Congratulations to Ella Quinn, the winner of Debbie Herbert's contest last week. Ella, you can contact Debbie via her website. You're lucky to be one of the first to read her debut book, Siren’s Secret! And the winner of Chuck Sambuchino's contest is Judi Moreo. We'll let Chuck know the snail mail address on your […]

“The Tricky Part” of writing is different for every author, but hardly anyone is good at both dialogue & description. Laurie Schnebly Campbell talks about the skills required for each, and how to discover where your strengths lie. And, did we mention that there is a prize for a lucky commenter? That contest closes Thursday […]

By Chuck Sambuchino One of the most common reasons why agents and editors stop reading sample pages is simply that the story starts too slow. Gone are the days when a book could “get good on page 12.” We also can no longer compare our writing to classic works or even books written 30 years […]

By Chuck Sambuchino If you’re going to wheel and deal with literary agents and editors, you’ll end up spending more time than you’d like discussing rights, contracts, advances, royalties and a whole lot of other important stuff. That said, I want to address the most common questions regarding how advances and royalties work. In other […]

by Chuck Sambuchino Working for Writer's Digest Books, I come across a lot of literary terms -- both the common and uncommon. Because it's healthy for writers of all levels to be familiar with terms they may come across in articles, conversations and contracts, here are some literary terms defined for your enjoyment. Boiler plate […]