Alex Bledsoe World building is a common concern among fantasy writers, since so much of what we do depends on the reader believing IN the setting. You can have the best story and great characters, and torpedo them all with an unconvincing and inconsistent setting. Of course, you can also go too far in the […]

Brandi Megan Granett In 1999, several factors conspired that caused me to walk away from writing for a very long time: my first novel was accepted for publication, my darling daughter was born, and the publishing industry imploded.  Combining the demands of new motherhood with diminishing ability to sell books and zero support from my […]

Susan Spann In the publishing world, an "elevator pitch" is a one-sentence (under one minute) pitch an author gives an agent, editor, or reader in order to prompt interest in a manuscript or book. I've heard a lot of these over the years, and I help authors write (or revise) them in conference settings. In fact, […]

Ella Joy Olsen (The Psychology Behind Books Sold Cheap) I started thinking about the pricing of books about four months before my debut novel was due to be published. It started with a conversation at a party when my friend’s father cornered me, so he could speak without others overhearing. Him (in a conspiratorial whisper): […]

James Preston Once upon a time my wife and I were sitting up late at night, reading. She had a romance novel, I probably had something by Heinlein or Asimov or Andre Norton. Suddenly, she yelled, “Arrrrrgh!” Or maybe it was “Gaaaah!” And she threw the paperback across the room, bouncing it off the wall, scaring the cat, […]