by Sylvia McDaniel

It's February, the month of hearts, flowers, and love. In 2022, romance novels generated over $1.44 billion in revenue according to Wordsrated.com. BookTok has been attributed to the increase in sales and the most popular romance genre led the way with $610 million in revenue.… Read the post

by Angela Ackerman

Ah, the euphoria of holding one’s own book. Nothing compares, does it? In that moment, the months (or years) of writing, revising, editing, polishing, and finally publishing are in the rearview mirror. All we know is the joy of seeing our hard work compressed into pages and fitted with a stunning cover.… Read the post

by Diana Stout, MFA, PhD

Have you ever asked for a beta read or critique and got back so many comments on the manuscript that you wanted to quit writing? Or maybe you cried, or became angry at the critiquer, then vented to anyone who would listen?… Read the post

Structuring your novel’s big picture is important. The structure of your scenes all the way down to your character’s motivations and reactions are equally important. If you get the sequence out of order, you risk confusing or completely disengaging your reader.… Read the post

by Angela Ackerman

I think we can all agree that characters are the heart of a novel. We build worlds around our story’s cast, spend dozens of hours plundering their psyche to understand needs, motivations, and beliefs, and even envision complete backstories.… Read the post