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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. Below that are hundreds of articles on topics all authors face in today’s literary landscape. Get help and advice on Writing, Marketing, Publishing, Social Networking 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 Avoid Writer's Block

All writers have at some point or another in their writing career experienced the awful sensation of writer’s block. The internet has all sorts of advice for writers on how to get over writer’s block, but many writers often prefer to avoid writer’s block in...

Flowers in Literature

Flowers have had a special relationship with writers for years. They’re fragile things, and have an ephemeral beauty that’s hard to describe. Not only that, but they also carry meanings that we can easily understand. For example, spider lilies mean loss of innocence. A black...

The Characteristics Of A True Writer

I once saw the actor Morgan Freeman speak at a university in Oxford in the UK. He was asked what he would have done if he had never been an actor, to which he replied, ‘I would have still acted in some way. If you...

Good Copyediting is Essential to the Success of Your Book (7)

8. Multiple Spaces This is a simple error to describe and to avoid. Irregular spaces between words make your text look untidy and unprofessional. You can easily remove these using global search and replace: search for two spaces (two taps on your computer space bar) and...

Building Your Confidence as a First Time Writer- Part 2

Celebrate Small and Big Achievements Life is a string of celebrations. You can only get better if you learn to reward your small successes before you get the bigger ones. After completing your first chapter, your first major scene or the manuscript that is ready for...

Building Your Confidence as a First Time Writer - Part 1

Doing something for the very first time always seems so daunting and many times we try to talk ourselves out of doing what we set out to do. Still, the nagging little voice in our heads keeps persisting and won’t let us quit. We visualize...

Good Copyediting is Essential to the Success of Your Book (5)

4. Paragraph Breaks How you choose to separate your paragraphs will depend on your personal preferences and whether you are writing fiction or certain kinds of non-fiction. Don’t make the awful mistake of mixing styles – I’ve seen it often enough and, believe me, it looks...

Good Copyediting is Essential to the Success of Your Book (6)

6. Titles By ‘titles’ I don’t mean the title of your book or the titles of each individual chapter. Instead, I mean the titles of the people you write about, whether they are fictional or real persons. In practice, this often refers to their job title....

Good Copyediting is Vital to the Success of Your Book (4)

2. Apostrophes A common mistake that confuses and annoys readers involves the humble apostrophe. If this mistake occurs on the opening page of your novel, it may well cause the reader to give up there and then. As with the other errors I point out, it’s...

Good Copyediting is Vital to the Success of Your Book (3)

Ten Top Tips for Good Copyediting 1. Quotation Marks Surprised? Most people expect spelling to be at the top of this list. Correct spelling is vital, of course, and we’ll get to that soon. So why on earth begin with quotation marks? Because nothing screams Amateur! like incorrect...