by Jane Ryder

We all know it takes a tremendous amount of work to write a novel. We know there is plotting to do, characters to flesh out, scenes to illuminate, dialogue to construct; we know also that actually getting the first draft roughed out is only the beginning. After that there are revisions, additional research, corrections, rewrites, and various degrees of sentence-level editing to go through before a novel is ready for public exposure.

by Kristi Jenkins

There are many books on how to write (including Chris Baty's excellent No Plot, No Problem), but few tell you anything relevant about how to write during National Novel Writing Month. NaNoWriMo is an annual challenge in which participants write a minimum of 50,000 words of original fiction during the month of November. It's fast-paced, frenetic storytelling, and is an utterly unique writing experience. Common writing techniques like outlining and worldbuilding can make your NaNo experience easier, but few things can really prepare an author for a novel-in-a-month.

by Kristi Jenkins

In today's publishing world, the more you can bring to the table before pitching your book to a publisher, the better. Building an online presence and creating buzz for yourself can both help you land a book deal and ensure your book's success once it goes to print.

by Kristi Jenkins

With the rise in both interest and quantity of Christian fiction, it's important to know where your work in progress or novel fits into the larger genre before trying to market it. The querying process for both editors and agents is most efficient when you can speak with authority about your work, and nailing down a subgenre is the first step in the process.

You know your novel is Christian fiction, but how do you target it appropriately?

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Sub-genres of any kind can be difficult to nail down, but in the genres of fantasy and science fiction it’s not easy to even get them to hold still.

The principle reason for this is that these two genres are often collectively called “speculative fiction” because they deal with the question “What if . . . ?”

This leads not only to genre hybrids such as science fantasy, but to sub-genres that may be applied to either fantasy or science fiction, such as alternate history. To top it all off, even the term “speculative fiction” may be applied to fiction which contains some fantasy/science fiction elements but which is considered more literary than anything else. Still, familiarity with the most common sub-genres in fantasy and science fiction may help you find the best agent, publisher, or market for your novel. After all, if you don’t know what to call it, how are you going to pitch it?

By Ross Browne

Unlike the loosely defined and often-overlapping genre classifications fiction writers struggle with in categorizing their novels, most works of nonfiction will fall into one concretely identifiable category thanks to topic and subject matter. Correct classification is important because there is a staggering amount of nonfiction published each year and in many cases a high degree of specialization among the publishers and literary agents who bring these manuscripts to market. So writers needs to fully understand where their manuscript or book proposal fits best and also to consider the full spectrum of what’s available in their respective genre when they put together marketing pages and competitive analyses for book proposals.

What you’ll find here is a short exploration of commonly confused terms relating to nonfiction classification followed by a comprehensive guide to nonfiction genre and subgenre based on the way bookstores are organized.