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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. Below that are hundreds of articles on topics all authors face in today’s literary landscape. Get help and advice on Writing, Marketing, Publishing, Social Networking 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...

Should Every Author Use Social Media?

If you are an author who still believes that readers will make time to drop by a bookstore to choose a good book, think again. The fast pace at which people now live has transformed people's lives so much that a lot of the things...

Promotional Book Offers and the Use of Social Media: How It Can Help

Promotional book offers have now joined the bandwagon, using social media to bring books to the fore. For your book to show up in the search engines, you must have keywords. The keywords are what sets your book apart from the others. Keywords are not your...

Ten Twitter Rules To Help You Survive as an Author

To say that success in Twitter is based on the number of followers is a fallacy. In this age of technology, most of your followers are faceless and may not really be legitimate followers. So how do you survive in this age as an author?...

Online Book Promotions and How They Can Increase Sales

Book authors of today are very lucky because they are able to reach a large number of readers for their online book promotions. This is not to say, though, that all authors who use social media have been successful in promoting their material online. In fact,...

Tips and Tricks for Authors to Get More Followers on Twitter

Getting a large following on Twitter could give you the necessary exposure to advance your writing ambitions. This could also be a great platform where you can share ideas and learn from the tweets or retweets of those who follow you. Here is a list...

DIY E-Publishing and Marketing Yourself on Twitter

Twitter is a good social media platform you can use if you are targeting a very large audience. The thing is, even before you tap into Twitter, you should have laid the groundwork for you to maximize the use of the platform. First, you should create a following....

Smart Social Media Planning for New Authors

At this point where social media has been used for almost all activities (promoting, selling, research, e-commerce), sending generic posts could just waste your time as they might be considered spam. In other words, once you decide to use social media platforms to advance your...

Is Goodreads the Best Social Media Platform for Independent Authors?

There are many social media platforms available for independent authors nowadays. But why choose Goodreads? Would it really advance your goals as an independent author? Let's look into the different reasons why going the path of Goodreads is the way to go. Before anything else, note that...

How Goodreads Can Help The Independent Author

Goodreads is the social networking site for book authors and readers. This is where they meet to satisfy their common interest - books. Having said that, check these benefits on how Goodreads can help the independent author. 1. Profile As soon as the author registers in Goodreads,...

How to Set Up a Facebook Author Page

Knowing how to set up a Facebook author page is essential for independent writers these days. Be mindful, though, that Facebook pages are not the same as Facebook profiles. Pages are intended for companies, brands, and public figures to openly interact with any social media...