Follow the Rules—Except When You Break Them
As a professional ghostwriter of self-help and business books, an important part of my job is to help my valued client identify the problem they intend to solve for their reader, as well as its solution. The problem and solution … Continue reading
The Power of Storytelling in Business Books
When you think of the salient characteristics of a non-fiction self-help business book, what comes to mind? At first, you might expect such a book to be a “how-to” manual, with instructions on how to accomplish a specified goal. The … Continue reading
Editing Fiction and Non-Fiction: Two Different Approaches
In my nearly two decades of professional book editing, I’ve had the pleasure to serve hundreds of authors of non-fiction (self-help, business, health) and fiction (novels). I’ve found that the two genres of authors have very different expectations, greatly affecting … Continue reading
How Long Should Your Book Be?
Many of my valued clients ask me, “How long should my book be?” My answer is, “Your book is like your legs. Your legs should be long enough to reach the ground. Your book is no different.” They think for … Continue reading
Should You End a Sentence With a Preposition?
In English grammar, a preposition is a word that typically comes before a noun or pronoun and expresses a relationship between that noun/pronoun and another word in the sentence. Prepositions indicate location, time, direction, manner, or other relationships. Here are … Continue reading
Do You Write for Yourself or Your Reader?
If you’re a writer, or indeed any type of artist, who are you working for? Yourself or your audience? There are many people who assert that every artist—writer, musician, painter, filmmaker—should follow their own muse and create what’s meaningful to … Continue reading
Why I’m a Happy Ghostwriter
There seems to be a lot of interest in ghostwriters these days, perhaps spurred by the recent “Gathering of the Ghosts,” a one-day convocation in New York of around 140 successful ghostwriters. They came together, it seems, mostly to complain … Continue reading
Your Novel May Not Be Real, But It Must Be Believable!
In storytelling and novel writing, there is a big difference between what is objectively real and what is believable. This is the two-part rule: 1. Nothing in your story needs to be real. 2. Everything in your story must be … Continue reading
Write a Book and Rise Above the Crowd
We live and work in a business environment that is intensely competitive. Top-tier business schools churn out thousands of new graduates every year, all looking to make their mark in the corporate world. New hires fight their way up the … Continue reading
The Secret to a Great Opening Sentence in Your Novel
“Call me Ishmael.” Thus reads one of the most famous – and, by writers of fiction, envied – opening sentences in Western literature. It launches Moby-Dick, and those three words are memorable because they provide information about the protagonist. The … Continue reading