural Neurosciences…”

Institutions

Check institution names carefully and always use the institution’s favored language and formatting. Some institutions are commonly called something that is very different from the institutions formal and correct name. For example: “Columbian University College of Physicians and Surgeons” rather than “Columbia Medical School.”

Positions and Publications

Omit articles when referring to positions. For example: “…is professor of psychology at Boston University…” rather than “…is a professor of psychology at Boston University…” Do not omit articles when referring to publications: “…is a coauthor of Flying Fish for Fun and Profit…” rather than “…is coauthor of Flying Fish for Fun and Profit…”

When referring to book titles in bylines and bios, omit subtitles.

Punctuation

Avoid the use of ampersands in bios and bylines.

Websites

If an author website is mentioned in a bio or byline, either integrate it into a sentence as running text or add it following the final period. In either case, the URL should be all lowercase characters and set in plain, Roman type. In the latter case, the URL should not be in parentheses and should not be followed with punctuation of any kind.  

Book Covers

Front Covers

Most of what appears typographically on the front covers of books falls under the heading of “art work,” and is therefore exempted from strict rules of style. Clarity and consistency is important and should be determined on a jacket-by-jacket basis. Punctuation of postnominal letters should still comply with the Author Credential and Honorifics section of the style guide. Care should be taken to avoid absurdity when using all-lowercase type. For example, mixing lowercase proper nouns and title-capped book titles should be avoided.

Back Covers

Headlines on back covers also fall under the heading of “art work,” with the corresponding flexibility with respect to style. Main copy blocks should follow the general guidelines for style found in this document. Note that ampersands should not appear at any time in copy blocks, bullet lists (unless they are highly designed), or author bios. Bullets should follow guidelines in CMS:  Subsequent bullet—except the final one—begins with a lowercase letter and ends with a comma. The final bullet begins with a lowercase letter and ends with sentence-final punctuation (a period, question mark, or exclamation point.) Specifically, bullets should begin with a capital letter and have no final punctuation. This rule is excepted when a long sentence is broken into bullets for clarity but retains its grammatical completeness. In this case, the first bullet begins with a capital letter and ends with a comma.

Endorsements

Acronyms 

For endorsements of books centered on diagnoses or modalities, handle spelled-out versus acronym styling this way: Spell the term in question out and provide the acronym in parens, in the first endorsement in the set that mentions it. Then use the acronym in the rest of the set. 

Quoted Material

Generally, it’s the better practice to reproduce submitted endorsements as they come in, without fooling with the language. Yet some endorsements are downright befuddling, and need to be fixed. Feel free to correct the following without seeking the endorser’s approval:

• Misspellings

• Punctuation errors

• Mistaken author names and book titles

• Obvious grammatical gaffes

• Garbled expressions from endorsers for whom English is not a first language and in which you can reasonably guess at the writer’s intention

If an endorsement needs deeper revision, you should take a stab at it and return it to the endorser for approval—unless her or she has already authorized you to make changes as you see fit. Although they will sometimes try, it is not wise to allow authors to edit endorsement for their books without resubmitting them to the endorser for approval.

Although rare, it is not unheard of for an endorsement to contain offensive or libelous language. Probably the most prudent course of action with these is to simply discard them.

Excerpts and Elisions

For the most part, you should strive to print quotes in their entirety. If you need to draw an excerpt for, say, a cover or a short marketing piece, indicate where you start and stop with ellipses. Satisfy yourself about the endorser's sentiments toward the book and do what you can to avoid representing the quote disingenuously through elision.

Endorser Bylines

Never leave an endorser byline unedited. House style guidelines apply to endorser bylines. Feel free to make changes as necessary, replacing honorifics with postnominals, vetting degrees, correcting the names of educational institutions, formatting book titles, and so forth—all in line with the guidelines in this document. (Note one key exception: omit articles before publications in endorser bylines: i.e., "Madeupname, PhD, coauthor of Flying Fish for Fun and Profit...") 

You might also check the Web for pertinent information about the endorser that he or she may have omitted.

Some examples of endorser bylines follow. 

• —David H. Barlow PhD, ABPP, professor of psychology and psychiatry emeritus, and founder of the Center for Anxiety and Related Disorders (CARD) 

• —Kaytlyn Gillis, LCSW, psychotherapist and author of four books, including Healing from Parental Abandonment and Neglect and Breaking the Cycle 

• —Mike Sinclair, chartered psychologist, clinical director of City Psychology Group, and coauthor of Mindfulness for Busy People and The Little ACT Workbook

• —Eva Ma. Trujillo Chi Vacuan, MD, FAED, CEDS, Fiaedp, FAAP, CEO and cofounder of Comenzar de Nuevo Eating Disorders Treatment Center; clinical professor at Escuela de Medicina y Ciencias de la Salud, Tecnologico de Monterrey; and past president of the Academy for Eating Disorders 

• —Shaka Senghor, resilience expert and New York Times bestselling author of How to Be Free 

All Other Style Considerations

For all matters of style in endorsements, follow the guidelines in the document.

Other Marketing Collateral

General Guidelines

Consideration needs to be made for the special applications intended for marketing collateral. In some cases, the basic guidelines for style found in the document may not be applicable. Attempt to follow our basic style precepts first. If that proves unworkable, deviate from the basic rules but remain unfalteringly consistent within the campaign. Pay special attention to:

• The hyphenation (if any) of ISBNs

• The formatting of dates

• The use of ampersands in both titles and author strings

• Abbreviations of words like “pages”

• The formatting of both US and Canadian prices

• The use of boldface and italics within descriptive copy

• The use of numerals versus spelled-out numbers in descriptive copy and titles

 It may prove helpful to maintain style sheets specific to campaigns.