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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
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)
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...
Your Protagonist’s Favorite Snack Could Be the Key to Their Personality! New!
What if a protagonist's favorite snack was a central part of their character rather than a small detail? Your morning coffee might show if you are a minimalist or a dreamer. In a similar way, the snack characters can add real depth to a story....
What If the World Kept Skipping Back 24 Hours Every Time the Protagonist Told a Lie? New!
Imagine waking up on Monday morning, lying to your boss about why you're late, and suddenly it's Sunday again. The coffee is still hot. The alarm hasn't gone off yet. And the lie you just told? It never happened — but you remember it. Now...
A Book's First Impression (and Why It Matters) New!
While planning this article, I knew I wanted it to focus on the importance of a great title. As I was thinking about what to name this, I kept coming back to possible titles like "The Power of a Great Book Title" and "Why I...
A Technique for Successful Book Review Writing New!
As a book reviewer, my primary reason for investing the time is to help other authors develop their creative juices. The first book I ever penned, Oliver’s Diary: An LGBTQ+ Love Story, won a 2018 Reader’s Favorite Finalist Award. The reviewers who took the time...
Flesch-Kincaid: A Tool That Helps Your Writing Hit Its Target New!
Versatility is a tool communicators, including writers, use to adjust their message to the needs, desires, and skills of the audience. Readers come in at all levels of reading skill. By scaling your writing to specific reading levels, you can enhance communication and spare your...
How to Introduce Complex Tech Without Info-Dumping New!
Have you ever put down a sci-fi novel because the first three chapters felt like reading a user manual? You're not alone. One of the biggest mistakes writers make when building a tech-heavy world is front-loading all the rules, all the science, and all the...
What If Your Character Had to Solve a Mystery by Rewinding Time... in 10-Second Increments? New!
Okay, picture this. Your main character is trying to crack a case by flipping time back in tiny ten-second chunks. Pretty wild, right? Your character gets trapped inside a tense puzzle where that quick rewind acts as their only real edge. The idea sounds simple...
Who Cleans the Spaceship? Using Invisible Labor to Add Depth to Your World
Science fiction loves scale. Massive starships, galaxy-spanning empires, sleek AI systems that run like magic. But the moment you ask a simple question, the illusion cracks a little: who keeps all of this running? Not the captain. Not the chosen one. Someone else. That “someone else”...
Designing Alien Friendships That Don't Feel Like Human Friendships in Costume
Here's a question worth sitting with: have you ever watched a sci-fi film where an alien and a human become best friends, and by the end of it, you forgot the alien was even an alien? That's the problem. The tentacles are there, the silver...
Why Research Matters in Historical Fiction
Historical fiction lets readers step into another time and experience the world through the eyes of fictional characters living through real events. Whether a novel is set during World War II, the Great Depression, ancient Rome, or the 1970s, readers expect the setting to feel...