writers

Speakipedia Podcast #26: David Murray

Transcript Dave Bricker  (00:05) Want to expand your speaking and storytelling skills and grow your influence business? This is Speakipedia…

2 months ago

Speakipedia Podcast #22: Paula Rizzo

Transcript Dave Bricker (00:07) Want to expand your speaking and storytelling skills and grow your influence business? This is Speakipedia…

4 months ago

Speakipedia Podcast #18: Pauline Butcher Bird

Dave Bricker: Want to expand your speaking and storytelling skills and grow your influence business? This is Speakipedia Media brought…

4 months ago

Writing is Design: Avoid Writing Clichés for Better Prose

Since time immemorial, clichés have sneaked in the door when we least expect them to. They're low-hanging fruit for writers…

7 months ago

Publishing Straight Talk

There are plenty of good reasons to self-publish, but not all are profit-oriented or even rational. Before you invest in…

7 months ago

Verbs: Spice Up Your Writing with Verbs that Rock

Verbs are the engines that move your writing and your readers, but many authors don’t spend enough time choosing the…

7 months ago

Book Design Basics: Choosing a Book Font

Selecting a book font seems simple enough, but important subtleties and fine points of typography are not obvious to the…

7 months ago

The Singular They is Now Officially Correct

Find your favorite writer and give them this message: They no longer have to mire their writing down with awkward…

7 months ago

Publishing Advice – Practices & Principles

The following publishing advice is based on my own experiences and those of my clients. I hope you find it…

7 months ago

Want a Traditional Publishing Contract? Do Your Homework

This article discusses the pros and cons of traditional publishing. Abandon your biases, study the business of publishing, and choose…

7 months ago

Book Design Basics: Quotation Marks and Primes

Writers often ask about the difference between "straight" or "dumb" quotation marks and traditional printers' quotes, commonly referred to as…

7 months ago

Writing is Design: Two-Word Writing Clichés

Two-word clichés are perhaps the least obvious kind. Unless we’re vigilant, they sneak into our prose, steal color, mask our…

7 months ago

The Perfect Book Sales Page

Tom Morkes published The Perfect Book sales Page on his blog. I'm usually the first person to reject formulaic approaches…

7 months ago

Track Changes – The Essential Tool for Writers and Editors

If you’re not using your Word Processor’s Track Changes function, you’re missing out on one of the best writing tools…

7 months ago

Publishing Scams and How they Work

Many self-publishers start their book projects with unrealistic expectations and misunderstandings about how publishing works. A huge industry has arisen…

7 months ago

Writing Ergonomics: Avoiding Injury at Your Desk

This article explores ergonomic solutions to writers’ repetitive stress problems. As static as it may seem, writing is a physically…

7 months ago

How to Produce Audiobooks with Amazon ACX

This article explains how to produce and market a professional quality audiobook using Amazon ACX. Through ACX (Audiobook Creation Exchange),…

7 months ago

Self-Publishing Scams: Keep the “Self” in Self-Publishing

Here's an addendum to Publishing Scams and How they Work. I wonder why so many authors, after spending thousands of…

7 months ago

Tabs, Indents, and Margins: How to use the Tab Ruler

This article explains the tab ruler found on every word processor and typesetting application. Understanding the simple and elegant split…

7 months ago

Fine Control Over Justified Text

Page layout programs like Adobe Indesign and Quark, allow typographers to exert fine control over justified text to remove gaps…

7 months ago

Commatose: the Oxford Comma, or Serial Comma

The Oxford comma, or serial comma is a subject of constant debate among writers. Do we need that comma before…

7 months ago

Encouragement for Those On The Path to Better Writing

So many writers get discouraged. This stinks. I quit. Others are overconfident. They've always had "a gift for words" so…

7 months ago

Creative Nonfiction, Memoir, and the Nature of Truth

A few years ago, I attended a nonfiction-writing workshop where I was told by the instructor that to qualify as…

7 months ago

A Manuscript is Not a Book: Ten Tips for Manuscript Preparation

In my work with writers, I come across many common technical problems with manuscripts. These usually spring from the best…

7 months ago

Not Selling Books? Did you do the Math?

You threw a grand party but nobody came. Your novel is so good but you're not selling books. What happened?…

7 months ago

The Grammar of Book Design

Are images analogous to words? Is what makes a sentence sound "right" the same thing that makes an image "pop"…

7 months ago

Writing is Design: Shy Away from Timid and Passive Writing

"Passive writing" refers to a specific set of grammatical circumstances where emphasis switches from subject to object. The money was…

7 months ago

Writing is Design: Boring Words & Generic Descriptions – Not Nice!

Generic descriptions are telltale signs of lazy writing. Add color to your writing by replacing overused and boring words. It's…

7 months ago

Writing is Design – Writing Dialogue: He Said. She Said.

