“I want to thank all of you for this great honor. I want to thank the producers and…. and…. and….” And the list goes on and on. Sound like an Oscar ‘thank you’ speech? Although, in the past, there have been some good Oscar ‘thank yous’. In 1971, Charlie Chaplin made his quite short, sweet and to the point: “Words seem so futile, so feeble. You are all such lovely, beautiful people…thank you.” It is an expected formula to simply list the names of people you want to thank. Dull? Yes, dreadfully dull! But, unfortunately, that’s often the way people, not just actors, but people in all walks of life, formulate their thank yous.

Have you ever studied the Acknowledgements of books you’ve read? Many of them, regrettably, read like a mundane Oscar ‘thank you’. The entire exercise of writing a good Acknowledgement reminds me of a childhood requirement set down by my parents. Every gift received for Christmas or a birthday required a suitable thank you note, handwritten, of course, to the gift giver. It was never enough to just say, “Thank you for the book.” We had to say something about the book: what we liked about the book, why it made a great gift, that sort of thing. We also had to make the letter interesting so that the gift giver would feel an attachment to the child who received the gift. At the time, it seemed like a pointless exercise, but once I became an adult and started giving children gifts, I quickly appreciated the merits of a well thought out thank you note: it’s a gift in itself.   

Yes, you do have to write this; if you’ve written a book, then you will need an Acknowledgements. And, yes, it will probably be the most difficult part of the whole writing exercise. But you don’t have to make it mundane. You are, after all, a writer. I try to keep those childhood thank you notes in mind when I approach the inevitable, and totally necessary, task of writing the Acknowledgements for my books. Each book is different and requires a completely different, well thought out Acknowledgment. People actually read the Acknowledgements, you know. And, what they read in the Acknowledgements will definitely affect their view of the book’s author.

First of all, you want to capture the reader’s attention with a quirky line. What’s the point of even writing the Acknowledgements if no one ever reads them? Make sure that there is a point! You have a hook for your book, your story, so make sure that your Acknowledgments has a hook as well. How’s this for a hook? "I’d first like to thank God, as always, for making this happen. If it wasn’t for you, I wouldn’t be alive today to write this." Tim Olney, An Ordinary Box of Life (Leaderbrook Publishing: 2007).

Almost an Oscar ‘thank you’, but with a unique twist in its opening line. It never hurts to say something about yourself as the author. Readers are just as interested about you as they are about your book. And they can learn so much from your Acknowledgements. Entertain and educate and make it interesting.             

Study examples of Acknowledgements to discover what works and what doesn’t. Start with a list. This, in a way, is your plot. Make a list of who you want to thank and why. Make your Acknowledgements really count. Not only will your fans enjoy learning more about you, but those whom you thanked will appreciate the time you took to make this thank you so memorable. Remember: you’re the writer, so you can write the best ever Acknowledgements.