How long should a book be? There’s no one answer to this important question, because books are finished at different lengths depending on their category and intended audience. Longer isn’t necessarily better – in fact, a short book is sometimes exactly what’s...
Not all who can do something can explain how they do it, but sometimes great authors have great writing advice to impart. Here, I’ve collected some of my favourite quotes. Read “If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write...
Literary agents are not created equal, and a bad or incompetent agent is worse than no agent at all. A literary agent needs to be a) legitimate b) have a suitable track record and c) be a match for you, your work, and your career. Finding the right literary agent to...
Before a book is ready to submit to a literary agent or publisher, or to be self-published, it is usually edited to a high standard. Unedited or poorly edited books won’t get book deals. Readers avoid low-quality self-published books. Editing to a high standard means...
You made it! You got a book deal and now here are the terms – the publishing contract. The publisher is asking you to read it, sign it and send it back. Some of it is a bit confusing, but … I mean, they know what they’re doing, so it’ll be fine to just sign it,...
Editing can be a thing an author both dreads and longs for: You’ll get professional corrections and feedback on your work but what if the editor doesn’t like the work? What if they don’t like the parts of which you’re most proud? What if they don’t ‘get’ it? What if...
You want to publish a book, you’ve done some research, and you think you might need an editor to help you – but how, and what will be the cost of editing a book? It’s the kind of question that can’t be answered without first answering a number of other...
The short answer is no, certainly you are not too old to publish a first book. I will bet you there’s at least one author, in the list below, who was older than you when they published their first book. 10 writers who started ‘late’ Toni Morrison, winner of...
From time to time, I’m asked to sign an NDA before an author will tell me anything about their book. I never agree, and in fact, this request makes me and many of my colleagues go sharply into reverse, because of what it tells us about the author. The request never...
Self-publishing seems like a great way to make some money from your writing: you keep creative control of your book, you receive a higher share of the royalties, and it doesn’t have to be expensive, and so lots of people are doing it. But let’s be clear: there’s...
