Blog by Toby Welch

Writing a Book Series

June 29th, 2019
Julie Rowe is the author of the War Girls series. She shares her thoughts on how she approaches writing a series versus writing a stand-alone title, “In a single title you have one story arc. In a series you have multiple, interconnected story arcs. One overall story arc that encompasses the entire series (no matter how many books are in it) and a story arc for each book that fits inside and ...

How to Pick a Book Title That Works

June 22nd, 2019
Your book needs to have a catchy, relevant, and clear title that will grab readers and pull them in. But how do you pick one? The best titles satisfy as many of the following criteria as possible: - The title grabs the reader’s attention. - The title sums up the book’s concept so it will be clear what the book is about. - The title is unique and doesn’t match another one exactly; this wil ...

Self-Published E-books Versus Traditionally Published Books

June 16th, 2019
                               A common question these days is whether self-published e-books can compete with books put out by professional publishers. And the corresponding question of whether authors published with small, medium, or the Big Five publishing houses have an advantage over self-published authors. To give you a snapshot, let’s check out the Digital Book World and Writer’s Dige ...

Writers and Their Future Plans

June 9th, 2019
                                We can all learn a thing or two from plans that writers have for their future. When I embarked on discovering what plans writers have in their literary future, I thought most replies would have to do with time; finding more of it, making better use of it, etc. But only Fred Elford, author of Sometimes, I Fly, mentioned it more than in passing, “I don’t think I ...

Ins and Outs of Addressing Query Letters

June 1st, 2019
Query letters are often your ticket to a writing project. But there are some pointers to keep in mind.  Editors claim one of their top pet peeves is getting a query letter addressed to "Dear Sir" or "Hello Editor." This is the query letter kiss of death; don’t make such fatal mistakes with queries Improperly addressing your query letter to a literary agent or a magazine editor increases i ...