🔥The 9th Round of Easy Loan, Earn $40 Reward is in progress❗️ ⏰ Promotion Period: January 15th - Feburary 15th, 2025 👉 Register now and check more details at gate.io/campaigns/358

Joel has offered really helpful #amquerying advice every day for the last month. If you’re new or not so new to querying, his posts are definitely worth a read :)

The first five authors who can satisfy the following will get a one-pass query letter critique for just $20: 1. Repost one of my Query Month posts 2. Get your query letter under 350 words 3. Fill out the contact form at my website. FIVE AUTHORS ONLY! HURRY!

Thank you to everyone who submitted to me! The promotion is officially over, as I've got more than enough queries to look over! Got home late tonight, but I'll reach out to winners over the weekend!

After spending the last month writing query stuff for 30-60 minutes every morning, I feel like I'm missing some strange part of my morning routine. On the other hand, I've got an inbox full of people wanting help with query letters, so let's not feel TOO sorry for me :)

This cover! 😍

Last chance to register! First meeting is tonight!!

Quick Author Tip: You don't need to ask a lot of clarifying questions in the narration or in the protagonist's thoughts (things like, "What was going on?" or "Am I going crazy?"). Why not? Because if you're setting up a situation that elicits those questions, the reader should

"It's relatively rare when a human uses it." If we ever needed evidence that AI has been stealing our writing to train its models, this would be it. Cuz y'all are absolutely not using this punctuation mark judiciously. 😂

I can't tell you how many books I edit where the solution to a slow start is simply to delete Chapter 1. Why? Because Chapter 1 is so often full of unnecessary backstory, stage-setting, and info-dumping, but usually by Chapter 2, authors get things moving on The Plot.

Yesterday I suggested a possible solution to a slow Chapter 1: cut Chapter 1 entirely. Adam Malone made a fantastic point that I've already told writers to cut their prologues. Now I'm telling you to cut Chapter 1, too! But there's a key difference between these: Editors suggest

It's a good day in editing when I get to research the 1943 MLB season to make sure my author's throwaway line about the Yankees and Red Sox would've been historically accurate.

1. I'm obsessed with this branding. Logo, color scheme... all of it. 2. This podcast looks amazing!

Joel Brigham's newsletter landed in our inbox today, and it's another great one! Our favorite takeaway? "Not everything in a book has to be a surprise."

Check out this post by Joel Brigham from his March newsletter. It's full of great insights on characters and storytelling. #writingcommunity #substack open.substack.com/pub/brighamedi…

I can't support this platform anymore, gang. Sucks to abandon 15 years of connecting with writers, but I'm out. I'll never forgive him for ruining this place. I'll be at the standard alternatives, and my links remain in my bio. Hugs and high fives. -JB