Category Archive

The nonprofit behind NaNoWriMo closed in 2025 — but the November writing tradition rolls on. Before you chase 50,000 words, run this one test.

Book reviews matter. A lot.  They give a stranger something you cannot give her yourself: the opinion of someone who has actually read the book. But reviews are also one of the places where authors get themselves into trouble. They become so desperate for five little gold stars that they start looking for shortcuts. Don’t. The goal is not to … Read More

Design your book cover for a thumbnail, not a bookshelf. Most potential readers will first encounter your cover as a small image on Amazon, often on a phone. If the title disappears, the image becomes confusing or the whole thing turns into visual clutter, they probably won’t stop long enough to figure it out. People do judge a book by … Read More

“The book is live!” is an announcement. It is not a launch strategy. A stranger still has to understand why the book matters, whether it looks credible, and why she should care enough to buy it. That work starts months before publication day. A launch cannot rescue a confusing book Authors often think of launch week as the moment when … Read More

Writing a devotional book is not mainly about choosing the right number of days or finding the perfect format. The harder question is much simpler: Who is this for? “A daily devotional for women” is not enough. There are thousands of those, many written by famous authors with enormous platforms. A broader, vaguer version of the same idea is not … Read More