Telling vs. Showing When Emotions Are at Work
By Angela Ackerman Show, Don’t Tell is one of those writerly phrases thrown out often enough that many writers can’t help but roll their eyes when…
How To Win NaNoWriMo
NaNoWriMo is a fun way to connect with a global writing community and a great way to focus on really prioritizing your writing for 30 days
Overcoming Writer’s Block with Automatic Transcription
Here’s the core idea: thinking out loud is often less arduous than writing. And it’s now easier than ever to combine the two, thanks to recent advances in speech recognition technology.
Kobo Writing Life Podcast – Episode 106 – Maxwell Alexander Drake
In this episode, Chrissy Munroe interviews award-winning author and creative writing instructor Maxwell Alexander Drake.
Play Time: Fun and Pain in Characterization
A character in a story is an action figure . . . a fun, functional component necessary to a story. Just like literal toys, characters have pieces and joints, edges and options, a fixed appearance and range of motion that begs to be played with
Indie Author 101
Thinking about publishing independently? Our latest #KWLWonderWoman gives her top tips for new authors!
What Makes A Good Author Bio?
Like yodelling on a mountaintop, when I say the words ‘author bio’ I can hear the collective author groan echo from every corner of the globe. Like eating your vegetables or doing your taxes, writing your author bio is unfortunately an inescapable part of literary life.
Eight Tools That Will Help You Start Your Novel
By Joni Di Placido Sometimes the biggest challenge in writing is finding the time and the focus to just sit down and do it. Between the…
Renowned KWL author K.L. Slater shares tips for twisty tales
Everybody loves a twist, right?
A great twist is an enticing prospect for many readers in choosing their next read and it is my view, this is never more important than in the psychological thriller.
Tips and Tools to Help You Complete NaNoWriMo (or any writing project)
You’re down to the wire. The deadline for NaNoWriMo (or another writing project) looms on the horizon. But you’re behind. You’re afraid you’re not going to make it. You simply don’t have enough time to write the requisite number of words at your typical writing pace. Or the words just won’t come. Or both. What’s a writer to do?
Learn to love Microsoft Word
By Joan Frantschuk Have you ever screamed at Word because it just will not cooperate? Word is a writer’s best tool, best resource, best friend. Writing a…
Ebook Quality Assurance: The last 20% is the most important
by Joshua Tallent You’ve done it! You finally finished the last sentence of your book. Maybe it was the novel you wrote for NANOWRIMO (my 12-year-old…
Prose Pointers
by Pam McCutcheon There’s a lot of misunderstanding as to the proper usage of some words in the English language, and many mistakes even make it…
The World of Writing
If it weren’t for writing assignments, my house would never get clean. If that sounds remotely familiar, you know the inexorable agony of pencils and the…
Prose Pointers
There’s a lot of misunderstanding as to the proper usage of some words in the English language, and many mistakes even make it onto the page,…
The Writer’s Conference: a drink from the fire hose
by Chris Mandeville I just returned home after spending a jam-packed three days at a writer’s conference. This was the 25th or so such event I’ve…
Prose Pointers
There’s a lot of misunderstanding as to the proper usage of some words in the English language, and many mistakes even make it onto the page,…
How to Write More in Less Time
by Karen Dikson Have you ever wondered how it would be like to finish 1500 words in less than an hour? I have. As writers, we…
Whistler Independent Book Awards 2016: How I Became A Finalist
By R.E. Donald I was thrilled when I found out that the fourth novel in my Highway Mysteries series, Sundown on Top of the World, had…
Channeling Popeye: I yam what I yam
By Chris Mandeville Here’s the thing: I’ve been trying to be something I’m not, and it hasn’t worked out very well for me. I’ve been attempting…
Build Your Global Sales with Kobo Writing Life
NOTE: This piece originally appeared on The Book Designer. By Christine Munroe Why should self-published authors and small publishers distribute directly to Kobo? And how can…
Kobo In Conversation on Zoomer Radio
We’re very pleased to announce that we’ve partnered with Zoomer Radio to present a weekly Kobo In Conversation. In this new half-hour radio show, we’ll chat…
Writing Powerful Scenes: Why Choosing The Right Setting Is So Important
By Angela Ackerman Many authors, when in the throes of scene planning, are all about the action. They know who the players are, what they…
From $50 a day to $3,000 a day in 2 months: My top tips for self-publishing success
By Adam Croft December 2015 seems like a lifetime ago to me now. At the beginning of that month I was earning somewhere in the…
Kobo Writing Life at London Book Fair 2016
London Book Fair is one of the biggest publishing events of the year and we wanted to share this year’s highlights. We interviewed a number of…
Got a Minute? 15 Uses for a Kitchen Timer
By Chris Mandeville One of my favorite tools is the kitchen timer. It’s so simple yet has so many uses in everyday life as well…
Prose Pointers
by Pam McCutcheon Here are some more pointers for you this month to clean up your prose, ones that I often see misused in print. Be…
Prose Pointers
By Pam McCutcheon This is a new monthly column that I hope will help writers with some of the more confusing aspects of the English language.…
Cover Copy: a Must-Have for the Novelist’s Toolbox
By Chris Mandeville Cover copy is the brief summary of a novel found on the back cover of a paperback. When this summary is inside the…
Kobo Writing Life Podcast – Episode 042 – Kelley Armstrong
New York Times Bestselling author Kelley Armstrong is interviewed by Kobo’s Nora Parker about the hot serialized summer release CITY OF THE LOST. Nora and Kelley…
Advice From The Master
By Caro Ness The first real job I landed was helping to look after Roald Dahl, can you believe it? When I left university many…
Does The Thrill Go Away?
By Maria Schneider I am often asked if releasing a new book after having published so many is still a thrill. Yes, yes it is. It’s…
My Writing Life – Chris Taylor
When did you discover a love of writing? I’ve always loved to write stories, even from a small child. I would write ten and twelve pages…
How Kobo Promotions Helped Boost My Sales
by Cheri Allan If you’re a busy writer whose idea of due diligence is analyzing the relative hotness of random shirtless fireman memes on Facebook, I’ll…