The Copyright Handbook by Stephen Fishman

This isn’t a book that anyone wants. But it’s the book that everyone needs. Understanding copyright is essential for writers, and THE COPYRIGHT HANDBOOK explains what we need to know in simple English with step-by-step action points to register and protect our work.

Fishman is a lawyer who has written extensively about copyright. He not only understands the law, but knows how to explain it simply and thoroughly. Fishman starts with explaining what copyright is, and what it does and doesn’t protect. He then explains how to register your own copyright, and why it’s important to do so. He covers fair use, or when it’s okay to use other’s words, and the steps to take when someone has used yours without your permission.

I completely read through THE COPYRIGHT HANDBOOK in the interests of writing this review, but it’s truly a book to reference rather than to read. Whatever questions you have about copyright are probably in this book, and if the topic isn’t covered, there’s a list of resources at the end, including how to hire a copyright attorney.

But in most cases, if an author is filing her copyrights the correct way, hiring a lawyer won’t be necessary. It’s important to understand that copyrights are valuable, and must be protected. Filing a proper copyright claim, at the right time, will save authors trouble down the line.

Self-published authors should be very keen to learn about copyright, but this knowledge is crucial for traditionally published authors too. Understanding copyright will help you read your contracts, and will help you negotiate those contracts. You have to know what you have before you can bargain with it. THE COPYRIGHT HANDBOOK is the tool that will help writers keep and protect the hard work of their creative minds.

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THE COPYRIGHT HANDBOOK can be found here

(Note: buying this book directly from the publisher is cheaper than buying from a retailer.)

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Rating: 5 stars

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This book is best for: all authors

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I recommend this book

How to Start When You’re Stuck by Robbie Swale

On YouTube, there’s a certain kind of video made by white guys in their thirties. It’s one guy, talking to the camera, and often key words will appear on the screen as he says them, in huge font, as if we’re watching Sesame Street. Those YouTube guys are talking about “productivity” and “mindset.” There are a lot of shoulds in these videos. You should get up earlier. You should save money. You should work harder. None of them offer any concrete steps on how to do that.

HOW TO START WHEN YOU’RE STUCK is that kind of video, but in book form. There is a lot of discussion about what we should be doing, but very little that can be acted on.

Part of the problem is the way the book is written. Swale has a twelve-minute train commute to work, so that’s his daily writing time. Once he reaches his station, he does a quick proofread and then immediately posts his work on his LinkedIn page, no matter where he is in the process. HOW TO START WHEN YOU’RE STUCK is a collection of those blog posts. Most of the posts end right when Swale has caught the glimmer of a good idea.

There are small nuggets of goodness here, like getting out of your own way, and giving yourself permission to write, and identifying as a writer, and keeping promises to yourself. But time and again, Swale cuts himself off before fully discussing his topic. He could have used his train writing as a jumping off point, and fleshed out those ideas later, but he doesn’t seem to mind putting out half-baked ideas as long as he’s producing lots of content. (He constantly brags that he’s published one hundred blog posts, as if that’s a big deal.)

Swale’s big idea is that you can find twelve minutes in your day, and in that time, you can produce more than you thought you could. I agree. I understand setting the timer for twelve minutes to do a writing sprint. I don’t understand putting a boundary on a piece and declaring it finished after twelve minutes. That’s fine for a writing exercise, but not great when it’s something you expect others to read and benefit from.

It’s ironic that Swale seemed to miss his own point. He wrote an entire book about how to get started, not realizing that each post he wrote was only the start of a topic he never finished. But let’s face it, it’s a lot easier to tell someone what they should do than how they should do it.

It doesn’t even take twelve minutes.

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Rating: 1 star

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I recommend How to Be an Artist by Joanneh Nagler or Ten Minute Author by Kevin Partner instead of this book

How to Write a Novel that Will Sell Well and Satisfy Your Inner Artist by Harry Bingham

Picture a Venn diagram with two overlapping circles. One circle is what I like to write. The other is what readers want to read. The area of overlap is the sweet spot. A writer who is always writing in that zone will have commercial success (to some degree) and will be able to sustain a long career without burning out.

HOW TO WRITE A NOVEL THAT WILL SELL WELL AND SATISFY YOUR INNER ARTIST is meant to help writers find that sweet spot and stay there. Bingham is the author of popular thrillers. He’s also the founder of Jericho Writers, a company that offers editing services and author mentoring. In that capacity, he’s seen tons of manuscripts and met plenty of writers, and he’s formed strong opinions about what makes a marketable novel and how writers can best write one.

