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Ask the Editor: How Can I Avoid Lawsuits When Writing Memoir?

Even lesser-known authors can experience legal issues if they don’t perform their due diligence while writing and revising their books.
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Writing About Native Americans: 7 Questions Answered

A Choctaw author offers tips on researching and connecting with First Americans in order to write respectfully and without stereotypes.
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Picking a Point of View for Your Story

Consider the benefits and limitations of each POV, along with the feel each might lend to your story and how well it fits the tone, tenor, and genre.
How to Write a Hybrid Memoir

How to Write a Hybrid Memoir

Bridging the gap between research and personal experience can become a book’s greatest strength—but it might require Herculean effort.
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Wattpad for Authors: It’s Not Just for the Young Folks

Three successful authors who are outside of Wattpad's key demographic discuss why they contribute to Wattpad and how it’s furthered their careers.
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How to Survive Editing

Having a gut-punch reaction to being edited is part of the cost of doing business for writers. Here’s advice on how to survive the process.
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First Pages Critique: How to Better Establish Your Setting

In a new feature, our Ask the Editor column reviews the first pages of an unpublished work.
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How Bad Publishers Hurt Authors

When her indie publisher goes AWOL, an author finds the community and resources she needs to pick up the pieces and persevere.
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To Give It Away or Not to Give It Away

It’s hard to get someone to take a risk on an unknown author. A giveaway can make your book known to thousands of readers in one fell swoop.
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How to Get Emotion on the Page: 2 Most Critical Tactics

To truly put your reader in the emotional position of your POV character, focus on conveying body language and internal narration.
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Always Read the Acknowledgments Page

Acknowledgment pages allow us to peer into authors’ lives, and reveal the fascinating web of the publishing world.
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The Nuts and Bolts of Becoming an Independent Editor

There is no formalized career path for freelance editors. From the hosts of the Independent Editor Podcast, here are tips on what to expect.
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How to Minimize Hurt Feelings When Writing Your Memoir

Memoirists can take steps throughout the writing and publishing process to minimize fallout and family strife.
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How Authors Can Build Relationships with Independent Bookstores

Marketing your book to bookstores—like marketing your book anywhere else—requires research and shoe leather.
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Authors Who’ve Launched Their Careers on TikTok

Here’s how two self-published authors have been successful in their marketing and promotion efforts on TikTok.
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The Business Skill I Wish I Could Grant to All Writers

Writers often view themselves as without power, but you can’t wait for permission or the “right time” to negotiate a better deal for yourself.
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Querying & Submitting in 2023: Q&A with Jeff Herman

Jeff Herman is the author of Jeff Herman’s Guide to Book Publishers, Editors & Literary Agents, 29th Edition.
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How Author Platform Connects to Author Brand

Every effective brand—even an author’s—has three essential characteristics: uniqueness, consistency, and authenticity.
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Create a Book Map for Your Nonfiction Book

A book map—a visual representation of your book’s structure—will help you maintain momentum and ensure a smooth journey for your reader.
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Promoting Your Book as an Introvert in the Age of TikTok

Planning a book launch can be daunting for introverts. But finding strategies that fit with your skills and personality can make it easier.
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How to Pursue a Career in Editing: Advice for College Students

Although writing and editing are very different skill sets, much of what you can do to master one will serve you well in the other.
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The Key Value That Makes Retreats Magical

When hosting a retreat, whatever the subject, providing small, achievable steps lets your participants feel that what they’ve done matters.
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Is It OK to Ask for Before/After Examples from a Freelance Editor?

If confidentiality prevents a freelance editor from sharing samples of prior work, how does an author gauge who to hire and what to expect?
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Backstory Is Essential to Story—Except When It’s Not

Focus on the main story’s forward momentum, and use backstory as the seasoning that makes the stew.
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The Author-Creator Marketing Playbook

The key to creating successful content as an author-creator lies in the same ingredients that make your stories so great.
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The Biggest Mistake Even Expert Writers Make

Your audience won’t remember the chapter where your hero took a breather. What’s memorable are the forces of antagonism, and how your hero reacted.
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3 Critical Questions to Ask Yourself Before You Draft (or Revise!) a Novel

Before spending time on a story that doesn’t work, ensure you’ve addressed the critical questions of character, plot, goals and motivations.
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Is an Editor Worth the Money?

