For the past few years I’ve been studying the craft of writing better books, and found woefully few useful resources on how to actually plot, write and edit your book to increase engagement. Working with cowriters, clients and writing students, I’ve started collecting new strategies to check and improve your writing without paying a...
A few years ago I made this epic list of 300+ fonts to use for every genre. But the truth is, I rarely use those anymore, and some are even cringeworthy. So recently I spent a lot of time going through my collection and choosing NEW fantasy fonts I love. Keep in mind: most of
Over the past few years, my writing templates and resources have gotten a few million views on YouTube, but I wanted to make higher quality materials that were more accessible. So I took some of my best resources and put them together in a Udemy Course on writing fiction. Write a novel in 3 months
Love Scrivener but hate plotting your book? I’ve turned my advanced 24-chapter novel writing cheatsheet into a free, downloadable Scrivener template you can use for your own writing projects. This video will walk you through it. Get the Scrivener novel outlining template (download and unzip the .zip folder – then open the Scivener...
Need a free plotting template to help outline your novel? Want to write your book using Google docs? I’ve just created a detailed document you can copy to your own account and use to map out your book – click the link below to download now. PS. My novel-plotting outline is a little different from
If you’ve been following me for awhile, you may know I’m unfortunately cavalier and careless in any regards – I like to think of myself as a pirate or a rebel, and that sometimes gets me in trouble. This year I’ve been working with a new team of writers to put out more content around
A lot of authors – almost all I’ve talked to – are very cautious about the money. Several writers have told me they don’t want to make money with their writing, even after publishing several novels. They don’t want to make a living with their writing, because then it would be a job; if they
When I decided I wanted to be a writer, I got my hands on everything I could about plotting, prose, story and character development and the art of creative writing. Here’s what I learned: the majority of books from famous writers are self-reflecting memoirs with a handful of good life lessons. Inspirational, but not useful. Although...
A couple summers ago I decided to make a video series for teens who wanted to write novels. It was a free program and we had over a thousand students. But I realized, actually, it’s probably my best summary of all my writing advice and ideas, because I *tried* to keep things simple and organized.
I planned to spend my summer indoors quietly catching up on my backlist of YA fantasy and scifi novels and maybe doing a bit of book editing. But I’ve also been wishing I had a way to help out more and share my expertise. I practically grew up at summer camps, spending 3 months a
Recently I got featured on a couple lists of “best self-publishing sites (The Write Life & Feedspot). I thought I’d pay it forward by making my own list of self-publishing companies. When most authors start thinking of self-publishing their book (usually after years of failed querying, or with dollar signs in their eyes from...
Hey this is Derek – one of the clients I work with has been having a great release – #1 in 7 categories, dozens of books sold a day, and over 12 physical book signings in Barnes & Noble. Generally, I dissuaded authors from focusing on Brick&Mortar sales because it can be a lot of
