Specific context about your characters helps readers understand them within the backdrop of their lives, bringing your stories fully to life.

The essay is like any other literary genre: There are guidelines worth following, and style choice dictates different points of view and structures.

A standout writing voice is a mixture of your natural style and sentence-level decisions that bring who you are to life.

A debut nonfiction author examines the path by which an initial idea was honed through beta readers and proposal writing into a contracted book.

Conference attendees have many questions about AI, and organizers would better serve their audience by engaging with intent and clarity.

Jane has been reporting on the publishing industry since 2015. Join her over your lunch hour to discuss the most notable developments of 2026, what they mean for writers and publishers, and what to wa...

The panic that’s expressed online bears little resemblance to what’s happening at literary agencies and publishing houses.

In this excerpt from It Depends: An Author’s Practical Guide to Debut Year, M. Stevenson shows how indie shops can contribute to a traditionally-published book’s launch strategy.

Whether or not your memoir is published, it’s important to get it off your chest before the rest of your life’s work can come through.

An effective case study allows your reader to connect with what works and what’s possible for them, and most importantly, keeps them turning pages.

Being told to “pick a lane” for your story and revise to fit a genre? Maybe the manuscript doesn’t need to change, but your language for selling it does.

If you haven’t heard back from an agent and you’re starting to wonder if you ever will, you might consider sending the agent a nudge. Here’s how.

Inexperienced authors may believe generative AI use improves their manuscript, but there’s a cost—extra fees charged by freelance editors.

Even though promotional copy (aka blurb) for your novel or memoir is necessarily brief, effective ones can take readers on an emotional journey.

With no platform and no publisher, one author built a six-month pre-launch plan around a single question: what is your goal?

Choosing your audiobook’s narrator has a bigger impact than you might think. Here are casting tips from a veteran narrator and producer.

A premise is the seed of a story, not its structure. Learn how to turn a what-if into a plot.

People take pride in supporting someone from their communit, and readers are far more likely to buy a book if they feel a personal connection to the author, even a small one.

When the new AALA Canon of Ethics goes into effect, authors must be more diligent and sharp in evaluating who they partner with.

This debut memoirist kept asking one question: What’s the next thing I can do that puts this book in front of readers?

Any element of a story has the potential to be positive or negative, helpful or harmful. Your character’s context provides the frame of reference.

When writing about a significant relationship, here are some tips to make sure you don’t end up a supporting player in your own story.

When editors share ideas and provide resources to support that work, they can help activate contributor engagement in ways that matter.

The TV-book subgenre has grown harder to break into as rewatch podcasts and celebrity memoirs crowd out journalists.

Transitioning from one scene to another may seem trivial, but it’s crucial to help orient readers and conduct them smoothly through the story.

For an anecdote (“You won’t believe what I saw!”) to grow into an impactful story, a surprise element isn’t enough—real change needs to occur.

The artist’s responsibility is not to repeat what’s been done, but to become fully themselves by following wherever the work leads.

Should authors use Substack for their newsletter? It depends on your purpose—strengthening ties with existing readers, or reaching new ones.

Industry experts share pitching strategies: start early, target niche shows, research hosts, build relationships first, and prepare authors thoroughly.

Sitting still with minor physical discomforts builds mental strength that, applied to your writing, helps you write emotionally difficult scenes.

Learn how to prepare clean Word manuscripts and mark PDFs for book production—avoiding unnecessary formatting and using styles correctly to save time.

Life experiences are what create your voice, brand you as an author, and make your writing worth reading.

Before writing your novel, imagining just the first and last scenes can help clarify the story’s point and the reader’s emotional journey.

Hollywood scouts and studio execs reveal why book sales don’t always matter, BookTok rules, and how YA isn’t really YA.

Pay close attention to any surprising details or patterns in your memoir’s scenes—they often point to the story that really wants to be told.

If you’re writing for an audience of one, not thousands, creating a picture book for the child in your life is a goal within reach.

With other essential elements in place, short story writers can consider leaving an ending ambiguous, with room for the reader to ruminate.

Discomfort with “unlikeable” female characters may reflect readers’ own biases and have little or nothing to do with the quality of the writing.

When working with a small press or hybrid publisher, it’s crucial to understand the difference between mere availability and true distribution.

Not only must nonfiction books offer solutions, they must also share the promise being made—the emotional outcome the reader will achieve.

It’s easy to become nihilistic and pessimistic when thinking about the arts and AI. To recover your optimism, return to the simple idea of play.

When a traditionally-published author made the switch to self-publishing, she found that success reveals itself in months, not days.

When building a character, roles can be efficient shorthand—hard-boiled detective, dutiful nurse—but the best characterizations require going deeper.