This page has been the index of free articles on this domain since 2005, and it still is. Everything published here is listed below, grouped by the stage of the job it belongs to, with a line on what each piece actually argues so you can skip the ones you do not need.
Before you write
- What is the first step to writing a book?
- Argues that the first step is neither an outline nor a first sentence, but a decision about who the book is for and what it leaves them able to do. Covers the one-sentence reader test, scoping a book small enough to finish, and why a narrow book outsells a broad one.
- Seven steps to a book that earns its keep
- The full arc from plan to release in seven stages: plan, reader definition, table of contents, working title, drafting, self-editing, release. The most useful page here if you want the whole shape of the job on one screen.
- How to write your life story in style
- Memoir and family history handled as a structural problem rather than a matter of memory. Selecting a spine, choosing scenes over summary, handling other people who appear in the story, and the archival and legal questions that only life-writing raises.
Building the book
- Writing the first chapter
- The chapter-template method: instead of writing chapter one from a blank page, build the repeating shell every chapter will share, then fill it. Includes the five elements a non-fiction chapter usually needs and the road-map metaphor the original article used.
- How to build chapters that keep readers reading
- Why readers abandon books in the middle rather than at the start, and what repeating structure, transitions and summaries do about it. Covers chapter length, the promise-and-payoff pattern, and reading a chapter aloud as a diagnostic.
Titles and headings
- Five quick book-title techniques
- Five title patterns — the command, the how-to, the provocative statement, the question and the number — with worked examples, plus the difference between a working title and a final one, and how to test a title before you commit.
- Seven ways to make a book stand out in a crowded category
- Differentiation that is real rather than cosmetic: narrowing the reader, owning a method, choosing an unusual form, and the cover and subtitle decisions that do most of the work on a listing page.
Finishing
- Seven tips for easier editing and profitable proofreading
- Separating structural revision, line editing, copy-editing and proofreading into distinct passes; the changed-medium trick for catching errors your eye skips; building and keeping a style sheet.
- Three top self-publishing mistakes
- Publishing an unedited manuscript, buying the wrong identifiers, and treating publication day as the finish line. Includes what the Library of Congress and the Copyright Office actually offer independent publishers.
Reaching readers
- Book marketing
- The hub for audience work: finding readers before the book is done, writing short articles that carry the book, author websites, and the disclosure rules that apply to reviews and endorsements.
- Writing articles
- The hub for shorter-form writing — the numbered-list article form this site has used since 2005, why it survives, and how to write one that is worth reading rather than merely scannable.
Topic hubs
If you would rather browse by subject than by stage: book writing, self-publishing, book marketing, writing articles.
A note on reprints
This page historically carried reprint permissions for the articles listed on it. That arrangement no longer applies: the material here is a reference and is not offered for syndication. If you are looking for genuinely free-to-reuse long-form text for another purpose, public-domain collections such as Project Gutenberg are the right place, and for writing-craft instruction the Purdue Online Writing Lab is open to everyone.