Special Feature

Red Flags: A Guide to Avoiding the Wrong Publishers

Updated February 20th, 2016 This article is all about how to avoid signing a book contract with the wrong publisher. It is hard to find good publishers, and it involves a lot of research just to find a legitimate publisher that accepts work if you do not have an agent. However, there are great options…
Issue Fifty Eight Publishing Guides Special Feature

10 Common Misconceptions About The Publishing World

The face of publishing has changed dramatically in the last 10 years. As budding writers, most of us stored away bits of information about the publishing world as we dreamed of our next story. Now, many of our early conceptions are being challenged and changed. Don’t get caught living in the past – get up…
Issue Fifty Seven Publishing Guides Special Feature

10 Literary Journals that Pay Their Writers

Last Updated August 20th, 2017 “It is a sad fact about our culture that a poet can earn much more money writing or talking about his art than he can by practicing it.” W.H. Auden As someone who makes their living writing about writing and publishing, I can attest to how truthful Auden’s quote is….
Issue Fifty Six Publishing Guides Special Feature

We’re Taking a Stand Against Literary Journals that Charge Submission Fees

I have submitted my work to well over 300 different journals in the past two years, and many more before that. When I first started submitting four years ago, one or two journals charged writers a couple of bucks to submit their work for consideration. This fee did not cover anything else. It did not…
Issue Fifty Five Publishing Guides Special Feature

6 Literary Award Competitions

The big debate ranging right now is whether or not book awards and award contests actually do what they promise – give you added publicity and help you sell your books. The short answer is it depends. Just like anything else in the writing and publishing industry, if you’re considering submitting your book for a…
Issue Fifty Four Publishing Guides Special Feature

6 Things Writers Can Learn From Elvis

To many admirers and fans, Elvis Presley was an anomaly, a one-of-a-kind show business performer and personality who touched several generations with his work and music. Isn’t this what many newer writers want to accomplish in the publishing world? Through all of his accomplishments in music, the King can be a mentor of sorts to…
Issue Fifty Three Special Feature

The Importance of Voice

I remember the first critique I ever received for my professional writing. In fact, I still have the email it was attached to so I can quote it here: “The issue with your writing is lack of confident voice”. Ouch, right? I had no idea what voice was let alone how to have a ‘confident’…
Issue Fifty Two Special Feature

Writing A Great Synopsis: The Key to Publishing Your Book

How many of you are like me?  You’re a first-time author, you’ve finished your manuscript and polished it to the best of your ability, and you’re convinced that it has the potential to do very well. But then you are faced with the requirement to write a synopsis of your work.  All of a sudden…
Issue Fifty One Publishing Guides Special Feature

8 Tips for Navigating Assisted Publishing

Standing before the publishing crossroads, at the completion of an edited manuscript, we are faced with two options: traditional or self publishing.  The problem is each choice then leads to more paths that only distort what we thought was a clear choice.  Suddenly small publishers, micro-publishers, printing presses, vanity presses, DIY options (bulk printing or…
Issue Fifty Publishing Guides Self Publishing Special Feature

How To Write A Good Pitch for Your Novel

“Pitch” was such a foreign term for me as a young author, that when the first agent asked for my novel’s pitch at a conference, I blinked and shrugged. I was seventeen at the time so I suppose my reaction was understandable. The agent then had to explain to me what a pitch was. How…
Issue Forty Eight Publishing Guides Special Feature

Profit Margin or Pride? The Stories of 2 Self Published Authors

Self-publishing is a tangible and viable option in this evolving digital age.  Knowing that traditional publishing houses no longer have the only say in who does or doesn’t get their book into print (physically or electronically), opens up a new landscape for writers and authors. But the question remains, “Will I be successful?” The answer…
Issue Forty Seven Publishing Guides Self Publishing Special Feature

Top 3 Reasons Why Fiction Manuscripts Get Rejected

My number is 28, what’s yours?  You know, the number of times a Literary Agent or Publishing House sent you the “Thank you, but no” letter. As writers we research the best possible way to write a query letter; how to manipulate our 350 page manuscript into a one page synopsis. We review all possible…
Issue Forty Six Special Feature

How To Promote Your Poetry Without Paying A Penny

Updated January 19th 2017 Many writers ask me this question all the time: “How do you promote your poetry without paying anyone?” There is more then one answer to this question, but it mostly comes back to hard work. In my experience, outside of paying to enter contests, it is very easy to promote one’s…
Issue Forty Five Publishing Guides Special Feature

The Active Writer

Phillip Roth has often said that he walks a mile for every page he writes. He also writes those pages standing up. Hemingway was also known for standing while he wrote, and many modern writers from John Green to Susan Orleans have been known to use a treadmill desk. The famous Japanese Novelist Haruki Murkami…
Issue Forty Four Special Feature

The Benefits of Procrastination

It’s the weekend, the kids are out with your spouse and you have nothing to do but work on your manuscript – except the breakfast dishes aren’t going to clean themselves, even if all they need is a bit of help into the dishwasher.  Oh, and the dog needs to be walked, dinner should be…
Issue Forty Three Special Feature

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