Nathan Bransford - The Forums

Each of those seven and their examples are direct declarative statements. Firm and assertive, okay. I avoid declarations. They come across as narrator lecture, a voice of the narrator. I prefer the perceived and received reflections of a viewpoint character's immediate in the moment, place, and situ...

Notice that Fowler's distinguishes "speaking" grammars from formal written word grammars. Also note that Fowler's English usage dictionary is about British dialects. Webster's English usage dictionary is about U.S. dialects. They differ quite a bit, as do British and U.S. cultures. Split i...

How are video games beneficial? Play imitates work, so to speak. Video games of the '70s prepared users for the eye-hand coordination dexterity emerging technology jobs demanded. For example, remote operated machines, robotic programming, unmanned drone operation, computer data entry. Worth noting p...

I suggest investing research time at Query Shark, now that Mr. Bransford isn't regularly auditing queries anymore. Though the content is for a jacket blurb specifically, the same purposes and functions as a query pitch apply. Generic thematic expression and rhetorical questions are among pitch featu...

Lightning Source charges a "title" fee Lulu and CreateSpace don't. Otherwise, Lightning Source bookmaking costs and distribution options are competitive. Note that Lightning Source is a division of Ingram Content Group, another division of which is among the largest print book distributors...

I know what to do in Windows but not Apple operating systems. The simple fix is to change the file association protocols for "opens with." I have a number of picture softwares, each installs to grab all file associations each program works with, so I change the file association to none or ...

Fact checking begins and ends with a writer, though a publisher and editors have a duty to do so as well, even for fiction. Contrarily, a convention of Golden Age science fiction and contemporary Golden Age revival is loose and fast play with "facts" that reflect cultural beliefs though fa...

Lulu and Lightning Source have distribution channel access to Ingram and other print distributors to independent bookstores, libraries, and university bookstores. CreateSpace, owing to its agggresive online selling practices and association with Amazon particularly, is anathema to independent bookst...

I've looked at this blurb numerous times, trying to unravel what the novels is about. On the surface, a complusive gambler hits a new low in his life, finds a like-minded, misery-loves-company, suicidal acquaintance, crawls out of his doldrums, realizes the girlfriend he thought he'd lost still wait...

Cold lead type composition, before hot lead compostion, used proportional kerning designed into the lead matrices. A capital letter A, for example, had a slight right-hand space appropriate for lower case and capital case letters on its right side. Right-hand kerning of all alpha glyphs. Punctuation...

I am a project editor, from finished manuscript to finished product in hand. I turn down all but a few projects because the manuscript isn't ready for publication. The projects I take on are in much better shape, but still cluttered with many unnecessary and problematic issues. Many writers don't re...

davidharwood, Your book is a how-to. Though smashwords is solely electronic formats, it's primarily targeted by creative writers. Also, smashwords does not practice any Digital Rights Management, DRM, protocols. Lulu offers a choice, CreateSpace doesn't allow non-DRMs. Many publishing oufits have cr...

I don't consider grammar a set of rules. That, number one and only, is a failing of grammar teachers' insistence on rules compliance, as if grammar is a nonnegotiable behavioral obligation for teacher and students alike. Grammar and language's principles are guidelines from a set and somewhat fixed ...

How-to advice tends to be stale by the time the principles espoused become commonly known and easily followed and implemented. Marketing advice as much as simplistic writing advice. When everyone's doing it--the sparkle rubbed off by lackluster friction repetition--it too became a flood of mediocrit...

My friend Adam Heine has a great post about selecting titles: http://www.adamheine.com/2013/11/coming-up-with-book-title.html (sorry I can never remember the BB code for making the link look nice) The post a reply BB code bar has a URL button. Paste the url into the open code tag along with an equa...