Susan Bischoff  Writing as a career isn’t easy—especially for those writers who are still in another career (the evil day job). We can’t have a career polishing five-year novels, and we know, given the demands of day jobs, family, and all the commitments in our lives, that our writing time is very precious. False starts, […]

Holly Robinson I am no fan of Halloween. Maybe that's because, as a young child, I started having waking nightmares about a cloaked figure with a pumpkin head that would regularly appear and sit in a rocking chair beside my bed. He never said anything. Just rocked and rocked, until I screamed for my mother. […]

Janice Hardy, @Janice_Hardy Readers experience your novel through the eyes of your narrator. Sometimes this narrative filter is invisible and readers don’t perceive any distance between them and the point-of-view character, such as with a first-person point of view. Other times the filters are obvious and readers feel the space between them and the characters, […]

Sierra Godfrey I am a reader. Yes, I read books, but I mean an agent’s reader. I read requested manuscripts. I read your requested manuscript. Readers are one of the secrets of the industry—most agents utilize them as there are simply too many manuscripts and not enough pairs of eyes. Some agents use one or […]

Kathryn Craft Turning Whine Into Gold To navigate the gauntlet that is publishing today, your best strategy for success can be to embrace your new paradox: you are both artist and businessperson. Why? Because it’s not all business. Your publishing team is well aware that they would not have their salaried jobs without the creative […]