Plotting Your Book: Establish Tone During Story’s Opening Lines
Each story expresses an emotional climate or tone; creating tone involves a complex array of techniques such as diction, pacing and color. READ MORE

Self-Publishing Tips: How to Upload Your Ebook
For those new to self-publishing, uploading your ebook often is a complex and frustrating process. Unfamiliar terms are used, questions that you as an author have never thought of answering are asked, and when errors occur there’s often no real explanation as to how fix them. And while online “tutorials” are offered, the articles either state the obvious or appear to have been written by software engineers rather than someone who actually understands your plight. My book Upload Your Ebook to KindleDP corrects all of that. The explanations in this book make the process easy to understand and to follow. After all, you just want to get your book uploaded so it’s up for sale, not wonder if you wasted your time writing it because of error messages! SEE BOOK

Writing Tip: Don’t Burden Reader with a Self-indulgent Digression
Many writers pen stories to make a statement about an ethical or political issue. Authors sometimes are tempted to get on their soapbox rather than allow the message to unfold with the story. When a diatribe or rant is inserted in the story, the author is guilty of a self-indulgent digression. READ MORE

Self-Publishing Tip: Should You Format Your Book While Writing It?
Formatting when writing to a small degree makes some sense. Many authors want to get a feel for what their book will look like in print. Or perhaps to get a “head start” while waiting for a proofreading to be completed, they start formatting. Almost invariably, though, this actually creates more work. READ MORE

This Week’s Podcast: Place Easter Egg to Reward Careful Readers
Sometimes the real pleasure of writing – and reading – isn’t about a well-crafted tale with a fast-moving plot involving intriguing characters set in a well-described landscape. After all, penning such a story entails a lot of sweat, and for readers, they expect nothing less than a well-developed piece. Instead, the real smile comes when the author leaves a special treats for the reader, such as hiding some surprise not germane to the story. These surprises are called Easter eggs, a term science fiction writing workshops have borrowed from the jargon of computer programming. LISTEN TO PODCAST

Book Marketing Tip: How to Arrange a Public Book Reading/Signing
Just because you’ve published a book, don’t expect to get invitations to do book readings. You’ll have to arrange them yourself. The good news is you’ll find a lot of venues will be willing to have your speak. READ MORE

Client Spotlight: “Tracina’s Treacherous Trail of Troubles” by Don W. Maeder
A longtime editing client of mine has published his second novel! Don W. Maeder’s Tracina’s Treacherous Trail of Troubles tells the story of Donovan and Tracina – valuable white coat flying squirrels who the first of their kind – when their cargo plane crash-lands in a remote meadow inside Yosemite National Park. Stranded in the untamed wilderness, the frightened, devoted duo must seek survival skills or suffer the consequences. Just when things worsen, a twist of fate unfolds a remarkable pattern of partnerships with four unlikely forest animals, and together, they share each other’s strengths to face living in the wild successfully. The book is perfect for readers aged 9 to 13 who adore heart-pounding adventures and unforgettable animal heroes. CHECK IT OUT

$25 Off Your Next Edit!
For being a newsletter subscriber, please take $25 off your next edit with Inventing Reality Editing Service. When scheduling your edit, be sure to mention you’re a subscriber and give the email where you received this newsletter. Minimum order of $200. Offer expires May 13, 2025. SCHEDULE EDIT

My name is Rob Bignell. I’m an affordable, professional editor who runs Inventing Reality Editing Service, which meets the manuscript needs of both aspiring and published writers and offers a variety of self-publishing services. During the past 15 years, I’ve helped more than 400 novelists and nonfiction authors obtain their publishing dreams at reasonable prices. I’m also the author of a novel, the Storytelling 101 Quick Read series, four children’s books, more than 25 bestselling hiking guidebooks, and even a book of poetry. Several of my short stories in the literary and science fiction genres also have been published.

Plotting Your Book: Hint at Story’s Theme in Opening Lines
Even the most action-packed, blood-and-gore story has some message or point. A proposition that is argued or an aspect of human experience that is examined in your story is its theme. For example, the theme of the novel Moby Dick is revenge and obsession. Those dual passions and their costs are explored as Captain Ahab hunts and tries to destroy the great white whale that bit off his leg. You want to hint at your theme on your opening page.  READ MORE

Self-Publishing Tip: How to Design Your Ebook Cover
Most potential readers of your ebook will first encounter it online as an image – the book’s cover. If that thumbnail doesn’t cause viewers to take a closer look at the accompanying text descriptions of your book, you are farther away from making a sale. How do you create an ebook cover? My new book Design Your Ebook Cover answers that question. Using easy to understand and short explanations, it describes what software/apps you need, moves on to the cover’s various elements, and finally looks at uploading it to a print on demand company like Kindle Direct Publishing. SEE BOOK