To that end, Bingham offers a comprehensive guide meant to take authors from pre-planning through finished manuscript. He starts with the concept. Bingham gives some tough love here, explaining why weak ideas won’t become strong novels. He encourages clear-sighted honesty, intense market study, and a love of contemporary fiction. Too many authors rely on books twenty or more years old as role models, forgetting that their competition is writing for today’s market. Bingham spends a lot of time on this, because it’s the foundation of everything that comes after.

The rest of the book takes the author through the steps to create a complete novel, covering character, plot, prose style, and theme. At every stage, Bingham encourages authors to be meticulous, making deliberate choices about everything on the page. This approach will work well for plotters, although it might strike discovery writers as too rigid.

Bingham reminds authors that they are competing in a tough market, and “good enough” is never good enough. He wants authors to strive for excellence in every aspect of their craft. He quotes passages from contemporary fiction, both literary and genre, and explains why these passages work so well. These breakdowns are great for those of us who learn best from examples, rather than theory, and the passages perfectly illustrate his points.

Bingham has an energetic style and considerable wit, although he name-drops his author services company way too often. There were times that I felt like I was reading an infomercial for Jericho Writers instead of a how-to book. But I was willing to overlook the salesmanship because the rest of the book was so good. HOW TO WRITE A NOVEL THAT WILL SELL WELL AND SATISFY YOUR INNER ARTIST is an excellent guide for those who want to level up their craft and sell more books without selling out.

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HOW TO WRITE A NOVEL THAT WILL SELL WELL AND SATISFY YOUR INNER ARTIST can be found here

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Rating: 4 stars

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This book is best for: intermediate writers

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I recommend this book

Free Your Inner Nonfiction Writer by Johanna Rothman

FREE YOUR INNER NONFICTION WRITER is for people who are subject experts but aren’t experienced writers. Many people have valuable knowledge but have no idea how to get that knowledge onto the page. They don’t know where to begin, or how long a piece will take to write, or how to organize their work. Rothman takes these brand-new writers by the hand with a guide full of wisdom, empathy, and truth.

It starts with unlearning much of what we learned in school. We were all taught to research first, then outline, write, and finally revise. We were never supposed to go back to a previous step, stop and think, or spend time exploring a subject. But that’s not how real writing happens. Often, it’s by the act of writing itself that we figure out the best way to approach our topic. Rothman encourages writers to “cycle,” or to write a bit, figure out what they want to say, write some more, and repeat, gaining clarity with each cycle. This is the way most people naturally write, but too many of us still cling to the myth that writing must be done in linear steps, scared that writing any other way is wrong.

Rothman then takes writers through the steps to a finished article, blog post, or book chapter, including the idea phase, the writing itself, and the editing. She emphasizes that editing is not meant to make a piece “perfect.” It’s only meant to make it more accessible to your ideal reader. The most important thing is that the reader understands what you wrote. Keeping that gold standard in mind makes editing a much more straightforward task. FREE YOUR INNER NONFICTION WRITER ends with advice on getting feedback, publishing, and maintaining good work habits so the writer can do it all again.

Too many people say they will write “someday.” They push it off because it seems too complicated. Or worse, they’ve had it scared out of them, and they’re afraid to try writing, either because of impostor syndrome or fear of being judged. FREE YOUR INNER NONFICTION WRITER is a wonderful, gentle guide, that will hopefully bring “someday” one day closer for anyone who wants to write.

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FREE YOUR INNER NONFICTION WRITER can be found here

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Rating: 4 stars

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This book is best for: beginning writers

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I recommend this book

Shut Up and Write the Book by Jenna Moreci

SHUT UP AND WRITE THE BOOK is aimed at brand-new fiction writers who are overwhelmed by the process and are wishing for a mentor to show them what to do, how to do it, and most importantly, where to start. Writing a novel is extremely complex, but Moreci simplifies the process as much as possible by breaking it down into its smallest possible steps. And more importantly, she puts those steps into the correct order.

