rule 5/7

Dec 15, 20173 min read

Step 3 in Picking Your Book’s Perfect Front Cover

Yesterday, we talked about the first two steps in picking your book’s perfect front cover. They were researching your genre and analyzing yo

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How Important Is Your Book Title Really?

Jeannette DiLouie

Dec 8, 20173 min read

How Important Is Your Book Title Really?

How important is your book title? For real… Well, like we covered earlier this week, these things do matter. If you’re unpublished, your bo

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Publishing Success Stories and the Power of Positive Attitudes

Jeannette DiLouie

Dec 1, 20173 min read

Publishing Success Stories and the Power of Positive Attitudes

We touched on this topic with yesterday’s positive attitude-focused Writing Challenge, I know. But your publishing success is more than wort

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You’re So Vain, You Probably Think This Blog Is About You

Jeannette DiLouie

Nov 24, 20173 min read

You’re So Vain, You Probably Think This Blog Is About You

Do you know that writers have superpowers? Well, we do. We have the ability to create whole entire worlds and put bad guys away. We can mak

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What to Expect in an Awesome and Worthwhile Writing Retreat!

Jeannette DiLouie

Nov 17, 20172 min read

What to Expect in an Awesome and Worthwhile Writing Retreat!

So you’ve determined that a writing retreat is right for you. You even already signed up for updates about Lia Mack and Jeannette DiLouie’s

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Jeannette DiLouie

Nov 10, 20173 min read

What Happens If You Don’t Win?

So you entered your manuscript into a writing competition. A certain pushy editor told you to in a certain pushy “quick questionnaire” – whi

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So You’re Going to Attend a Writers’ Conference, Huh?

Jeannette DiLouie

Nov 3, 20173 min read

So You’re Going to Attend a Writers’ Conference, Huh?

Yesterday, I wrote that it’s so important to have confidence if you’re going to attend a writers’ conference. This is particularly true “if

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How Bad Grammar Makes Your Story Look Oh So Good

Jeannette DiLouie

Oct 20, 20173 min read

How Bad Grammar Makes Your Story Look Oh So Good

Teachers and editors are usually quick to warn against bad grammar like run-on sentences and incomplete sentences. They’re no good, the prof

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Tell Your Sentence Structure to Make Your Writing Look Good!

Jeannette DiLouie

Oct 19, 20173 min read

Tell Your Sentence Structure to Make Your Writing Look Good!

What can the creative writer-oriented definition of sentence structure do for you? This applies to all you non-fiction writers too, whether

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Plot Holes Are Worth Fixing, No Matter the Cost

Jeannette DiLouie

Oct 13, 20173 min read

Plot Holes Are Worth Fixing, No Matter the Cost

Okay, creative writer. So you’ve taken my editorial advice and went looking through your manuscript for a plot hole. And you found one. Now

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Jeannette DiLouie

Oct 6, 20173 min read

Hook! Hook! Where’s the Narrative Hook?

How do you find your narrative hook? Well, it’s probably not in stealing movie lines from Dustin Hoffman films. (And shame on you if you don

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Creative Writers, Beware! NaNoWriMo Can Kill!

Jeannette DiLouie

Sep 29, 20173 min read

Creative Writers, Beware! NaNoWriMo Can Kill!

I left you with the most dire of warnings on Tuesday: Creative writers, beware: NaNoWriMo can kill! And I firmly stand by that statement. N

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My Editorial Take on Your Writing Tone… How Much Does It Matter?

Jeannette DiLouie

Sep 22, 20173 min read

My Editorial Take on Your Writing Tone… How Much Does It Matter?

I ended yesterday’s writing-related, tone-focused Challenge on something of a cliffhanger. That wasn’t part of my evil editorial plan, but i

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Bias Is Inevitable, but Logical Fallacies Are Avoidable

Jeannette DiLouie

Sep 15, 20173 min read

Bias Is Inevitable, but Logical Fallacies Are Avoidable

Writing Rule #36 doesn’t shy away from being biased. In fact, it readily acknowledges it. We’ve all got our opinions, or biases. We’ve all

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Writing Rule #35: Authors, Know Thy Marketing Targets!

Jeannette DiLouie

Sep 1, 20174 min read

Writing Rule #35: Authors, Know Thy Marketing Targets!

For today’s Writing Rule, we’re going to delve a little more deeply into something I touched on for yesterday’s writing-related, marketing-f

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The One or Two Times You Might Actually Need a Vanity Publisher

Jeannette DiLouie

Aug 25, 20172 min read

The One or Two Times You Might Actually Need a Vanity Publisher

Even believing that there are decent, honest vanity publishers out there – which I’m sure there are. Somewhere – these professional publishi

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Self-Published Introverts, You Need to Pretend to Like People

Jeannette DiLouie

Aug 18, 20173 min read

Self-Published Introverts, You Need to Pretend to Like People

As a self-published author, as a professional and as a person, being a salesperson is not my natural forte. And it’s not just because I’m an

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Here’s What It Means If Your Manuscript’s Query Letter Is Rejected

Jeannette DiLouie

Aug 11, 20173 min read

Here’s What It Means If Your Manuscript’s Query Letter Is Rejected

In order to address Innovative Editing’s literary agent/query letter/traditional publishing Part 2 Writing Rule of the week, we need to firs

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A Traditional Publishing Reality Check – and Challenge

Jeannette DiLouie

Aug 4, 20173 min read

A Traditional Publishing Reality Check – and Challenge

There’s a lot of writing-circle myths and legends out there about what it’s like to be traditionally published. I addressed and corrected a

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Why Your Published Manuscript Won't Wow Everyone

Jeannette DiLouie

Jul 28, 20174 min read

Why Your Published Manuscript Won't Wow Everyone

I know I’ve been dishing out a lot of tough writing love these last few weeks about your manuscript, saying that your first draft might be b

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