Sarah Davis Goff The book that made my year: We spoke last year about Mike McCormack’s wonderful Solar Bones, which garnered rave reviews and a rake of prizes including the Goldsmiths and two BGE Irish Book Awards. We suspected it was only gathering speed – and we were so delighted when it was longlisted for…
The debut novel from author Markus McDowell, this literary work is a re-imagining of an old-fashioned story of grief and the search for meaning in a world that seems not only uncaring, but vindictive. To and Fro Upon the Earth is a captivating (and disturbing) story about a man who rejects the common answers to…
Have you ever used Microsoft Word’s “readability statistics” function? It gives your document a score, as a grade level, based on something called the Flesch-Kincaid analysis, which purported to be the grade level a reader would have to have attained to understand the piece. How helpful or accurate is the function? Turns out it s…
In our last post, we discussed and linked to an article about the importance of multiple editing rounds. As noted, we do in-house proofreading for our authors, and offer more detailed editing services to all writers (whether signed to us or not). As proof that typos make it into even the most popular works, here…
There are many celebrated writers in this world, but few ever reach the rockstar-level status of dark fantasy author Neil Gaiman. Fans stand in line for hours at his book signings, only to faint when they finally meet him (or ask him to sign their body so they can get his signature tattooed). His beloved…
The following article is by Janice Hardy the founder of Fiction University, and the author of the teen fantasy trilogy The Healing Wars. Click here to view full article at blog.janicehardy.com Although most word count problems are too many words, the too-short novel does happen. I’ve talked before about things to do to bulk up a…
Heather Webb describes the reasons that changing up your writing process and rituals can bring new creativity. With each book, there were pieces of my process that didn’t change, regardless of the structure. I had to discover who my characters were by exploring their backstory. I needed to know where the story began—that inciting incident—and…
Bookbub gives us a gigantic list of books to read for the summer. Here is a sampling. For the full list, with descriptions and categorization, click here to view full article at media.bookbub.com 16th Seduction by James Patterson and Maxine Paetro Into the Water by Paula Hawkins Since We Fell by Dennis Lehane Testimony by Scott…
From Just Write a Book, a nice guide to editing from the macro and micro perspective. Editing your fiction helps you to write novels and serials which sell. You want your readers to love your stories, so that they buy your next ebook, and the next. Think of editing as polishing a diamond. In its…
From an excellent article over at Booklaunch, here are some excerpts from an interview with Joe Bunting at The Write Practice. Click here to view full article at booklaunch.com How do you become a productive writer, the kind who not only actually finishes writing their book, but continues to put out books, year after year?…