In twenty-six chapters, Moreci covers brainstorming, outlining, structuring a novel, writing the first draft, self-edits, and finally, getting a professional edit (or four). SHUT UP AND WRITE THE BOOK gives a wide overview of the novel-crafting process, but it doesn’t go very deep. Many of Moreci’s short chapters could be expanded into entire books. But this is a feature, not a bug. Moreci isn’t here to complicate things. She’s covering the topics “…in matter-of-fact detail and without all the drinking and crying.” This is a starting place for writers, a jumping off point, and Moreci doesn’t take a deep dive into any one topic because her entire aim is to keep writers moving forward.

Moreci writes with the same no-nonsense style that made her YouTube channel famous. Mainly, she wants to writers to know two things. First, writing a novel takes a lot of time and a lot of work. Second, there are no shortcuts. But Moreci tempers her tough love with a hefty dose of compassion. She’s been where you are, she remembers how it felt, and she’s going to do whatever it takes to get you to the next step.

My favorite chapters were the one on choosing a tense for your novel and the chapters on self-editing. Moreci breaks down all the pros and cons of choosing a tense, and then drops this truth-bomb. “Present tense is easier to write, and past tense is easier to read.” That sums up my experience with past and present tense in the most succinct way possible. I also loved this priceless quote from her chapter on self-editing. “The primary reason people hate editing isn’t because it’s difficult or time-consuming. It’s because it’s humiliating.” I mean, ouch. But also, it’s so true.

On YouTube, Moreci doles out weekly writing wisdom with humor, heart, and a whole lot of swear words. Now, lucky for us, that same wisdom can be found in book form, and I hope SHUT UP AND WRITE THE BOOK finds its place on every new writer’s shelves.

SHUT UP AND WRITE THE BOOK can be found here

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Rating: 5 stars

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This book is best for: beginning writers

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I recommend this book

Level Up by Rochelle Melander

LEVEL UP sat on my TBR pile for a long time. Periodically I’d pick it up, read a few chapters, and say, “I really should finish this and review it” and then just…didn’t. LEVEL UP has short chapters, only a few pages each, so you’d think it would be a quick read, but there wasn’t enough content to keep me engaged.

The concept is simple. Melander wants to gamify writing. She takes typical writerly pitfalls like perfectionism or procrastination, and turns them into “quests.” She’s giving the same old advice that we’ve read in countless books and blogs. However, she tries to make it seem new and fresh by calling her advice “quests.” For example, in the chapter on social media, the “quest” is to turn off the internet for a set period every day. In the chapter on feeling overwhelmed by a task, Melander’s advice is to use a journal to examine feelings, take small steps, and reward yourself for a job well done. Even if you think of it as a game, it’s still pretty basic advice.

There are five parts to LEVEL UP: Vision and Plan Your Ideal Writing Life, Discover and Implement Your Best Practices, Master Your Mindset, Ditch Distractions, and Overcome Obstacles. The appendix lists “power ups,” which are creativity boosters like taking a walk, singing, doodling, and writing in new places.

The book has a logical flow to it. A beginning writer must first have a vision and make a plan, then make writing a regular habit, and then conquer higher-order problems like overcoming distractions and dealing with the unique problems of a creative life. None of Melander’s advice is bad, and in most cases gamifying a writing practice (or any practice) works. I, personally, have a calendar where I keep track of my writing goals, giving myself stars for completed work. I also have a dance party after every writing session. Both of those things are—in a small way—gamifying my writing practice. But I didn’t need a book to tell me how to do that. Writers are already very aware of the incentives and reward systems that will keep their butts in the writing chair.

I admire Melander’s intent, and applaud the way she encourages writers to find what works for them. But ultimately, that’s the problem with LEVEL UP. By trying to appeal to the greatest number of writers, Melander can only give well-worn, shallow advice while encouraging writers to implement her techniques in their own way. It will be easier, and more effective, to skip the middleman and simply try any gamification techniques that appeal you, since that’s what this book will tell you to do anyway.

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LEVEL UP can be found here

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Rating: 2 stars

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I recommend Pep Talks for Writers by Grant Faulkner or

A Writer’s Guide to Persistence by Jordan Rosenfeld instead of this book.

The Secrets of Character by Matt Bird

When readers begin a novel, they are not reading for plot, they are reading for character. The best plot in the world won’t hold a reader if they don’t like the hero. Readers want to be reassured, right from the start, that this is a character they’d like to spend 300 pages with, so it’s crucial you get readers invested in your hero in the first few pages. THE SECRETS OF CHARACTER shows you exactly how to do that, with an explanation of each technique and examples of how to use it.

