Need a gift for a writer?   I've gotten pretty good at outside-the-box ideas for author gifts. Here are my Top 12 ideas:   A Christmas ornament of all their books! A friend got me one of these last year and it melted my whole heart. You can also get them for readers (favorite books) or cover designers or editors (books they've worked on). Etsy seller MegsComfortCreations or   SMZHDLTD  Commission art of their characters - Authors LOVE this, and it works for not-yet-published

If you're reading book deal announcements on Publisher's Marketplace, or researching past sales for literary agents, you might have come...

Hey, we’re creative people, yes? We write stuff. We make up stories about the people in line with us at Starbucks. When inspiration...

Ready to get an agent, grab a book deal, and see your book on the shelves at Barnes & Noble? First, you'll need a query letter. That's...

When a reader first finds your book, they have only TWO crucial pieces of information that can hook them: your cover and your title. If it's spine out, narrow that down to just the title. Unfortunately, a good title is hard to find--how do you encapsulate 100,000 words or so in less than five? For all of my books, I either knew the best title instantly...or had to go through dozens of rounds of hard trial and error to find something that works. Fortunately, since working with

Suspense techniques aren’t just for the stabby books, my friends! Do you wish you could add suspense to your novel? Want to know how to...