Sincerity means honestly and deeply thanking the people who helped you (mentioning the specific ways they helped, as noted above), and remembering the way that they sacrificed for you. At the same time, don’t feel the need to go overboard. You’re not accepting an Oscar, so don’t go on and on or say things just to make yourself look good. Make it meaningful and sincere. 5. DON’T WORRY ABOUT LENGTH You might see some people recommend the Acknowledgments section be only one page. Ignore that. This is the only section I will tell you that you can go long if you want. You may only write one book in your life, and if that is the case then take all the time and space you need to thank everyone who helped you. At Scribe, we put the Acknowledgments section in the back, so it doesn’t interfere with the average reader’s experience. Readers can skip this section if they are bored, but you can never go back and re-thank the people you left out because of some arbitrary “rule.” EXAMPLES OF ACKNOWLEDGMENTS SECTIONS You can pull almost any book off your shelf and read the Acknowl- edgments section for examples. Here are some examples of different Acknowledgments sections for books we have done. This is from I Got There: Writing a book is harder than I thought and more rewarding than I could have ever imagined. None of this would have been possible without my best friend, Bishop. He was the first friend I made when I moved to San Antonio. He stood by me during every struggle and all my successes. That is true friendship. 210 · ThE SCriBE METhOD