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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 Good Female Character. 

A good female character is tough to write. Writers, especially males, frequently get them wrong. There is a fixed mold that a female character should be caring, loving, and forgiving. And these traits usually make the character bland. While writing a good and compelling female...

Use of Semicolon, Colon, Apostrophe, and Ellipses

In content writing, grammar is a crucial point. Even a minor grammatical error can ruin the written piece and its validity. And the thing people often make mistakes with is punctuations. We all know how to use a period (.) and a comma (,) but,...

Writing About Mental Illness When You Have It

We have all heard the stories of how writers like Poe and others were plagued by mental illness during their time and how misunderstood they were. How about today? I myself suffer from Bipolar and BPD and I write but does that make me a...

Writing with a Full-Time Job

“How do you write with a full-time job?” It’s the number one question I get because it’s hard to imagine that there are enough hours in the day to hold down a job and be a writer. It can be done, but it requires organization and...

Insight Into Writing Fantasy

Nothing beats a well-written fantasy novel. But what makes fantasy such an enthralling and enticing genre to read? Readers want to escape reality and relate with the characters. And fantasy gives them exactly that - relatable characters in fantastical worlds. The most important part of writing fantasy is...

Creative Writing Back to School

I have been putting off reviewing for a while for fear that my work is not what it used to be. However, one must press on, albeit afraid. So, here I am thinking of ways to improve my writing and I discovered a treasure trove...

How to Charge for your Writing, and How Much

“No man but a blockhead ever wrote except for money,” said 18th-century English writer Samuel Johnson. He was wrong, of course. There are many good reasons to write besides making money. Writers write to influence others, to entertain, to pass their life story down to their grandchildren,...

How to Write and Structure a Story for your Local Newspaper

If you’re looking for a good way to put your writing talent to work, try writing for your local newspaper. You’ll sharpen your skills, make some good contacts, and perhaps earn a little money, too. Many small newspapers, especially weekly papers, are crying out for...

Insights About Writing Historical Fiction

Two things drive our lives: Facts and Feelings. History gives us Facts, staid old historical dates, places, and things. Humans give us Feelings, emotions, reactions, relationships. My historical fiction novel, CHARLOTTE: Beauty and Tragedy, is an example.  But the book itself is not the point – the genre...

Creative Editing Techniques: Keeping A Good Pace

The expression ‘in medias res’ is all the fashion in commercial fiction nowadays. It literally translates as ‘into the middle of things’, and it’s a technique that plunges readers right into the action. This means no boring bits between the important scenes. This doesn’t necessarily mean...