Writing Tip: Show Don’t Tell when Writing Story Dialogue
All too often, new writers fall into the error of telling instead of showing. This occurs, for example, when the narrator states how character feels rather than using concrete details from which the feeling can be inferred. READ MORE

Self-Publishing Tip: How to Create Your Book’s Table of Contents
Though the table of contents is one of the first pages readers will see, it’s one of the last you’ll actually complete. Because it must perfectly match the names of your various sections and chapters, as well as have the correct page numbers (if doing a print book anyway), it is always in flux as you write and format the book. READ MORE

This Week’s Podcast: How to Write an Author’s Bio
One page you’ll want on a website promoting your book is an “About the Author.” Readers love to learn more about the author of a book they’re reading. If writing a nonfiction book, the author’s bio helps establish you as a qualified expert to write about your book’s topic, encouraging potential readers to purchase your writing. Finally, it gives the media information to add to any articles or blog entries about you. LISTEN TO PODCAST

Book Marketing Tip: Increase Book Sales by Giving Away First in Series
If you’ve written a series of novels about a single character, one way to improve sales is to give the first volume away for free. This may seem counterintuitive, but for self-published writers, it’s a great way to get your book in front of more eyeballs. READ MORE

Client Spotlight: “Somewhere Else” by Joe Robinson
Life has brought Ed Wilson to a point he never would have anticipated, and he’s not particularly pleased with the present state of affairs. A middle-aged municipal lawyer, many things peeve him: the bureaucratic fog of city government; his ex-wife who moved out after twenty years of marriage; a bizarre controversy that engulfs his daughter in college; and, most troubling of all, the irremediable plight of his mother, resident of a nearby memory care facility. Filled with humor, insight and heart, Somewhere Else is a moving exploration of loss, acceptance, and second chances. CHECK IT OUT

$25 Off Your Next Edit!
For being a newsletter subscriber, please take $25 off your next edit with Inventing Reality Editing Service. When scheduling your edit, be sure to mention you’re a subscriber and give the email where you received this newsletter. Minimum order of $200. Offer expires May 6, 2025. SCHEDULE EDIT

My name is Rob Bignell. I’m an affordable, professional editor who runs Inventing Reality Editing Service, which meets the manuscript needs of both aspiring and published writers and offers a variety of self-publishing services. During the past 15 years, I’ve helped more than 400 novelists and nonfiction authors obtain their publishing dreams at reasonable prices. I’m also the author of a novel, the Storytelling 101 Quick Read series, four children’s books, more than 25 bestselling hiking guidebooks, and even a book of poetry. Several of my short stories in the literary and science fiction genres also have been published.

Plotting Your Book: Establish Story’s Point of View in Opening Lines
Every story has an angle or perspective from which it is told. You establish this perspective, called point of view, in a story’s opening lines. Which point of view you select deeply affects the way the story can be told. READ MORE

How to Format Your Ebook
The best way to construct an ebook is as a unique document rather than running your paperback through meat grinder software. Fortunately, you can construct it right on your laptop without buying expensive software or hiring someone to code your ebook into a mobi or epub format. My Storytelling 101 book Format Your Ebook takes you through those steps. Among the many topics covered are your table of contents, headers, footers, page numbers, text, designing the cover, and uploading the ebook. Information is presented in brief, easy to understand explanations from someone who has formatted hundreds of ebooks. SEE BOOK

Writing Tip: How to Stay Focused on Writing One Book
Sometimes inspiration strikes for an entirely different book than the one you’re working on. Unfortunately, this can create the problem of stopping one book and starting a new one so that your original work never gets finished. READ MORE

Self-Publishing Tip: Pay Attention to Your Author’s Bio Pic
One of the elements of a self-published book that shouldn’t be overlooked is the author’s photograph. While the photo often is a thumbnail or even smaller, it can subtly affect a reader’s decision to purchase your book. A blurry or a pixelated photo suggests (rightly or wrongly) that the rest of the book is unprofessional; a photo that makes you look mean or physically unappealing tells the reader that you’re creepy and so probably is your book. Further, the author’s bio pic can appear in a number of spots – the back cover, next to the author’s bio at the book’s end, on your website, on web pages selling or promoting your book (such as Amazon.com and Goodreads) and probably elsewhere. READ MORE

