What Authors Need to Know About Ordering Wearable Merch
If you’re an author thinking about wearable merch for a book launch or tour, here are some considerations to help the process go smoothly.
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Imposter Syndrome Is Not a Disease or Abnormality
Even successful writers fall prey to self-doubt. Here are a few ways to strengthen yourself if and when you hear that voice in your head.
How Fear Affects Your Character in Real Time
Fear can limit our ability to apply reason and logic, leading to flawed choices and behavior—bad in real life, but story gold in fiction.
Nailing Omniscient POV: 5 Guidelines to Captivate (Not Confuse) Readers
Omniscient POV might be resurging, thanks to some recent bestsellers. To use it well, remember three C’s: clarity, consistency, and control.
How Often Can You Ask Your Reader to Jump?
Transitioning away too often—to a flashback or a new scene—risks losing the depth of storytelling that readers get from living inside a scene.
Stop Counting Toothbrushes: Find Your Memoir’s Real Story
One memoir coach sees writers rush ahead into chapters and character detail before understanding: Why am I writing this exact story right now?
Notice What You Notice About the World Around Us
“Noticing what you notice” helps you identify your authentic material and produce work no one can ever copy.
Why Book Sales Figures Are So Hard to Interpret (and Complete Sales Figures Nearly Impossible to Find)
We attempt to clarify the claim that half of all books sell fewer than a dozen copies—a statistic for which this newsletter is partially responsible.
Creating Microtension in Your Story Through Repetition
A repeated word, phrase, motif, symbol, or image can create tension for your readers in small, barely noticeable increments.
The Question Every Memoirist Needs to Ask (But Almost No One Does)
Before trying to structure a memoir, you must understand how you’ve changed and what that process looked like—which can be hard to pinpoint.
Giving Your Characters Serious Challenges May Give Them Delightful Strengths
Most characters have a challenge to overcome, but what about more serious physical or psychological issues that can’t be “cured” or ignored?
AI and Libraries: Why Librarians May Become Arbiters of Reality
Librarians are managing AI’s real-world effects, making them publishing’s early warning system on reliability, trust, and the limits of AI literacy.
Ghosting Your Own Book: How to Cross the Finish Line When You Want to Run Away
Faced with pursuing publication that might reopen old wounds, one memoirist overcame the challenge with help from therapy, community, and AI.
How Compassion Changed My Writing
When a writer began to see her mother with compassion, her writing changed—and her stories started getting published.
Paying for Exposure on Social Media: What Not to Do
An author decides to pay a bookstagrammer for exposure for her book, and comes to regret it so much that she asks the promotion to be deleted.
Teach Your Book: Designing a Class Around Your Memoir
By teaching one’s own work, a writer discovers not only what they do well, but how others might use such insights to unlock their own drafts.
What Three-Star Reviews Really Mean for Authors
Readers who give three stars are often responding to the intersection between their expectations and the book—not the book’s inherent worth.
The Memoir Playbook I Wish More Writers Knew
Three practices separate successful memoirists from those who underestimate the writing craft.
Why ADHD Writers’ Brains Are Like Lions (and How to Harness Their Power)
By learning to embrace the nonlinear nature of the ADHD brain, you can learn to write with more ease and less frustration.
Why Your Family Isn’t Supportive When You Publish Your Memoir
Lack of support might come from fears about their own privacy, not understanding the enormity of your achievement, and/or information overload.
What Bookstores Want From Traditional Publishers—and How the Bookstore Market Has Changed
Booksellers discuss how BookTok has changed the demographic visiting their stores, and how publishers can better pitch their titles for placement. (Also: print galleys still matter.)
How Taking Time Off Helped Me Finish My Book
Working on a book with a refreshed, rejuvenated mind, even if only for a short time, is far more conducive than slogging through exhaustion.
AI and Publishing: FAQ for Writers
Everything writers need to know about AI, copyright, and current case law, in one regularly updated, fact-based guide.
The Newsletter Market Is Crowded, But Most of Your Competition Is Easy to Beat.
For writers who approach a newsletter with intention, it’s one of the most powerful—and genuinely scalable—channels available today.
You’re a Great Writing Teacher. That’s Not Enough to Sell Out a Retreat
You love teaching, and your students love you. How can you position yourself to deepen their experience with a powerful live or online event?
