Editor’s Letter: Back to School
A few weeks ago, I spent an afternoon shopping for school supplies with my younger sister. She’ll be a freshman in college this year, attending the same university I did, and while I’m helping her prepare—showing her around campus, explaining how the bus system works and where to buy textbooks—I can’t help but feel nostalgic. […]
Book Influencers Help Turn a New Page in Publishing
Nicole Schroeder Nestled in her New England home, independent bookseller Kaitee Yaeko Tredway spends time each week arranging stacks of books and displaying them against a variety of backgrounds. She snaps several photos and writes out creative captions to pair with each, then decides when they’ll publish. Sometimes she makes an appearance in front of […]
From the Mouths of Babes: How to Write Kids Dialogue
Let’s face it: Kids are a lot of work. No one would argue that point in the real world—no one who’s spent time around them, anyhow. And little ones can be just as much of a handful on the page. Especially when it comes to dialogue, making young characters believable can leave a thin margin […]
Editor’s Letter: Please Allow Me to Introduce Myself
As indie authors, we are constantly introducing ourselves: to other writers, to editors, to cover designers, and especially—ideally—to new readers. For a profession that can sometimes feel a bit lonely, we’re rarely going it alone, which makes our first impressions important … and all the more daunting. Speaking of introductions, some of you might recognize […]
How Nick Thacker Is Rewriting the Publishing Rulebook
The Thriller Writer Says Traditional Publishing Is Broken. He’s Got Plans to Fix It. When someone called Nick Thacker’s novels “airplane books” early on in his career, he took the term and ran with it. The description was meant to be an insult—as in his books were the kind you buy at an airport to […]
Indie Authors Weigh In on Whether Some Books Should Have Trigger Warnings
Author Mariel Pomeroy left a cautionary message for readers of her debut novel that is hard to miss. It’s printed on its own page in the front of the book just after the copyright. She also included it in the book’s product description and in her social media posts advertising the novel. A general statement […]
Writing with Chronic Illness: One Author’s Advice for Finding Balance
Five years ago, author L.J. Stanton’s future took a dramatic shift. An equestrian for much of her life, she’d earned an equine sciences degree in college and was training horses and teaching riding lessons for a living. Then she was diagnosed with two genetic disorders: Ehlers-Danlos syndrome (EDS) and postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS). “I […]
A Journalist’s Guide to the Perfect Press Release
When it comes to press releases, I’ve worked on both sides of the writing desk. I’ve stared at the same blank page that other authors—or editorial interns, in my case—have tried to craft into an interest-grabbing announcement, just like I’ve sorted through stacks of those announcements in my email inbox to find the ones worth […]
A True ‘Slice of Life’ Story: How to Make Memoirs that Mean Something
In his essay titled “The Narrative Idea,” David Halberstam has a simple piece of advice for writers who want to succeed at their craft: “The idea is vital.” His words, published in 2007 in the book Telling True Stories, were directed toward narrative journalists, but they apply to some extent across every genre, whether fiction […]
Writing with Chronic Illness: Creative Ways to Keep Creating
Since March 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic has put a spotlight on chronic illnesses. Early estimates indicate anywhere from 5 to 80 percent of people experience lasting symptoms after contracting COVID-19, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (https://cdc.gov). They join the approximately 51.8 percent of people in the US who live with a […]