Friction is a useful tool in the right settings—I mean, it’s nice when your car brakes work, right?—but when friction gets in the way of completing an action (like reading a book), it’s time to eliminate it. A classic example of friction is poor website design. You try to buy a product on someone’s website […]
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Book ROI: It May Not Be What You Think
Writing a book can feel like climbing a mountain—a big, steep, frustrating one sometimes. Once you reach the summit, it would be great to just sit back, see your book on the New York Times bestseller list, and watch the royalties flow in. But for many (maybe most) nonfiction authors, book sales are not where […]
Use Writing Constraints to Increase Your Creativity
Powerhouse children’s author Beverly Cleary died last month at the astonishing age of 104, leaving a legacy of having written 50-plus books. Chances are you read some of her books as a child—Henry Huggins, The Mouse and the Motorcycle, Ramona and Beezus. Maybe your children learned to read with them; maybe you’ve heard the Ramona […]
How (Not) to Query a Literary Agent
Dear Karin, I’m an assistant to the author AUTHOR NAME, and we are seeking representation for his children’s picture book intended for middle grade audiences. BOOK TITLE is complete at 570 words and features a heartwarming tale of wisdom passed on from the older generation, and relatable and educational reasons as to why children need […]
Word Tip: Style Sets Can Save You Time and Headaches
The Styles function is one of my favorite tools in Microsoft Word. With it, you can assign styles (font, color, size, spacing, etc.) to different text elements—the body text, titles, headings, captions, and so on. I’ve written about Styles before as a way to assess your document’s structure and organization using the Automatic Table of […]