How To Win A Book Contest – 7 Pitfalls To Avoid
This year’s SPR Awards has thrown up some points that we’d like to share with you to help you avoid the pitfalls when entering your book for a contest. You can take a look at the entrants here.
1. Book Covers
Time and time again we’ve said it, and time and time again, authors don’t listen. If you are selling a book, it needs to have a professional finish. If we are staking a reputation on a book by choosing it as a winner, it must have a well-designed book cover. That probably means not using a beloved drawing or […]
A silver lining for all writers out there stuck without transport, concerts, sporting events, shopping malls, and parties?
I’ve been telling stories about my Sicilian-American family and my career in musical theater all my life. In my delivery, I always attempted to embody the various characters I depicted—specific accents, vocal cadences, facial expression, and gesticulations. Well, I’m Sicilian for God’s sake; we use our hands to tell stories. Can we even talk without our hands? I doubt it. People seemed to enjoy these anecdotes, but I was never certain whether they liked the story for itself or because of my delivery. If they were just seeing words on a page, would it resonate? For this reason, I was 
Punching Babies (a how-to guide) by Adron J. Smitley is a writer’s reference book that breaks down story structure creation in easy to understand parts and brings clarity to the story structuring process. With a no-nonsense way of explaining some complex concepts, Smitley walks the reader through the essential components of a literary work with real-world explanations and examples.