According to Bird, readers need three things in order to keep reading. They need to believe in the protagonist, care about her, and invest in her. You make a reader believe by using specific and granular details. You make a reader care by showing the heroine’s bravery in hard circumstances. You make a reader invest by giving the heroine the unique skills she’ll need to solve the story problem.

That sounds obvious, but only in hindsight. And Bird doesn’t just tell writers to do those three things and call it a day. He meticulously breaks down each step, giving examples of all the ways you can add detail, or craft difficult circumstances, or make her a badass. All the examples are from well-known novels and movies, from Little Women to The Hunger Games. I’m someone who learns best from examples, so I appreciated Bird’s focus on showing how other writers have done it.

I also liked Bird’s positive attitude. He is not interested in telling writers about their mistakes. He’s too busy showing writers all the great things they can do with their characters. He offers lots of options but cautions readers against trying all of them. This is a menu, not an all-you-can-eat buffet. Each writer and each character is unique, and some of the tools will suit certain stories, but not others.

Some writers are skilled at characterization and automatically do much of what Bird advises. However, even character-driven writers will find THE SECRETS OF CHARACTER useful, because now they can deliberately apply these techniques instead of fumbling in the dark. And writers who are more plot-driven, or who struggle with characterization, will find THE SECRETS OF CHARACTER invaluable.

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THE SECRETS OF CHARACTER can be found here

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Rating: 5 stars

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This book is best for: beginning to intermediate writers

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I recommend this book.

Can You Make the Title Bigga? by Jessica Bell

Bell is a self-taught book cover designer who considers herself an expert—not an expert in what to do right, but an expert in what everyone else is doing wrong. CAN YOU MAKE THE TITLE BIGGA? is my least-favorite kind of how-to book. It’s a ranty book filled with complaints, but no real instruction.

Great cover design is an ever-shifting goal. Trends change in a blink and “same but different” can be a fine line to walk. The other problem is that the writer must use words to communicate her vision to an artist who thinks in pictures. And they’re trying to agree on a design that they both love that will also sell books. Money and emotions are involved. It would be great if there was a book out there that could help self-published authors navigate those treacherous waters, but CAN YOU MAKE THE TITLE BIGGA? isn’t it.

Bell hasn’t spoken to other designers so she can’t say what’s typical in the industry. She can only explain how she does things, which she’s eager to do, over and over and over. When Bell isn’t complaining, she’s promoting her own design services. She’s certain that authors would get better covers if they did things her way. But the reader is never sure what that way is, since Bell contradicts herself constantly. She complains that authors don’t give her enough direction, and then claims to want complete creative control. She says that the worst thing an author can do is to give the designer a photo they took for the cover, but a few chapters later, she’s gushing over one of her authors who always takes the most perfect photos for her covers. She warns against “cluttered” covers, and then proudly shows off a cover that uses every available bit of white space.

Bell quotes directly from emails with clients, and she delights in showing the reader the rookie mistakes her clients have made, from not knowing how to get an ISBN to not having their jacket copy prepared ahead of time. She also includes her responses—snarky one-liners that put the authors in their place instead of soliciting the correct information from them. I have hired cover designers myself, over twenty times, and my experiences were nothing like Bell describes. Either she’s cherry-picking the worst of her client interactions, or she’s not capable of attracting professional-level clients.

Even worse, she badmouths her own employees. First, she explains that her employees are only good for grunt work, but she gives them design work anyway, which she then does over. Bell blames herself for this, because she didn’t hire the best. She even calls out these employees by name (first and last) making sure to trash them in public. It’s a major red flag and I’m not sure why anyone would want to work for her—or hire her.

Bell is a decent cover designer. She includes a handful of color images of her work to prove it. But she’s a terrible communicator. She puffs herself up while putting others down, she doesn’t know how to work with clients, and somehow, she’s written an entire book about cover design that doesn’t teach a single thing about what makes a good book cover.

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CAN YOU MAKE THE TITLE BIGGA? can be found here

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Rating: 1 star

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I recommend Let’s Get Digital by David Gaughran instead of this book

How to Write Black Characters by the editors at Salt & Sage Books

The editors at Salt & Sage books work as sensitivity readers, and in the course of their work, they kept seeing the same problems over and over. Rather than repeating themselves to individual authors, they wrote HOW TO WRITE BLACK CHARACTERS as an introduction to the topic. It’s meant as a broad overview, to help catch the most common errors, helping readers eliminate negative stereotypes and harmful tropes.