If you have reason to suspect your story is not quite “there” yet, a professional edit may be what’s needed to push you across the finish line.
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Before You Hire a Developmental Editor: What You Need to Know

Three editors discuss the types and stages of editing, whether publishing industry experience matters, hiring guidelines and much more.
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What I Learned From 90 Queries

Even with an excellent query and opening pages, you’ll still get rejections. A lot of them. Success comes to those who refuse to give up.
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Blurb Matters: A Quiet Manifesto

If we were to reposition blurbs as affirmations as opposed to marketing tools, would that also shift the way we traffic in them?
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How Writing Your Synopsis Can Fix Your Book

More than just a tool to sell your book, your synopsis is a roadmap to making the next draft of your manuscript much stronger.
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What If You’re New to Writing and Don’t Know How to Fix Things?

Like writing, editing and revision are skills that take time to learn, and they develop only with practice.
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Build Your Writing Self-Efficacy

Here are four ways to help create the mindset that we can realistically accomplish something we’ve never tried before.
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Unlock Better Reach: Bridge the Gap Between Online and Offline Activities

To build an audience, close the gap between your offline-self and online-self by showing up with consistent value on your core topics.
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An Argument for Setting Aside Arc in Story Development

It might not be essential to impose a standard arc structure on a character who’s non-traditional or isn’t affected by the story’s actions.
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The Necessity & Power of Sitting With Your Critiques

We writers know that critiques are an integral part of improving our work. But we rarely learn how to receive feedback or what to do after.
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Nobody Knows Marketing Like Romance Authors: Q&A with Kitty Thomas

The author of dark- and paranormal romance discusses negative attitudes toward the genre, why sex scenes are the hardest to write, and more.
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Michael Lewis (Once Again) Tells the Biggest Story in Finance

Central to most of Michael Lewis’ works are larger-than-life characters who find themselves at the center of major industry or societal shifts.
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How to Get Back to Writing

When completing a readable draft left one author exhausted and overwhelmed, these three steps helped him start writing again.
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Should I Hire an Editor to Help Cut My Manuscript?

Good editors are expensive, so the best time for a full manuscript review is when you’re pretty sure your book is ready for publication.
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You Don’t Need a Platform If You Can Find an Audience

If your subject already has a large existing fandom, how can you quantify that audience, using the data to impress agents, publishers, and editors?
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How to Use a Long-Form Synopsis to Plan Your Novel

Whether you’re a planner or a pantser, this brainstorming document can take your story to places it might not have gone otherwise.
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Why Prologues Get a Bad Rap

A prologue can open the door to your story and entice the reader in, or throw up a barrier that delays or prevents their engagement.
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Write a Sympathetic Villain Your Readers Will Love to Hate

A great villain character should have complex motivations and be able to evoke sympathy from readers.
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How to Free Yourself from Endless Revision

The writers who get their books into the world are those who find a middle ground between refining their work and endlessly tinkering.
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How Big of a Problem Is “Head Hopping”?

Switching POVs within the same scene should only be tackled by experienced fiction writers, and only when it reveals something important.
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3 Key Strategies for Effective Fiction—Derived from Neuroscience

Science says these three techniques can draw your readers in, keep them engaged, and provide them with a compelling experience.
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A Primer on TV & Film Adaptation for Writers (Where the Rules Change Often)

If your agent or publisher wants to pitch your book to Hollywood, they need to know the rules—or at least, the rules of the day.
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How to Write Your First Paragraph

You can mine the first paragraphs of well-written novels for four critical components that keep readers hooked.