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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...
Author Interviews as a Marketing Tool
You may have already done an online interview, and very likely more than one if you have an author page on Facebook, Goodreads, Instagram, Pinterest or Google. I’ve even been offered them through messages on Twitter. Did they increase your book sales during the time you were...
How YouTube Can Help Your Book
YouTube, a free video sharing website, boasts more than one billion users watching videos every month. This makes YouTube a wonderful tool for authors looking to get more readers and buyers for their books. With more than one billion active users watching videos every month, there...
YouTube Promotional Strategies
YouTube is a free video sharing website that has more than one billion users watching videos every month. This makes it the perfect tool for authors looking to promote their books to online viewers. There are three main strategies used by authors to promote their...
Express Yourself
When creating a book, whether it is in the graphic novel, humor, fiction, memoir, professional development, social science or cultural studies genres, one thing that you must consider is the demographics. While your book can be of interest to anyone, knowing and understanding your market...
How Authors Can Get Free Publicity
Most authors like reading; for pleasure, to find out how others write successful books in the genre or genres that interest them, or both. The cheapest, and most readily available are eBooks and Amazon is the biggest provider, and very likely where you buy yours, download them...
Four Mistakes New Authors Make When Approaching Bloggers & How to Fix Them
As a book blogger with a few years' experience under my belt, I have seen new self-published authors make some mistakes when approaching book bloggers. Below are the four most common mistakes new authors make when approaching bloggers and how to fix them: Mistake #1: Randomly...
Indie Authors - "The End"...Now What?
Authors are passionate, creative individuals who have stories to tell. These authors have labored countless hours over their characters, have lost precious sleep going over the finer points of their stories’ plot development, have missed important family events in order to agonize over their stories...
Leaping From Books to the Small Screen – It’s All About Eye Candy for the Male Mojo
Is there some hard and fast rule which dictates that while it’s perfectly acceptable for female book characters to be frumpy or have a uni-brow or hips as wide as Texas, the same does not apply once that female book character jumps to the small screen? More to the...
Why You Should Remember to Review Your Reviewer
A reviewer who feels appreciated is one of the best marketing tools an author can have. A simple thank you reminds the reviewer of your book title, and how much they enjoyed reading it, so when they post it on Goodreads, one of the most...
What to Write about in Money
Money is a large field that could encompass everything from conversion rates to how to make money. It is for this reason that it is so important for a writer choosing to write about money to choose both a perspective and a focus. The perspective...