This Week’s Podcast: Avoid Exposition (Show, Don’t Tell!)
Want to slow your story to a glacial grind and get readers to quit reading your story? Then load it with lots of exposition. Problems arising with exposition often (and rightfully) elicit cries of “Show, don’t tell!” from editors. LISTEN TO PODCAST

Book Marketing Tip: Offer Readers an ‘Interview with the Author Page’
Readers love to learn about the authors of their favorite books. You can help foster that love – and in doing so get them to purchase your next book – by including a page on your website in which you are interviewed. READ MORE

Client Spotlight: “Geo Girl Maxine” by Ann James
A recent editing client of mine has just published her latest children’s book! Ann James’ “Geo Girl Maxine” tells the story of Maxine – known to her friends as “Geo Girl” – who has a passion for geography that sets her apart. While others might yawn at maps and landforms, she finds adventure in every continent, ocean and river. Determined to share her excitement, Max dreams up fun ways to get her friends interested in the wonders of the world. CHECK IT OUT

$25 Off Your Next Edit!
For being a newsletter subscriber, please take $25 off your next edit with Inventing Reality Editing Service. When scheduling your edit, be sure to mention you’re a subscriber and give the email where you received this newsletter. Minimum order of $200. Offer expires April 29, 2025. SCHEDULE EDIT

My name is Rob Bignell. I’m an affordable, professional editor who runs Inventing Reality Editing Service, which meets the manuscript needs of both aspiring and published writers and offers a variety of self-publishing services. During the past 15 years, I’ve helped more than 400 novelists and nonfiction authors obtain their publishing dreams at reasonable prices. I’m also the author of a novel, the Storytelling 101 Quick Read series, four children’s books, more than 25 bestselling hiking guidebooks, and even a book of poetry. Several of my short stories in the literary and science fiction genres also have been published.

Plotting Your Book: Open Story by Hinting at Some Mysterious Element
Straight-up information about a character or a setting rarely marks a great way to start a story. Instead, the opening lines need to hint at some mysterious element. READ MORE

The Ultimate Guide to Self-Publishing Your Book
You’ve written a book that’s languishing on your computer hard drive. You don’t have time to pitch it to a literary agent or a major publisher … work or school is hectic, the house needs to be cleaned, the kids demand your attention … But I bet you can find just seven minutes a day to achieve your dream of getting it published. If you can, my book 7 Minutes a Day to a Self-Published Book is for you. This practical, how-to guide takes you step-by-step through the self-publishing process – with just seven minutes of work required a day. You’ll complete short, skillful exercises that allow you to self-publish your novel or nonfiction title as you read the book, all the while getting the encouragement and motivation needed to keep you going. SEE BOOK

Writing Tip: Consider Using Counterplotting in Your Novel
One solid plotting strategy for a long novel – though it also will work in a novella or a long short story – is to split the main characters into two groups and alternate the focus of scenes or chapters between them. The two groups then reunite at the story’s climax. This technique is called counterplotting. It’s often is used in quest novels. READ MORE

Self-Publishing Tip: Potential Disclaimers for Your Title Page
Sometimes when self-publishing a book, you’ll want to include a disclaimer on your title page. A disclaimer is a legal-sounding statement that aims to protect you from lawsuits by saying that you are not liable or responsible for anything the reader does as a consequence of reading your advice. For example, if a reader follows first-aid tips you provide in a hiking book, you might run a disclaimer that releases you from responsibility for any injuries that occur after a reader has attempted to follow your guidelines. READ MORE

This Week’s Podcast: What ‘Write What You Know’ Really Means
At face value, “Write what you know” is bad advice. It seems limiting and can only lead to dull stories. After all, how many of us lead the lives of James Bond or Captain Kirk? How many of us ever have been knights or pharaohs or presidents? But that’s taking the maxim too literally. LISTEN TO PODCAST

Book Marketing Tip: How to Get Your Self-Published Book into a Library
Getting your book into a library is a good marketing tool. It’s the equivalent of giving away free copies in those Kindle programs, except in this case a lone free copy can seen by multiple people for several years. Your book also is on a library catalog system, often available online, that gives people yet another way to stumble across the title. READ MORE

Client Spotlight: “Abe’s Journey” by Tom Weiss
A recent editing client of mine, Tom Weiss, has published his second novel, “Abe’s Journey.” Abe Souder has always followed the path before him—never questioning where it led. Raised in a world where faith and tradition shape every decision, he accepted his place without hesitation. But when a tragic loss unsettles the life he’s always known, long-buried doubts begin to rise, forcing him to confront the questions he’s never been willing to face. Looking for answers in places he would never have dared, Abe steps beyond the familiar, drawn into a world that challenges everything he thought he knew. Each step forward brings him closer to truths about himself, his past, and his future—and forces him to question not just where he belongs but who he is. Faced with choices that could change his life forever, Abe must ask himself the most challenging question: Was he ever truly sure of the life he was living—or has doubt left him staring into a future just as uncertain? CHECK IT OUT

