If you’re looking for a simple and cost-effective way to format your next book, allow me to introduce you to Vellum.

This book formatting software is incredibly intuitive and easy to use. Though designed with fiction in mind, you can use Vellum to format any book not in need of complicated interior design.

Because Vellum is a one-time purchase (I.e. $199.99 for e-book formatting, $249.99 for print + e-book formatting), it’s a cost-effective DIY formatting option for many independent authors, especially those planning to publish multiple books. And because you don’t need to purchase Vellum until you’re ready to generate your formatted files, you can download and trial Vellum for an unlimited amount of time.

Popular writing rules exist for a reason. Or do they? Writing is both an art and a craft. While language and storytelling serve as forms of self-expression, one can also learn structures and techniques that can help them become a better writer. Such guidance exists in every creative art, from painting to dancing, playing music, and beyond. Why, then, might it be problematic to follow common writing rules?

Inside every writer sits a creative well. Whenever you sit down to write, you dip your bucket into this well, drawing the energy you need to attend the work at hand. 

The energy in your creative well is a renewable resource, but the rate at which it renews depends on many factors. When surrounded by sources of inspiration, your well overflows, leading you to create at a frenzied pace. But when life becomes stressful, your creative well fills more slowly, with much of its energy diverted to other priorities. On most days, however, a writer’s creative well renews at a rate somewhere between the two extremes.

As writers, one of our core missions is to craft stories in which our readers can invest. Stories so captivating that readers fly through the pages.

The most opportune time for readers to set a book aside comes when they finish a chapter. In that space between one page and the next, readers ask themselves just how much they care about the fate of the characters. Do they need to know what happens next? If their gut says no, they’ll likely set the book aside—and there’s a decent chance they might not pick it up again.

To pen a deliciously addictive book, it’s therefore vital to consider the page-turning power of your chapter endings. Where a dull closing page will deter readers, a few intriguing lines can hook them in for yet another scene. But how, exactly, do you go about instilling readers with the need to know what happens next?

If you consider yourself a pantser, you likely don’t spend much (or any) time pre-writing your stories prior to drafting. Instead, you “write by the seat of your pants,” using your first draft to explore and develop your story. But just because you don’t find pre-writing helpful to your writing process doesn’t mean that you can’t take advantage of the power of story structure.

If part of your personal definition of writing success includes making a living from your writing, here’s the good news: you can build a successful career as an author in many ways. To do so, you must think of your work as a business. Your books are your products, and your readers are your customers—and books don’t sell themselves. Are you willing to adopt an entrepreneurial spirit to make a living from your writing?

Editing a novel listening aloud has definite benefits. Many reputable sources online point out the advantages of listening to or reading your work out loud, including this one from Poynter.org and this one from the writing center of The University of North Carolina among many others. Read on to learn the top seven benefits of listening aloud. These advantages may just change the way you edit novels.

Are you ready to bridge the gap between where you are and where you want to be in your writing life?

Last week, I published Build Your Best Writing Life, my first full-length book for writers. This book breaks down each of the essential strategies that have helped me slowly but surely work to become the writer I want to be over the past five years—strategies that are continuing to help me achieve this aim today. 

With the new year upon us, it’s time we take action to turn our resolutions into realities. If it’s your goal to build a writing life you love in 2020, then I’d love to break down the foundational strategies I share in my new book with you today.

Time. In this busy modern age, it feels like you’re always fighting the clock. You know it’s essential to make time to write. You can’t maintain a consistent writing practice without carving out time in your schedule for creative work. But how are you supposed to make that time when you have a career, a family, a home, and other responsibilities to address? 

As writers, it’s our job to craft fully-realized characters—characters that feel as real as the people around us. And like the people around us, this means our characters should be flawed.

Flaws and moral failings are, after all, an integral part of what it means to be human. Without these shortcomings, humanity would experience little conflict, triumph, or growth—all elements that define the stories we write. Simply put, for a character to feel real, they must share in our flawed humanity.

All writers experience creative frustration from time to time. But what if you experience creative frustration most of the time?

Maybe you’ve yet to finish a first draft after years of writing, always lured by the siren song of a new story idea not long after beginning the last. Maybe you’ve developed an idea you love, but you’re afraid of failing to do the story justice. Maybe you’ve been struggling to find the time or motivation to sit down and write.