Guest Post

Being told to “pick a lane” for your story and revise to fit a genre? Maybe the manuscript doesn’t need to change, but your language for selling it does.

If you haven’t heard back from an agent, you might consider sending the agent a nudge. Here’s how.

Inexperienced authors may believe generative AI use improves their manuscript, but there’s a cost—extra fees charged by freelance editors.

Even though promotional copy for your novel or memoir is necessarily brief, effective ones take readers on an emotional journey.

With no platform and no publisher behind her, Ashli O'Connell built a six-month pre-launch plan around a single question she'd been asking marketing clients for 25 years: what is your goal?

Choosing your audiobook’s narrator has a bigger impact than you might think. Here are casting tips from a veteran narrator and producer.

A premise is the seed of a story, not its structure. Learn how to turn a what-if into a plot.

People take pride in supporting someone from their community, and readers are far more likely to buy a book if they feel a personal connection to the author, even a small one.

Any element of a story has the potential to be positive or negative, helpful or harmful. Your character’s context provides the frame of reference.

When writing about a significant relationship, here are some tips to make sure you don’t end up a supporting player in your own story.

When editors provide resources for contributors to support anthologies, they can help increase engagement and market visibility in ways that matter.

The TV-book subgenre has grown harder to break into as rewatch podcasts and celebrity memoirs crowd out journalists. Here are practical tips for choosing a show and pitching a proposal today.

Transitioning from one scene to another may seem trivial, but it’s crucial to help orient readers and conduct them smoothly through the story.

For an anecdote (“You won’t believe what I saw!”) to grow into an impactful story, a surprise element isn’t enough—real change needs to occur.

The artist’s responsibility is not to repeat what’s been done, but to become fully themselves by following wherever the work leads.

Sitting still with minor physical discomforts builds mental strength that, applied to your writing, helps you write emotionally difficult scenes.

Learn how to prepare clean Word manuscripts and mark PDFs for book production—avoiding unnecessary formatting and using styles correctly to save time.

Life experiences are what create your voice, brand you as an author, and make your writing worth reading.

Before writing your novel, imagining the first and last scenes can help clarify the story’s point and the reader’s emotional journey.

Pay close attention to any surprising details or patterns in your memoir’s scenes—they often point to the story that really wants to be told.

If you’re writing for an audience of one, not thousands, creating a picture book for the child in your life is a goal within reach.

With other essential elements in place, short story writers can consider leaving an ending ambiguous, with room for the reader to ruminate.

Discomfort with “unlikeable” female characters may reflect readers’ own biases and have little or nothing to do with the quality of the writing.

When working with a small press or hybrid publisher, it’s crucial to understand the difference between mere availability and true distribution.

Not only must nonfiction books offer solutions, they must also share the promise being made—the emotional outcome the reader will achieve.