$25 Off Your Next Edit!
For being a newsletter subscriber, please take $25 off your next edit with Inventing Reality Editing Service. When scheduling your edit, be sure to mention you’re a subscriber and give the email where you received this newsletter. Minimum order of $200. Offer expires April 22, 2025. SCHEDULE EDIT

My name is Rob Bignell. I’m an affordable, professional editor who runs Inventing Reality Editing Service, which meets the manuscript needs of both aspiring and published writers and offers a variety of self-publishing services. During the past 15 years, I’ve helped more than 400 novelists and nonfiction authors obtain their publishing dreams at reasonable prices. I’m also the author of a novel, the Storytelling 101 Quick Read series, four children’s books, more than 25 bestselling hiking guidebooks, and even a book of poetry. Several of my short stories in the literary and science fiction genres also have been published.

Plotting Your Book: Make Story Interesting by Establishing Stakes
The plot of a story is more interesting and exciting if the characters have something to gain or lose. Because of this, the characters in your story should have something at stake, or some personal interest in or motivation for solving the story’s conflict. READ MORE

Writing Advice: How to Overcome Writer’s Block
There are many reasons people get writer’s block – their mind is preoccupied, the environment they’re writing in isn’t conducive to creating, the idea they’ve come up with isn’t particularly good, a lack of imagination or skill to develop the story, coming to the laptop with no idea to write about, and many more. My new book, Overcoming Writer’s Block, helps you understand the cause of your writer’s block then goes into detail on strategies for overcoming each one. SEE BOOK

Writing Tip: Create Intimacy with Narrator via First-Person Limited
A story can be told from several viewpoints. When the main character narrates his experiences and observations, the author is using “first-person limited” point of view. READ MORE

Self-Publishing Tip: Ebook Covers Consist of Four Major Elements
An ebook cover – perhaps wrongly – tells the reader a lot about the pages that follow. A poor cover hints at unprofessional writing and vice versa. So invest a little time working on the cover, even though you’re a writer; after all, you’re not a fashion designer but you still wouldn’t dress your child in rags during her first public outing! READ MORE

This Week’s Podcast: Why you want reviews written about your book
By getting the word out about your book, hopefully people will then talk and write about it. This largely will occur when reviews of your title begin to appear. Such reviews might run on blogs about your genre or subject matter (hence the importance of sending such media a press release to make them aware of your book), on the Amazon.com or Goodreads pages for your book, or even in published periodicals. LISTEN TO PODCAST

Book Marketing Tip: Promote Your Book with Radio Interviews
As writers, we often limit our thinking of press coverage to what we read – newspapers, magazines, online reviews. But broadcast mediums such as radio interviews also are an excellent way to promote your book. READ MORE

Client Spotlight: “The Bridge to Magic” by Alex Thornbury
The first novel in a planned fantasy series tells the story of young Elika, a mage who is hunted and hated in a world where humanity tries to destroy magic. Written by Australian Alex Thornbury, the novel in 2023 won the Reader Views Literary Award: Grand Prize Winner in Fiction; Gold Medal-YA Fiction; Silver Medal-Fantasy; and the Eric Hoffer Book Award Winner: Grand-Prize First Runner-Up Sci-Fi/Fantasy. I was proud to have worked as editor on the novel. Alex is a fantastic writer, and if you love fantasy, this is your book! CHECK IT OUT

$25 Off Your Next Edit!
For being a newsletter subscriber, please take $25 off your next edit with Inventing Reality Editing Service. When scheduling your edit, be sure to mention you’re a subscriber and give the email where you received this newsletter. Minimum order of $200. Offer expires April 15, 2025. SCHEDULE EDIT

My name is Rob Bignell. I’m an affordable, professional editor who runs Inventing Reality Editing Service, which meets the manuscript needs of both aspiring and published writers and offers a variety of self-publishing services. During the past 15 years, I’ve helped more than 400 novelists and nonfiction authors obtain their publishing dreams at reasonable prices. I’m also the author of a novel, the Storytelling 101 Quick Read series, four children’s books, more than 25 bestselling hiking guidebooks, and even a book of poetry. Several of my short stories in the literary and science fiction genres also have been published.