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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...

True Crime: Treva Throneberry (Part 2)

She comes back up in 1996 on the other side of the county. In Altoona, Pennsylvania, she started going by Stephanie Lewis, a sixteen-year-old fleeing her Satanist parents. An eighteen-day investigation by law enforcement led to them finding a Texas connection. The individual in Texas...

True Crime: Treva Throneberry (Part 1)

I have been fascinated with this case since I first heard about it and I hope someone else becomes as interested as me to write a book. This is the story of Treva Throneberry, a.k.a. Brianna Rebecca Stewart, a.k.a. Stephanie Danielle Lewis, a.k.a. Emily Kara...

Writing a Memoir as Fiction

A memoir focuses on a part of an individual’s life, unlike an autobiography, which recounts the entirety of someone’s lifetime.  As I recall my own childhood, spent on a cotton farm in the Southwestern United States, I imagine sharing it with younger generations, or even city...

Forensic DNA and Writing

The 1900s saw the evolution of perhaps one of the most important things to man - DNA. DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) was first discovered in the mid-to-late 1800s by Swiss researcher Friedrich Miescher - not by James Watson and Francis Crick. This is a common misconception but James Watson...

Medical Inspirations: Broken Heart Syndrome

When we think of a broken heart, many of us think of the cartoon broken heart with a jagged line down the middle. Obviously, our hearts don’t look like that and they can’t really break. Or can they? In fact, you can actually have a broken...

Victimology When Writing

Many of us are fascinated with criminals and what makes them tick. However, we often forget those they have affected - their victims. This includes not just the person(s) who was affected by the criminal act, but those present at the scene of a crime...

The Healing Balm of Writing

Someone once asked me how I could write in times of trouble. To say it’s my passion and I have to write isn’t enough. Those not interested in my writing (or anyone else’s writing, for that matter) just don’t understand. After my mother passed away from...

Horrific Inspirations: Delphine LaLaurie

Delphine LaLaurie, commonly referred to as Madame Blanque or Madame LaLaurie after her third marriage, was born in 1787 as Marie Delphine Macarty in Spanish Louisiana to a wealthy, connected family of seven. Her parents were prominent in the European Creole community as her uncle...

When to Ask Permission

There’s always a risk in writing, especially if you’re writing about a real person, place, time, or event. Or, if you want to quote the lyrics from a current hit song. No one wants to be misrepresented. No one wants to hear something bad about...

Searching for Happily-Ever-After

Why do we write? Perhaps I should rephrase the question: why do you write? To create the perfect world? The utopia, full of excitement and happily-ever-afters? We writers have the means to create, and share, a great story, and we have a strong compulsion to...