Genre as Delight, Not Dictator: How Learning About Genres Helps You Write Better
Applying genre labels to creative work can be vexing, but understanding each genre’s core concerns can also be inspiring and instructional.
My Concerns About the Authors Guild Human Authored Certification—and Their Comprehensive Response
The Authors Guild has expanded its human-authorship certification program to all authors. It verifies author identity, but not whether the author used AI in the work.
Build the Bridge: 3 Kinds of Transitions
When a scene shifts to a new setting, time, or POV without clearly bridging that gap, we risk losing readers’ trust and goodwill.
When the Comments Section Is Challenging
When the Huffington Post published a personal essay by Lea Page, a stranger in the comments section wished her dead for writing about empathy. Lea reflects on the price we can pay for publishing and making ourselves vulnerable—and how to reclaim our power.
How to Use Podcast Guesting to Promote Your Nonfiction Book
One author appeared on 50+ podcasts before her book launched. Here’s what she learned about timing, pitching, and making it work for you.
Base Your Story Structure on Principles, Not Systems
There’s no one-size-fits-all way to structure a story, so understanding the core principles will help you decide what’s right for yours.
I Hired a Book Publicity Firm for £1,800. Here’s What Went Wrong.
One author reflects on how her desire to not just outsource marketing, but to outsource even thinking about it, led to regrettable results.
Editing Like a Journalist Will Make Your Publishing Journey Easier
Making the leap from short online articles to longer, narrative work brought one writer into contact with a new challenge: being truly edited.
Embrace Quirky: 5 Benefits of Using Animal Point-of-View Characters
By observing our own species through the eyes of another, something new just might be revealed to us.
Literary Agents and the Book-to-Screen Pipeline: Q&A with Jillian Davis
I spoke with the head of the book department at LA-based Kaplan Stahler Literary Agency about working at the intersection of book publishing and Hollywood.
Come Meet Me at AWP 2026 in Baltimore
I’d love to see you at AWP Conference & Bookfair (March 4–7, 2026, Baltimore). I’ll be exhibiting (Booth 624) and speaking at the Bookfair.
What Is a Memoir’s Essential Question and Why Do You Need One?
The first question is often some version of “What happened to me?” Understanding it helps craft a story that speaks to your readers’ needs.
11 Steps from Your Big Fat Mess to Your Next Draft
If you’re overwhelmed by the volume of accumulated words after months or years of generating new material, here’s how to tame and shape them.
What I Learned from Turning Myself Into an AI Chatbot
One book coach wondered whether an AI tool, trained on his own archive of advice, could answer authors’ questions as well as he could.
Why Your Story Keeps Stalling (and How to Get It Moving)
Stories are like trains: a connected chain of main events (railcars) and transitions (couplings), with very little stopping at platforms.
Writing Beyond Ourselves
Writing outside our lived experience isn’t just about getting facts right—it’s also about learning who we are when we truly listen to others.
The Big Mistake That Keeps Writers From Finishing a Novel
One writer explains why you shouldn’t necessarily get feedback on your first draft—and what you should do instead.
Finding the Right Tone for Your Memoir
Your story’s tone and content don’t have to match—and when they don’t, they can combine to create something greater than their sum.
How I Navigated My Way to a Memoir Deal from a Small Publisher
Learning from others and practicing patience while navigating the publishing industry led to a bright light at the end of the tunnel.
The Glimmers You Find While Chasing the Whale
While in pursuit of our writing goals, the serendipitous experiences along the way might be just as meaningful as landing the big fish.
How NOT to Confuse Your Readers
A successful story unfurls in a way that both keeps readers grounded and keeps them guessing—so withhold information, but not context.
Auction: Publishing for Minnesota
A group of authors, illustrators, agents, and editors have organized an auction to raise funds for those in urgent need.
Writing at the Intersection of Fear, Politics and Responsibility
Writing is an act of exposure, especially when it’s about something personal, political, and dangerous. But we write anyway.
What Improv Comedy Taught Me About Writing Novels
Improv is about being in the moment, and showed one author how to let go, listen better, take risks, and move on when something doesn’t work.
The Art of Connective Tissue: What Raymond Carver Teaches Us About Building Character and Showing
Small bits of action—descending the stairs, cleaning off the car—might not be insignificant if they tell something about a character’s world.