A Maryland bookseller will outfit your bookshelf with books of any description — liberal history, musty old tomes, or just “green.” What are the moral implications of treating books as objects and not content? Politico describes Books by the Foot‘s business. Its clients vary. Some are set decorators for movies and plays. Others are people…
Is writing a book in your list of 2021 New Year’s resolutions? Your friends may be encouraging you. “This is your year! You can do it!” If you’ve subscribed to emails from any of the “we help you publish” services out there, they’re telling you the same thing. Maybe you need a push. Or perhaps…
The biggest publishing house, Penguin Random House, is merging with the number three publisher, Simon & Schuster. Here’s what that means for you as an author: lower advances, less service, more publisher nickel-and-diming, and still more of the responsibility for success landing on you. Publishing houses struggle to maintain profits and market power in a…
Last week, two different authors told me they were sending chapters to a bunch of their friends to get feedback. One planned to send it to 40 people. This is terrible way to edit. Consider what happens when you crowdsource an edit Anyone who’s ever read a Wikipedia article has seen the incoherent and personality-free…
If you are writing a book as an expert on a topic, you may be having challenges with organizing your content. You should build your table of contents around the questions your reader will ask. The wrong way to organize your book I was recently helping a consultant who was planning a book on a…
Trademarks confuse writers. Here are some tips on how to address trademarks in prose — and whether you ought to protect your own special names for things with them. Start with this: I’m not a lawyer. I hope you find this helpful — it’s based on decades of experience as a writer — but if…
I don’t care whether you’r writing a memoir, a historical narrative, or a business book full of advice. You should start every chapter with a story. Why? Because stories draw people in. It’s that simple. Here are the starts of some chapters in my first book Groundswell. Would you want to read these chapters? When…
There are a million editors out there. If you aspire to make a living as one, you can’t just be “an editor” — because only those who specialize will be paid what they’re worth. (Author’s note — I’ll now resume posting mostly about writing, editing, and books. Thanks for your tolerance of my political posts…
The author and former Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward interviewed Trump 18 times for his new book Rage. In a February interview, Trump revealed that he knew how serious a threat there was from COVID-19. Many commentators say Woodward should he have said something as soon as he learned this. I disagree. What Woodward knew…