We hear this word thrown around a lot, but many people seem to miss the mark on what it means. While the literal definition of a professional is just someone who gets paid, being “professional” encompasses more than that. In that case, let’s dig into what the publishing world considers to be a professional: Dressing...Read More

There are definitely stupid questions. "Where are my sunglasses?" when I'm wearing them is a stupid question. However, when it comes to writing there are fewer "stupid questions" than we'd think.Read More

I don't think writer's block exists in the format many people ascribe to. We can hit dry spells or periods in our life where writing becomes difficult. That's real, but the problem isn't this ephemeral idea of writer's block.Read More

Let’s start with the fact that book design is something that should be done by professionals. I know you all think it looks so easy, and the pros make it look like that, but it’s harder than you’d think to make a book whose cover doesn’t look like a six-year-old made it in Paint or...Read More

I almost titled this as “how to handle difficult clients”, but I thought for a minute and realized the techniques aren’t so different. Also, the differences between “difficult clients” and “difficult editors” (you can replace it with publisher, beta reader, coworker…) are minimal. In your career you will run into difficult people. I would even...Read More

I have been seeing a lot of misconceptions about contracts in the writing community lately, and I thought I might take a stab at pulling back the veil. One of the things I keep seeing is writers upset that contracts favor the publishing company and not the author. While the publishing company shouldn’t be predatory,...Read More

In the publishing industry we deal with a lot of contracts. Contracts for editing, contracts for publishing, contracts for cover art, contracts for typesetting… We handle a lot of them. It’s actually a big part of the business that doesn’t fit the romantic idea of writing in our underpants while drinking coffee from a mug...Read More

I came to the conclusion of what to write today by watching far too many episodes of Prison Break and subsequently being unable to sleep. Which is a good thing. Why is this a good thing? Because it made me realize something that many of the manuscripts I read don’t have: Suspense. Suspense isn’t something...Read More

Every writer approaches organizing their writing differently, however every successful writer needs to first organize it. One of the problems I’ve seen with submissions is that oftentimes the work – while interesting and potentially good – needs explanations made and needs to have the pacing and flow worked on. The best story can become a...Read More