July 21, 2017 - Understanding Publishing - Leave your thoughts
If you're familiar with the traditional publishing landscape, you'll know that it's really hard to land a book deal without an agent, and it's impossible to get an agent without sending dozens of query letters… There are, however, a few ways to get to know agents before you submit to them. One is to go to ... read more »
July 18, 2017 - Perfecting your Craft - Leave your thoughts
Has anyone ever told you that your narrative arc was too weak? Too complex? Or not complex enough? Universal to both fiction and nonfiction, the narrative arc (also called the “story arc”) refers to the structure and shape of a story. The narrative arc is made up of the events in your story — the ... read more »
July 14, 2017 - Book Design - Leave your thoughts
Maria Sosnowski has been a freelance indexer for over ten years. In this article, she explains that hiring an indexer to create a professional index is something that many authors neglect: they either don’t think about an index at all, or they decide that the book doesn’t really need an index. This is a mistake that ... read more »
July 11, 2017 - From our Authors - Leave your thoughts
In 2016, Keith Yocum entered his latest novel into the Kindle Scout program. His novel was selected for the 30-day campaign, and then picked for publication by Kindle Press — all to Keith's own surprise. A year on, Keith is here to tell us about his Kindle Scout experience, and the not-so-secret recipe to his ... read more »
July 6, 2017 - Understanding Publishing - Leave your thoughts
Fiction editors get something of an undeserved reputation in popular culture. On film or TV, authors are never saying, “Gosh, I love my editor: he really saved my book,” or, “I’m asking my editor to be my maid of honor!” Instead, it’s always, “God, my damn editor wants to butcher my masterpiece, the hack!” In ... read more »
June 29, 2017 - From our Authors, Perfecting your Craft - Leave your thoughts
M.T. Ellis is a Brisbane-based crime thriller author. She has just published her debut novel, Azrael, which was inspired by a nightmare she had in 2014. In this article, M.T. talks about the so-called “lightbulb” moment — the moment an author strikes plot-gold. Writers, she explains, can have many lightbulb moments. They don’t each turn ... read more »
June 27, 2017 - Perfecting your Craft - Leave your thoughts
We know it when we see it, but few of us can articulate what irony really is without relying on half-remembered lyrics from the 1995 Alanis Morissette song, “Ironic.” But it’s critical for writers to understand irony, which can add depth to conflict — or, in certain cases, make conflict feel hackneyed and stale. In ... read more »
June 21, 2017 - Perfecting your Craft - Leave your thoughts
So, you want to be a travel writer? There are plenty of reality doses out there already, so we’re going to focus on the positives, and what you can do to maximize your chances of travel writing professionally. One of the first steps: you should absolutely know your markets, and what types of travel writing ... read more »
June 15, 2017 - Book Marketing - 5 Comments
Amazon ads have been the talk of indie author town since Amazon opened its AMS platform to all KDP users in 2016. While Facebook ads become increasingly competitive, as Mark Dawson already predicted on this blog back in 2015, Amazon have made huge improvements to their advertising platform, and are progressively becoming one of the ... read more »
June 13, 2017 - Book Design - 2 Comments
Nate Fakes is a professional syndicated cartoonist for MAD Magazine. His work has been published worldwide in greeting cards, newspapers, magazines, books, and numerous other places. As a cartoonist-for-hire and a book illustrator, you can check out his profile on Reedsy.
The best editors, designers and marketers are on Reedsy, come meet them.