The chapters cover stereotypes, hair, language, (including an introduction to AAVE and code-switching), family, anti-Blackness, and religion. There are also chapters on Blackness in Britain and Africa, although the bulk of the book is addressing North American writers.

In the case of stereotypes, the authors explain where a stereotype came from, why it’s so harmful, examples they’ve seen, and—crucially—how to do better. Sometimes, erasing one stereotype can make an author fall into another. One example that the authors use is when you don’t want to write an “angry black woman” character, so you make her too passive and eager to please those around her, as if her emotional labor isn’t important or she’s not worthy of emotions of her own. The key is to make your character well-rounded. To help readers understand her anger and her other emotions, and why she’s worthy of having them.

I’m not Black, but some of my characters are. We live in a beautifully multicultural society, and it’s important that fiction reflect that. I learned a ton from this book, and I loved the way it went beyond the basics to the more subtle nuances. I’m grateful to the editors at Salt & Sage, who put a lot of their own lived experience on the page so that others could learn.

HOW TO WRITE BLACK CHARACTERS is a short book, but it includes a lot of resources for further reading. It underscores the theme: the author must do the work. This book is an invitation, the beginning of a conversation that should continue through other sources and by talking to members of the community you want to write about.

HOW TO WRITE BLACK CHARACTERS is not meant to substitute for a good sensitivity reader. There isn’t a checklist that a non-Black author can go by, and even if there were, checking the “not offensive” box isn’t enough when writing real characters. The authors warn readers right up front that this is an incomplete guide, blackness is not a monolith, and this guide should never be the sum of an author’s research.

But it’s an excellent place to start.

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HOW TO WRITE BLACK CHARACTERS can be found here

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Rating: 4 stars

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This book is best for: all writers

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I recommend this book

The Anatomy of a Best Seller by Sacha Black

We all became writers because we love books. Stories feed our minds and hearts, and that’s why we write. But being a great reader does not make someone a great writer. There is a huge gap between reading for pleasure and reading like a writer. THE ANATOMY OF A BEST SELLER fills that gap, to help writers bridge the chasm between someone who loves to read and someone who understands how books are made.

There are three things a writer must do: read, deconstruct, and implement. Reading seems like the easy part. We all love to read, right? But Black teaches us how to read like writers, which is a completely different skillset. A writer must first read widely, to understand the genre, and then read deeply, to understand the techniques a writer has used.

After that comes deconstruction. This is all about reverse-engineering to figure out what an author is doing and why it works. Deconstruction means using an author’s tools, not her words. Black doesn’t advocate plagiarism. She’s showing authors how to take a deep dive into books in order to internalize those techniques, so we can make them our own. This is a very personal experience that relies on emotion rather than logic. Whatever part of the book moved you? That’s the part to pay attention to. Only then does analysis come into play. Black gives lots of useful examples here, to show this kind of deconstruction in action.

The third, and most difficult part, is implementation. Here is where most how-to books fall down, because it’s a lot easier to tell writers what to do than explain how to do it. But Black fearlessly wades into the trenches, not only explaining how to use the tools that a writer discovered in parts one and two, but how to use them for a particular audience.

The phrase “write to market” has been said so often, by so many, that it’s become an almost meaningless phrase. But Black prefers to think of it as “write to reader.” Because the truth is, writers don’t intuitively know how to please readers. Too often, we’re writing for other writers. We attend critique groups where writers pick apart our sentences, or we get beta reader feedback from fellow writers and change our books according to their sensibilities, or we take classes and write what the instructor wants. But Black wants to turn that completely around by showing us how to first read like a writer, then write for a reader.

When I finished reading THE ANATOMY OF A BEST SELLER, I went immediately to page one and started reading it a second time. It’s that good. I have been deconstructing bestselling and midlist books for years, and my mind was still blown by Black’s insights. Even better, Black delivers all of her instruction with a wicked sense of humor and a healthy measure of f-bombs, which are two of my favorite things.

THE ANATOMY OF A BEST SELLER is not a “get rich quick” kind of book. Black’s methods take time, patience, and lot of trial and error. But the result will be an author who truly understands novels, and can deliver fresh stories to exactly the right audience.

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THE ANATOMY OF A BEST SELLER can be found here

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Rating: 5 stars

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This book is best for: intermediate writers

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I recommend this book.