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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...

Steps to Follow While Writing Your Memoir

Writing your own memoir or a memoir about someone you love is exceptionally difficult. You have to open old wounds or talk about difficult things that can leave you exhausted for days. However, more than that, most authors experience self-doubt about writing their stories and...

Excessive Adverbs and Qualifiers

Most of the time, when we talk of overwriting, it means repetition of scenes, excessive descriptions, narration, and dialogue. In the Elements of Style, Strunk and White advise that concise writing is like a car, that it should never have unnecessary parts. Other than the components...

10 Strategies to Finding a Killer USP – Part 3

Welcome to the final part of my mini-series on finding your killer USP. Step 6 – Creating Personas Anyone who is authentic, who is true to themselves, will not have any competition. You don’t have to believe me though. Scott Stratten, popular speaker, social media authority and...

10 Strategies to Finding a Killer USP – Part 2

Welcome to part two, let’s just jump in where we left off. Step 5 – Stating the Obvious Let’s say that you sell wireless routers. Prospective customers may own Windows Pcs or MACs. Or they may own both. If that is the case, they want to know...

10 Strategies to Finding a Killer USP – Part 1

You know that every business should have one and yet still you struggle to find a unique selling point. You can't see any differences between you and your competition and especially not a winning difference. And that’s because businesses can only differ in so many...

Why You Shouldn’t Read If You Want the Best Copywriting Gigs

How many people have never picked up a book since they left school? I’ll tell you now, there are a lot of writers who simply do not read, especially fiction writers. It might also surprise you to know that there is a huge market out there...

3 Destructive Habits Copywriters Should Avoid – Part 2

Welcome back. No time to waste, let’s look at the second deadly sin. Watch Out For Parochialisms For those not in the know, the best way to understand these is to look at an example or two: This 12-week series of seminars was specially developed for smaller and...

Doing More with Less Time - Part 1

As writers, we are faced with deadlines, tight schedules and family responsibilities all at the same time. Yet somehow, some manage to get it done. We all wake up with the same number of hours available to us. How we use this time is what...

Mistakes to Avoid when Writing Children’s Books - Part 2

Not reading children’s books If you do not enjoy children’s books, chances are that this is not the genre in which you were meant to write. If you have barely read any children’s literature in years, this again could be an indication that this is not...

Mistakes to Avoid when Writing Children’s Books - Part 1

They may look easy to write but many editors recognize the challenges of writing a children’s book that children can relate to. If you are an aspiring children’s writer, here are common mistakes to watch out for: Writing as an adult When writing a children’s book, you have...