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Book Review & Contest Insights from Real Reviews and Submissions

What separates great books from the rest? Below are articles with insights from real reviews and contest submissions—what works, what doesn’t, and how to improve your book. You’ll also find a wide range of articles covering writing, publishing, marketing, and more. Each article has a Comments section so you can read advice from other authors and leave your own.

Why Some Books Win Awards (And Most Don’t) — Insights From Real Contest Submissions New!

What separates award-winning books from the rest? After evaluating contest submissions across a wide range of genres, certain patterns become clear. Some books consistently rise to the top. Others, even with strong ideas and clear effort behind them, fall short. The difference is rarely dramatic—it...

What We’ve Learned From Reviewing Hundreds of Thousands of Books (And Why Most Don’t Stand Out) New!

After reviewing and evaluating books across thousands of submissions over the past two decades, certain patterns become impossible to ignore. Some books immediately stand out to reviewers. Others—even well-intentioned ones—fade into the middle or fall short. The difference is rarely luck. It comes down to...

Three Types of Book Cover Design – Part 2

Illustration Illustrated cover designs offer artists the opportunity to bring their own distinct style and that can be anywhere from very simple right up to the most intricate. There are certain genres where readers expect to see an illustrated cover. The science fiction and fantasy genres are...

Three Types of Book Cover Design – Part 1

One of the nicest parts of browsing through the shelves of a bookstore is taking in all the wonderful artwork on the book covers. Right now, there are some gorgeous book cover designs being produced, a diverse range to match the real diversity of the...

Lose the Book Blurb Format Blues

You've completed a book or story manuscript, and thoroughly checked and re-checked it, etc. Now you're ready to post your writing for sale on Amazon. You feel a cold sweat coming on because you hate that one-paragraph, unformatted book description that looks so "blah." You wrote...

Bookmapping for Plot Revision

In her insightful book The Magic Words, editor Cheryl B. Klein says, “A bookmap, in its simplest form, is a scene-by-scene or chapter-by-chapter outline of a novel…it allows you to see the entire plot in compact form and think through its development scene by scene.” To...

The Problems with Self-Publishing

Self-publishing is often known as the biggest advent of the publishing industry since the printing press. Traditional barriers have been removed, and because of systems like Kindle Select and Smashwords, it’s becoming more and more profitable to self-publish, rather than go through the pains of...

The Different Types of Editing 3 - Proofreading

Writing is only a quarter of what is involved in producing a successful book: editing, publishing and marketing are the other equally important three-quarters of the effort. No one person can do these four tasks as well as they need to be done as they...

The Different Types of Editing 2 - Copy Editing

Writing is only a quarter of what is involved in producing a successful book: editing, publishing and marketing are the other equally important three-quarters of the effort. No one person can do these four tasks as well as they need to be done as they...

The Different Types of Editing 1 - Developmental Editing

Writing is only a quarter of what is involved in producing a successful book: editing, publishing and marketing are the other equally important three-quarters of the effort. No one person can do these four tasks as well as they need to be done as they...

Why A Pre-Publication Marketing Plan is Important Part 2

Let’s move on to the next step in drawing up your pre-publication plan: Step Three – Draw up a budget you know you can stick to This is where most people make their mistake. If you don’t look at the bigger picture, you can’t possibly know how...

Why A Pre-Publication Marketing Plan is Important Part 1

You’ve slaved for hours, weeks, months and finally, your book is written. You’ve made it relatively unscathed through the editing process and made the decision to self-publish your book. You’ve done your research on all the options open to you, chosen a company, got the...