Simply put, stakes are the negative consequences of failure. If your protagonist fails, bad things will happen. Unlike an intriguing hook or compelling protagonist, stakes put readers under tension.
Week three, and our final fiction cover poll; with ten more beautiful book covers!
In Episode 98, Mark Lefebvre interviews bestselling Australian thriller author Rachel Amphlett, who came to Kobo HQ during her international author tour. Rachel, her husband Nick, and Mark sat down to talk about how she finds inspiration, never giving up, sticking to a schedule, and more
International bestselling author Mark Dawson has united two of his landmark characters (John Milton and Beatrix Rose) in a single intriguing team-up story entitled Phoenix. …
Standing out in a crowed marketplace is something that smart authors and publishers do. We have raved about it in the past, and here’s another example…
By Eva Lesko Natiello Do you ever wonder this? Have you ever asked yourself in the middle of the night, as you turn to look at…
Episode 61 features an interview with Peter James, an international best-selling British writer of crime fiction, which took place at Kobo’s HQ in June 2016 in…
In this industry where thousands of new titles are published every week, it’s in a publisher’s and author’s best interest to do everything they can to…
By Libby Fischer Hellmann My latest thriller, Jump Cut, is the fifth Ellie Foreman mystery, and it’s been ten years since the fourth one came out.…
Kobo recently held a special event in downtown Toronto for some of its best customers, avid readers and fans of Michael Connelly. Special guests had a…
This episode features Mark Dawson, the bestselling UK author of the John Milton and Soho Noir series. Mark has become a go-to expert on Facebook ads…
As August approaches and many of our minds turn to travel, we thought of Anne Trager, an American translator and editor now based in France. Anne…
Another great self-publishing blog is The Creative Penn, by Joanna Penn: a writing, publishing and marketing blog. This week, Joanna interviews our own Mark Lefebvre about…
Halloween’s here and with it the end of our journey together. It’s been fun sharing my gruesome finds with all of you and I hope you’ve…
It’s Day Fourteen of our fifteen day journey and I’ve got a real treat for you today. Two new books – and when I say new,…
Halloween is just around the corner and I can’t think of a better time to dive into Al Sarrantonio’s Orangefield trilogy, which is why you are…
I’m a sucker for a well-written debut novel. It wasn’t all that long ago that I was walking into a bookstore and searching the shelves for…
When I was first starting out in my writing career, one of the classic pieces of advice I’d hear was the recommendation to start with short…
For every monster there is a hunter. Someone who puts their life on the line to protect the innocent and the unwary. Someone who stands in…
Good versus evil. Light versus Darkness. Heaven versus Hell. The never-ending battle for control of our world has always been a staple in horror fiction. So…
Salem’s Lot by Stephen King. They Thirst by Robert McCammon. Nightblood by T. Chris Martindale. Light at the End by John Skipp and Craig Spector. Of…
When you focus your reading in a particular genre, you tend to notice how quickly one book begins to look like another. Similar plots, similar characters,…
One of the things that I love about the ebook revolution is the return of the novella. While definitions vary, most would classify a novella as…
It’s day five of our fifteen day journey through horror’s dark depths, a journey designed to offer up a wide selection of terrific books to get…
The popularity of young adult fiction has exploded over the last ten years, particularly in the speculative fiction genres. From J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter to Heather…
Shamblers. Zombies. Beaters. The Living Dead. They might be known by a dozen different names but that doesn’t detract from their popularity in the slightest. Just…
As I mentioned in yesterday’s post, we’re going to be spending the next two weeks looking at some of my favorite horror reads for the Halloween…
October’s here and with it the Halloween season. No other time of year, save perhaps Christmas, brings up such a sense of nostalgia for me as…