Dentaltown January 2018 - 14

howard speaks
column

Have an idea for an article?
To send the Dentaltown editorial team an idea for an article,
visit dentaltown.com/submit-article and follow the prompts.

want to see only the "before" and "after" shots; that
doesn't tell them everything that happened.
HF: If someone is interested in being published,
how does the process start?
SM: Shoot us a quick email that says, "I'm interested
in writing an article about this topic," and list out the
bullet points of the angles or the topics you'd like to

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Howard Farran, DDS, MBA, is an international speaker who
has written books and dozens of articles. To schedule Howard
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email rebecca@farranmedia.com.

2018

14

JAN.
26

Benco Dental

FEB.
21

Irvine, California Study Group

Tempe, Arizona

Irvine, California

MARCH
7

Brace Place Orthodontics

APRIL
13

Townie Meeting

APRIL
20

Oklahoma Dental Association

New Jersey

Orlando, Florida

Oklahoma City

JANUARY 2018 // dentaltown.com

go into. What, specifically, are you going to talk about?
Any topic can go in many different directions. Rather
than cover something once broadly-and wipe out our
ability to cover it again in two or three more issues-I'd
rather you be very specific, very deep. Don't try to write
"everything you need to know about" something; tell
me about one thing, in detail.
It's like telling somebody, "You should bake an apple
pie." You can't just tell people they need to bake an apple
pie; you need to give them the recipe to make an apple
pie. In the dentistry perspective, if you're writing about
a closure, don't just say "I did the closure"-you have to
explain how you did this closure. What materials did you
use? How long did that take? Did you screw up when
you did it? How did you recover? All those things are
details that make your story uniquely yours-and that's
what readers want, because they want to know what
they're up against if they try it in their own practices.
Potential authors should take a look at what we've
published over the past year, to avoid pitching an article
about something we've just covered. If you're interested
in doing something about improving your social media
presence, know that we've already had Mark Zuckerberg's
father-who's a dentist and a Townie-do an article
about boosting posts on Facebook. Someone else wrote
about Healthgrades. Instead of "how to improve your
social media presence," try "five tips for improving the
videos on your patient website." (But don't try that
very idea-we've done it.) Very specific advice, not
generalities, is what's going to help our readers.
HF: Is there anything else?
SM: Three more big things:
1. Write the way that you speak. Imagine
that you're talking to an educated peer, at a
party. (Use contractions!) We're not creating
encyclopedia entries. You should be having fun
writing about this, and that's something that we
want to make sure comes through.
2. Back up your claims. Use footnoted references
to industry-accepted materials.
3. Don't try to pass off anything that's already
appeared elsewhere. We don't accept previously
published content, even if it was on a blog or a
LinkedIn post. ■
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Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Dentaltown January 2018
