Free guides for every stage of your book
Everything here is free to read and free of the usual hard sell. We do offer services, and where they are genuinely relevant we will say so, but the guides are written to be useful whether or not you ever hire us. Start wherever you are.
The journey every book takes
The resources are organized around the journey every book takes, from first idea to readers. Find where you are and start there.
Writing Your Book
Getting started, planning your book, and finishing your first draft.
Editing Your Manuscript
Self-editing, the types of professional editing, and how to know when your book is ready.
Publishing Your Book
Choosing your publishing path, the technical steps, and getting your book on sale.
Marketing Your Book
Helping readers find your book: launch strategy, reviews, an author platform, and promotion that works.
The Business of Being an Author
Rights, royalties, contracts, and the professional side of authorship, including the scams that target new authors.
Where to start if you are not sure
Two starting points cover most authors. Pick the one that matches where you are.
Our complete step-by-step guide to getting from a blank page to a finished manuscript: getting clear on the idea, planning, daily habits, and pushing through the middle.
If you are wondering what happens next, this walks through the entire publishing journey and the three paths available to you, in the order the steps actually need doing.
What we look for, and how to send it
We read submissions ourselves, and we answer every one. Before you send, a few things make the difference between a manuscript we can assess and one we have to send back for more.
Format the manuscript in standard form: double spaced, a readable 12 point serif, one file, chapters numbered, your name and contact details on the first page. Our free manuscript formatter does this in a minute. Include a one paragraph synopsis you could read aloud, the word count, and the genre as a bookshop would shelve it.
The first ten pages carry most of the weight. We are reading for a voice that is already there, a story or argument that knows what it is about, and prose that has been through at least one honest revision. A half written manuscript is fine to send; a first draft that has never been reread is not, and it will show.
Submit your manuscript →Why we publish these guides
Two honest reasons. The first is that the publishing world is genuinely confusing for newcomers, and a lot of the information aimed at new authors is designed to sell rather than to inform. Books get published badly, authors sign away rights they should have kept, and money gets spent on things that were never needed. Clear information helps.
The second reason is simpler: we would rather earn your trust by being useful than by being loud. If these guides help you publish your book entirely on your own, that is a genuinely good outcome. And if you decide you would rather have professionals handle some of it, you will already know how we think and what we care about.
We are a full-service book company
Everything these guides describe is work we do: ghostwriting for authors who have the story but not the time, editing to polish a finished draft, publishing to take your book to market with your rights intact, and marketing to help readers find it. Whatever stage you are at, we are glad to talk about your book, with no obligation.
Nineteen small tools that get books finished: a publishing timeline, page and spine calculators, a line edit report, a royalty calculator, a cover template at true size, and more. Nothing you paste into them is uploaded anywhere.
See the author tools →Read enough. Ready to send it?
Half written is fine. Our readers will tell you honestly where it stands.