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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...

Tips for Aspiring Authors to Improve Their Writing

Everyone can write, but writing good and impactful work is something else. While most aspiring authors are not very confident about their writing style, they always get nervous when they think about sharing their work with others. Many manuscripts never see the light of day...

A Guide to Surviving the Copy Edit of Your Novel

Getting your first copy edit back is not a good experience. Writing a novel is a very personal experience, one that is very close to every author’s heart. So opening up and giving a precious item to someone else is a big deal for any...

Creative Ways to Improve Your Writing Style Quickly

If your writing style is weak, you will not be able to grab the attention of your readers and hold it. Your writing needs to be powerful enough to not only make the publisher like what you wrote but make your readers fall in love...

Creating a Satisfying Story Arc that Works For Every Genre

The structure of your story is very important not only for its development but also for its success. If your story does not have the right structure and smooth development, you will have a hard time grabbing the attention of any publisher. The best way...

Rules for Writing Good Dialogues that Every Aspiring Author Should Know

Dialogues are a great way for authors to show the personality and distinctive traits of a character. Dialogues also play an important role in making characters believable and memorable. The dialogues you write and the conversations you create give voice to the characters and your...

Excellent Tips for Finding Fresh Romance Novel Ideas

Finding that perfectly fresh idea for your romance novel is not easy. Romance is often thought of as a genre where the audience believes authors recycle the same idea again and again. However, authors search high and low to find new and fresh ideas that...

Illustration Resources

Finding decent pictures, images and illustrations doesn’t have to be a long and drawn-out headache when you need something more than words in a manuscript. An author can choose to create their own artwork or seek out an artist. If neither of these ideas is...

Credit Outside Sources

How would you feel if you did something for someone and they weren’t even kind enough to state a simple ‘thank you for your services’? It may seem a bit surprising but this particular aspect of writing is one of the most basic and fundamental...

Illustrate Wisely

There is more to writing, formatting, editing, proofreading and publishing a book than simply writing words that tell a story and giving it over to the next step in the process. Some manuscripts can easily go without any kind of illustrations while others practically demand...

Keep True Stories Straight

When writing a non-fictional story about your own personal life events, it is important to remember that the story still needs to remain in order. The minor exceptions to this are when a specific portion of the story relates to other relevant memories or flashbacks...