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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...
Fiction Begins with Imagination (Part 2 of 2)
You don’t have to wait for your creative muse to strike Inspiration and creativity can strike when you least expect it. The important thing is to strike back when it hits you. This means getting ready to take note of what your mind is telling you....
Fiction Begins with Imagination (Part 1 of 2)
Creative imagination and active imagination are two different things. Active imagination entails perceiving things in one’s mind, and most of us imagine things in an active fashion. We can actively imagine a flock of sheep jumping over a fence when we are trying to sleep...
How to Blog Effectively
While blogging can provide writers with an alternative productive career, it isn’t for everyone. Some writers equate blogging with monotony. Blogging used to be a series of conversation posts designed for informational purposes. But now, it has grown into a commercialized industry and it continues...
Blogging as a Career
Blogging is a new career that modern writers are getting into. A truncation of weblogging, blogging used to be a series of informational discussions published on the Internet, which has now evolved into postings on different subjects listed in reverse chronological order. Blogs range from...
Why Get Into Copywriting?
According to data from the Association of American Publishers, the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, and Bookscan, traditional publishers are selling more works of nonfiction than fiction. Many writers are dipping their toes into nonfiction. With the growing demand for online marketing, web copywriting is...
Copywriting 101
Whether you are a born or a made writer, you should consider copywriting. Copywriting is a field that involves marketing. It requires an understanding of consumer sentiments and adhering to what your clients want. It requires getting out of your comfort zone and selling through...
How to Identify a Book’s Theme
Identifying a book’s theme might seem a simple affair but a story’s main idea can be easily confused with other aspects of the work such as the book’s subject or lesson. What differentiates a theme from the two is that a theme brings together all...
How to Develop a Theme for your Story - Part 2 of 2
Develop characters whose motives reflect the work’s intention. Here is an illustration: The Everhard Manuscript by Bix Santana: The story centers on the evils of capitalism, proposing socialism as a solution to the problems posed by a capitalistic structure of governance and economics. The story follows...
How to Develop a Theme for your Story - Part 1 of 2
Theme: A theme expresses the author’s perspective of the fundamental idea on which the rest of the work is built. Other words that have the same or similar meaning: opinion (the author’s perspective on a topic). Unlike formal communication, fiction does not directly state the theme of...
Types of Conflicts in Literature - Part 2 of 2
Man against Technology Technology has had an increasing impact on our daily lives and hence, its appearance in literature has also grown. From observing how technology has revolutionized how we did things in the past one hundred years ago, it is exciting as well as concerning as...