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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...

Feeling vs Emotion – Part 2

Generating Feelings With feeling, introspection is needed and this makes it necessary to identify with a character and empathize with what they are facing. However, you must remember that the action in the story and the characters are merely the vehicles the reader will use to...

Feeling vs Emotion – Part 1

When you write and publish a book, you want to evoke some kind of emotion or feeling from your readers. There is a subtle difference between writing feeling and writing emotion. Feeling is the kind of emotion that has been refined and is habitual; feeling...

A Cruise – The Perfect Vacation for Writers Part 2

A cruise is a wonderful vacation for anyone but for writers, it is the absolute best. It gives you time to unwind, to be inspired and to get some serious work done with few interruptions. You Meet People From All Over Most of the employees on a...

A Cruise – The Perfect Vacation for Writers Part 1

It isn’t always easy to find time to write, let alone find the time that relaxes you and provides inspiration. In fact, sometimes, it is pretty much impossible because everything conspires against you, stopping you from finding the time you need. So, why not take...

Revealing Your Character Through Conflict

Do you fight with your fists or with your words? As writers the answer is obvious. But what about your characters, do they fight with their feelings or through logic? And why is it important to identify their reasons for fighting?  First, think of the five...

Rewriting The 7 Rules of Dialog – Part 3

Rule 5: Use Grammar Correctly Never be afraid to break with convention when it serves your story and your readers. Simon spoke before Adam could: “So, you have told your mom? About the visions?” There are editors who would want the colon replaced with a period here but...

Rewriting The 7 Dialog Rules – Part 2

Rule 3: Use “Said” Rather Than Any Other Speaker Attribution Tag You don’t want your story cluttered up with obtrusive attributions, that much is true. When your characters are constantly chortling, retorting, chipping in, exclaiming, and questioning and not actually saying anything, it gets distracting. Your...

Rewriting The 7 Dialog Rules – Part 1

We all know the advice about dialog – your characters should all sound different, only say what needs to be said, use ‘said’ rather than other tags, and so on. Yes, these ideas can put you on the right track but they don’t consider characterization,...

Research Sells Stories

No matter what you are writing, be it a blog, a short story or a novel, research is the key factor in ensuring that your audience is kept captivated. Research is what provides authenticity to a story, it's what makes your readers want to keep reading...

5 Tips to Producing a Real Page-Turner

If there is one thing an author loves to hear from one of their readers is that they just couldn’t put the book down. So what makes a book into a real page-turner? What is it that stops readers from getting on with their chores...