It’s the season of New Year’s resolutions, and as the temperatures drop, what better season is there for spending time in the kitchen honing your cooking and baking skills? Whether you’re sharpening your skills for fun or as part of your career, a valuable resource available to you in your culinary endeavors is your local library. Of course, the first thing that comes to mind… [Read More]
While it is true that finishing the first draft of a novel is just one small step on the staircase towards publication, it also a tremendous accomplishment. It takes dedication, and even more so when the goal is to finish a 50,000-word novel draft in just one month, as many do by participating in National Novel Writing Month. NaNoWriMo happens every November and has participants… [Read More]
From now through August, Swenson Book Development LLC offers a special package for editorial feedback on the first ten pages of your manuscript. I want to read what you’ve been writing. One of the most frequent requests I get from writers is a simple answer to the general question: is this any good? In order to answer any questions about a manuscript, you need to… [Read More]
Before you get lost in the design details of a WordPress website, it’s important to keep in mind what type of site you want to build. For most of our clients, we recommend a site that says “successful, professional author.” But beyond this vague aesthetic, what will your site actually look like? What will it say about you and your writing? What message are you… [Read More]
Guest blog by Carolyn Porter, author of Marcel’s Letters: A Font and the Search for One Man’s Fate (Skyhorse, 2017). In the five months “Marcel’s Letters” has lived in the world, I have been honored to join ten book clubs, and I look forward to the half-dozen more who have arranged events for the coming months. The visits have been delightful. If I sound surprised,… [Read More]
ONE: Your publisher or your publicist will need to send a query letter to the producer of the radio program. It’s much better to have someone else query for radio interviews on your behalf. But doing most of the work to assist your publisher or publicist in booking radio interviews will increase your chances significantly. And if you are a nonfiction writer, there is a… [Read More]
When describing lake water, the words scummy and murky convey very different images, even though they’re synonyms. I had a preconceived notion of the word murky. I believed it portrayed water as dark, cloudy, and difficult to see through. I understood the word scummy to mean water that has a layer of algae on top of it, making it unpleasant to swim in or to… [Read More]
Whether you are starting a new research project or revising the final draft of a book manuscript, there are resources a nonfiction writer will want to keep closer at hand than a dictionary or thesaurus. Some of these references you may already be familiar with, but you may discover one or more here which belong on your desktop for handy reference. You are the subject… [Read More]
If you’re an aspiring author, pursuing a career in the world of words, or just writing an email to your boss later today, chances are your work will need some editing. New to the world of books, I quickly learned the best sentences can become even better by using some great free tools at your disposal. No, I’m not talking about the pamphlets we received… [Read More]
It’s January and the time of year when you need to prepare your taxes or gather the information together to take it to a tax professional. Before January 31 you are required to file 1099-MISC forms for income you paid to independent contractors during the last year. If you paid more than $600 to an individual or a contractor for professional services related to the… [Read More]
