When I first met Jeff Brown and he told me he had a podcast called “Read to Lead,” I was jealous. You can have a job telling people to read more? I mean, I used to teach college English, so
Read to Lead Gives You Permission to Read
4 Nonfiction Chapter Templates to Fix Your Wonky Book
Okay, when I promise “nonfiction chapter templates,” I don’t mean to mislead anyone. These aren’t fill-in-the-blank sorts of things. They’re more like schema, basic patterns that you can use as the skeleton of your chapter. They make sure you have
How Much Does Ghostwriting Cost?
I’ll be frank: A lot of potential authors get scared when we talk ghostwriting cost. They can’t quite pull the trigger on the investment, so they put off the decision. Unfortunately, that means a lot of potential authors remain just
What to Do When Your Editor Asks What’s at Stake
When I ask an author, “What’s at stake for you here?” I usually think I’m asking a straightforward question. It never fails to surprise me when an author can’t quite articulate an answer. I mean, you wrote it, didn’t you?
Why a Book Stalls at the Developmental Edit
When a book stalls out at any stage, it’s disappointing, but the developmental edit is where I see authors struggle most. When people hire me as their developmental editor, they’re usually hoping for some quick fixes. They want assurance the
I Hate the Question “Do You Like My Book?”
As an editor and ghostwriter, I really don’t like the question, “Do you like my book?” That may seem counterintuitive; if I’ve spent a good chunk of my life working on it, I must like it, right? I wouldn’t take
My Line Editor Hates My Book and Now I Hate Myself
I got my line edit back and it’s covered in Tracked Changes, and now I’m worried my line editor hates my book and I’m a bad author and this book is going to bomb and I hate myself. Okay, everybody
Writing Powerful Fiction: Till We Have Faces
When you’re writing fiction, you want to do more than “tell a story.” You want to tell a good story, a powerful story. You want to write something people can’t put down. C.S. Lewis’s Till We Have Faces provides an
Hard Advice for Authors: Dig the Words from Your Soul
When the time comes to you at which you will be forced at last to utter the speech which has lain at the center of your soul for years, which you have, all that time, idiot-like, been saying over and
An American Birthday, 2020
Today is my birthday; I am now 41 years old. That’s old enough to have a child old enough to ask me what things used to be like. I woke up this birthday morning on the living room couch. My