Only if you want to write a commercial-quality nonfiction book — First-time authors often don’t know about the various sections of a book they need to write. …

Your Favorite Blunders Explained So You Won’t Write Like an Amateur — Shall we start with a little fun quiz? No Offense Taken What’s wrong with this list of names from a nonfiction business book: Bob, Mary, Harry, Bill, Susan, Janet, Kim, Donna, Frank, and Mike? I’ll wait. See the pattern? In your workplace, don’t you have coworkers with more ethnic first and last names…

Guess who wrote this post? Remember in high school when you could pay a smarty-pants nerd to write a paper for you? And you just hoped you wouldn’t get caught by the stickler who taught your English class? That was the 1960s. Remember in high school when you could buy a prewritten paper online. And…

Follow the Clues to Find Out What a Book Is About So You Won’t Waste Time and Money Did you ever buy a book and then discover it’s not what you thought? A memoir turned out to be a novel. Or an enticing cover misguided you into thinking the book was literary fiction and it was memoir? Bummer. We readers know what we like to read, and when…

Hacks for Writing Authentic Dialogue — What did Jennifer Lopez say to Ben at the Grammy's? The body language would tell you it wasn’t a love message. How about Mitt Romney’s remarks to George Santos during the State of the Union gathering? Something nasty, and Santos spit it right back. We couldn’t hear these exchanges or…

Confessions from a Book Award Judge — Yes, you can judge a book by its cover. I do. I am a book award judge. As a judge, I am sent a box of books, all entries in one category for a major book award. Sometimes two boxes of books. …

The Essential Publishing Question All First-Time Authors Ask — Ask not what your editor can do for you. Well, actually, that’s the question you do want to ask when you’re writing your book, feeling overwhelmed or stark naked actually about the whole writing and publishing process. But wait, you say, I need to find an editor. I’m a first-time…

Fine-Tune Your Writing with Advice Your Critique Group Won’t Give You — If you’ve been following my two previous posts on stuff writers write that makes editors cringe, and more annoying stuff writers write, you know I’ve tackled Simon Sinek’s tiresome why, Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs (when we all just need caffeine), variations on the starfish story (throw them all back)…

Or worse, you’re already live on Amazon with mistakes? — Twice just this year, book designers I know have contacted me and said, “Sandy, I am doing this cover and interior, and I think this book really needs an edit. I know [the author] had an edit done, but I’m seeing issues. Can you help?” What issues are they seeing…