Member Blog | Self-Publishing Review

6 Disability-Inclusive Book Design Tips to Better Accommodate Your Readers

As an author, you want your books to be accessible to a wide range of readers, including those with various disabilities. Making a few small changes can help those with dyslexia, visual impairments and neurodivergence. Here are some tips to make sure your book designs are disability-inclusive.

1. Start With Contrast

All people see things a bit differently, but some have visual impairments that can make reading your book or viewing your cover more challenging. Using high contrast between the background and your text is a good practice regardless of who is reading your work. Follow the Web Content Accessibility […]

SPR2024-08-05T15:30:40+02:00August 5th, 2024|Categories: Member Blog|

Lessons Learned from Creating a Fantasy Box Set

Your first book is probably the most important story of the collection, but if you are a new author, it will not be as well-written as the later books. Like most new writers, I stumbled along and changed my mind about story arcs, improving my writing skills as I went. After publishing the first two stories of my series, it occurred to me it might have been wise to withhold publication and release the series all at once so I could change characters’ backstories or names if it made sense for later stories.

I waited to release the last three […]

SPR2022-01-11T04:05:03+02:00January 11th, 2022|Categories: Member Blog|Tags: Book Formatting Tips|

Becoming a Writer

I am new to this writing thing. I have always liked to write, but I was always too self-conscious and critical to share it with anyone. I wrote poems and songs when I was younger and only a select few people were allowed to view them. I don’t have a background in journalism, English, or writing. I have been working in the human service field for over 25 years with experience and an education in psychology and human behavior.

Last year motivated me to finally tell a story that was in my head for years. Being stuck in my house […]

SPR2021-06-15T02:40:49+02:00June 15th, 2021|Categories: Member Blog|

Five Things I Learned from Writing Faithless

In 2013, I published the first novel in a new horror thriller series. The book is Tell Me When I’m Dead, and as I wrote it, I hadn’t thought about a sequel. By the time I got to the end, though, I began picturing scenes for the next book. When I finished Book Two, I was well down the path of writing a trilogy.

Overall, the reviews have been positive. By Book Three, I’d had enough of zombies and wrote a supernatural horror series. But I never stopped thinking about the universe I’d created the first time around. After […]

SPR2021-05-05T08:33:40+02:00May 5th, 2021|Categories: Member Blog|Tags: Writing Tips|

How I Approached Writing My First Novel Like a TV Script

Many of you may not know who I am, but I am one of those character actors that generally has a few scenes here and there and often appear on YouTube, in independent films, and recently on UpTV or PureFlix. With the pandemic, 2020 was a rough year for most actors and I was not the exception. I decided to just double down on my own creative projects first by producing my own kids animated series called Kindly Kenney and then by writing my first novel, Jon Bragg Blue Essence, a Norse myth. I had always wanted to attempt […]

SPR2021-04-30T06:22:29+02:00April 30th, 2021|Categories: Member Blog|Tags: Writing Tips|

A Lullaby in the Desert: One Woman’s Fight for Freedom

What if by questioning injustice and standing up for the oppressed, your words were met with threats, captivity, and execution? Would you still stand up?

Imagine being born without rights. From bicycle bans and compulsory clothing to mandatory beliefs, what’s worse than being born in a society where your gender alone is a crime? Millions of women are held captive, whether behind bars or behind barriers, for what they believe, what they wear, and what they say. They are suffering at this very moment. Some, like Susan, decided they wouldn’t take being held in the grip of a society’s invisible […]

SPR2021-03-16T11:57:24+02:00March 16th, 2021|Categories: Features, Member Blog|

Journey of a Twelve-Year-Old Author

A majority of existing novels implicate important messages, whether they are directly or vicariously stated. My recently published book, The Black Sisterhood Files, is a murder mystery that bears a veiled, yet sincere, moral: even the most villainous of creatures have love situated at the core of their hearts. The piece below is my humble attempt at sharing what inspired me to write the novel and my path to getting it published at the age of twelve. I don’t claim this to be a recipe for success for everyone, nor do I think that perception of affluence is uniform; […]

SPR2020-06-25T09:05:32+02:00June 25th, 2020|Categories: Member Blog|

8 Easy Tips for Fiction Writing

1) It is Important to Show, Not Tell

First off it is important to show, not tell. Showing is based around description and that really helps a reader become engaged in a story and understand the situation the character is in. Telling is more of an expository summary of something, which as I’m sure you’ll agree isn’t quite as exciting!

Knowing your audience and creating characters that they not only engage with but also empathize with is very important. I try to create characters that kids can look up to as role models that deal with situations and issues that […]

SPR2020-06-25T08:06:07+02:00June 25th, 2020|Categories: Member Blog|Tags: Writing Tips|