Piper Bayard Writers have only two motives—we write to say something, or we write to be heard. One is all about us. The other is all about the reader. In a perfect world, good writers combine both the desire to convey information and the desire to serve the reader by “speaking the readers’ language,” giving […]

Susan Spann The explosion of independent publishing houses in the U.S. and abroad makes it vital for authors to investigate publishers carefully before signing a contract. While even diligent research can't ensure you’ll avoid every possible problem, here are some questions to ask before you accept a traditional publishing deal: If the  answer is "yes," […]

Emily Cavanagh For the past ten years, I have written steadily and quietly. While my friends, family, and colleagues all knew I wrote, only a few close writer friends knew the extent of my writing life. Only a handful of people knew that I had written four unpublished novels. When I would somehow let this […]

Kari Lynn Dell If you’d asked me twenty years ago, the idea that a ranch girl from Montana who majored in sports medicine could up and write a book would’ve seemed ludicrous. Then this story got stuck in my head. The characters—typical of many of the cowboys I’ve dated—settled in on my mental couch, hogging […]

Kathryn Craft Turning Whine Into Gold  It’s true: after years of growing to trust the blogging team here at WITS, someone is finally going to spill the bean-counter’s beans. Read on, because there’s more to getting rich than this sure-fire technique: Write major selling points in their own paragraphs—in red! Among the top ten reasons […]