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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...

How to Write a DIY Guide Part 3

3. Organization The third step is deciding on the organization of the DIY material and this will be largely decided by what type of DIY the writer chose to write. Here are some examples of different forms of DIY organization that could be used. Digital Article 1. Introduction...

How to Write a DIY Guide Part 2

Writing Style Once the intended audience is known by the writer, the writing style can then be chosen based on that audience. In this case, writing style refers to word choice, formal or informal writing, and level of education the reader would need to understand...

How to Write a DIY Guide Part 1

Many writers want to write books, articles, and instruction manuals on the topic of DIY (Do It Yourself), yet many writers struggle on how to write these DIYs and on what topic their DIY should teach the reader to do. There are five main steps for DIY...

Do You Make This One Punctuation Mistake? Part 3

Have you worked out what to do? Sentences that are too long with simple subjects and compound predicates do not need commas; they need rewriting. This is how you should write that sentence: “Hannah’s husband Andy draws up building plans for an architect during the week, and he...

Do You Make This One Punctuation Mistake? Part 2

Going back to those sentences that have the commas, the pause or comma is breaking up the actions that are meant to go together in a group: “My friend skates - and cycles.” “Hannah sings - and plays the guitar.” “Andy draws - and paints.” Why would you put...

Do You Make This One Punctuation Mistake? Part 1

Punctuation is a killer; quite literally sometimes because if you get it wrong, nothing you write will make sense. Let’s take the humble comma. Many writers place them where instinct tells them to or they will place a comma where they would pause naturally in a...

Inventing Languages: Part 2

Besides J.R.R. Tolkien, some other favorite authors of mine who have used languages as integral parts of novels include Jack Vance in The Languages of Pao and Ursula K. LeGuin, in A Wizard of Earthsea. Of course, the Game of Thrones series of novels has some...

9 Reasons Why A Writer Needs a Website – Part Two

Without any further ado, let’s get to the next six reasons you need a website: It is the first step to developing your email list – it doesn’t matter whether you are on your first book or your sixth, you need to get the word out...

9 Reasons Why A Writer Needs a Website – Part Three

And now we have one last bonus reason why you need a website – and it’s a big one. It can help you to improve your search rankings – and that is a very important factor. Let’s say that you are just getting started in writing,...

9 Reasons Why A Writer Needs a Website – Part One

Every writer needs to have a website. That’s it. End of story. It really doesn’t matter what you write, be it non-fiction, self-help books, romantic sizzlers or a children’s adventure story, you still need a website. Why? Before I get to that, let’s just look at the what. A...