Dialogue presents challenges for writers. Some prefer to simply declare what was “said.” Many authors feel that “said” is both…

7 months ago

Writing is Design: Eliminate THAT Fat From Your Writing

The word "that" is often abused. "That" is a perfectly useful pronoun but it's often the useless fat that slows…

7 months ago

Blogging to Build a Speaker or Author Platform

How can speakers, indie writers, and self-publishers use a blog to build a platform? This article explains how to publish…

7 months ago

Book Cover Design: Judging a Book by its Cover – Part 2

Part 1 of Book Cover Design: Judging a Book by its Cover critiqued "professional" covers taken from Amazon's Editor's choice…

7 months ago

Book Cover Typefaces and Cover Design Horror Stories

I recently responded to a question in a writers’ forum from an author who was in the process of designing…

7 months ago

How Many Spaces After a Period? Ending the Debate

Few subjects arouse more passion among writers and designers than the debate over how many spaces should follow a period.…

7 months ago

What’s a Professional Editor Worth?

What do you think a professional editor's pay scale should be? Assume that a proofreader would be at the bottom…

7 months ago

Book Cover Design: Judging a Book by Its Cover – Part 1

Nothing screams “amateur” like a poorly crafted book cover. The standards for book design aspired to by trade publishers are…

7 months ago

Co-Publishing – Alternative Path or Another Trap for Writers?

I recently published a post about the difference between vanity publishing and true self-publishing. Fundamentally, the article defines a publisher…

7 months ago

Reality Checklist for Self-Publishers

One question that loops endlessly on writers’ forums is “How can I sell more books?” The question is a natural…

7 months ago

Self-Publishing & Vanity Publishing: Confuse Them and Pay the Price

What is true self-publishing? What is the difference between self-publishing and “vanity publishing” or “subsidy publishing?” How do these differ…

7 months ago

Why You Need a Professional Editor

After completing the final draft of a manuscript for my fifth book, I wanted a reality check. I hired a…

7 months ago

Proposed Standards for Book Typography

The word processor has placed new burdens on writers to understand how to use italics, big and small capitals, dashes,…

7 months ago

Straight Talk About Book Reviews

Book  reviews are critically important. Have you ever read a book hoping it would get better, only to find that…

7 months ago

Gatekeepers and Self-Publishing

Indie publishers complain that the mainstream publishing establishment acts as a "gatekeeper." Many readers rely on big publishing houses to…

7 months ago

Self-Publishing: Art or Business?

The very idea of "book marketing" is vague. It's like subsuming advertising and fine art sales into a single realm…

7 months ago

Indie Publishers, Bookstores and Readers – the Indie Ecosystem

Indie publishers are everywhere and so are indie bookstores, but apart from their names, the two have little in common.…

7 months ago

Book Design Basics – Dashes, Hyphens and Dots

This section on dashes, hyphens and dots goes beyond typographic aesthetics to explore how we can communicate more effectively as…

7 months ago

Self-Publishing IS Real Publishing-The Difference is up to You

The notion of real publishing­ as opposed to self-publ­ishing and the stigma surrounding it is obsolete. I have no objections…

7 months ago

The Single Most Important Contribution to Publishing

Many readers still love to feel the subtle emboss of letters stamped on paper with metal type. I was rummaging…

7 months ago

Book Design Basics Part 1: Margins and Leading

Book design is a lost art. Though book design discussions usually focus on covers, consider how much more time a…

7 months ago

Book Design Basics Part 2: Optical Margins, Indents and Periods

Part 2 of Fundamentals of Book Design explores optical margins, paragraph formatting and spaces. Read about margins, layout and leading…

7 months ago

Self-Publishers Should Not Be Self-Editors

Editing is one of the first hurdles you’ll encounter as an independent writer. Your fan club is your enemy. Encouraging…

7 months ago

Book Distributors: What’s in it for Publishers?

There is a direct relationship between the number of sales you can expect from a book distributor and the value-added…

7 months ago

Book Typography: The Crystal Goblet by Beatrice Warde

Designers, writers and publishers will benefit from Beatrice Warde’s eloquent perspectives on the craft of typography, the power of type…

7 months ago

Self-Publishing? Get Real(istic)!

There are plenty of good reasons to self-publish, but not all are profit-oriented or even rational. Before you invest in…

7 months ago

Stop Picking on POD

A great technology is getting a bad rap for the wrong reasons. Print On Demand (POD) technology is often mislabeled…

7 months ago

Tips For Book Cover Design

Most book designers make the same errors. One sore spot for me and with many of my university design students,…

7 months ago

Irony

Irony—a figure of speech where the intended meaning is the opposite of the literal meaning. Here’s a soundbite from the…

7 months ago

Speakipedia Podcast #7: <br>Kelly Swanson

Transcript Dave Bricker (00:07) Want to expand your speaking and storytelling skills and grow your influence business? This is Speakipedia Media…

7 months ago

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