Are you a published author on KDP? Would you like to have your book featured in our community? I'd love to feature your book here! Fill out the author request form - one form per book - and I will post your book in our Member's Book section each week. https://forms.gle/NHKonYrPtz6j27SFA

I am obsessed with watching and reading sci-fi ever since I watched the original Star Wars in 1977 as a five-year-old girl. I walked out of the theatre knowing that I wanted to be an X-Wing fighter and save the galaxy from the bad guys. Princess Leia was my first feminine hero, and I adored her. I'm currently listening to the Backyard Starship series by J.N. Chaney and Terry Maggert. Thirty-six audiobooks to date. If you love space opera, great space battles, strategic space station planning, power struggles, and a good love story, then you will happily disappear into this world for hours. Every single one of those books has made me a better writer. When you spend that much time inside a skilled author's work, your ear starts to change. You begin to notice how they open a chapter, so you can't stop listening. You catch the rhythm of a great line versus a clunky one. You feel the moment a scene drags, and you feel when it sings. You sense why a character feels real instead of flat. None of that is an accident on the author's part, and slowly, you start picking up on how to write better. You don't learn to write only by writing—you also learn by deliberately consuming great writing and paying attention to how it works. Whether you read with your eyes or listen with your ears, you're training your writing skills. So here's my challenge for you. The next time you're reading or listening to a book you love, ask yourself why this is a great book. How did they hook you? How did they make you laugh, or hold your breath? Then take that lesson back to your own manuscript and put it to work. Your favorite authors are some of the best writing teachers you'll ever have, and all you have to do is pay attention. What are you reading or listening to right now, and what has it taught you about your own writing? Tell us in the comments. I'd love to know. 📚

One of the Substack publications I follow is called "Write, period." They have timely information on a variety of items to assist writers. This latest newsletter has information on grants and fellowships. "You’ll find big money fellowships for fiction writers, playwrights and poets covering your accommodations, travel and insurance! We’ve also got massive fellowships for visual artists, performance artists, filmmakers, and researchers among many other disciplines and mediums! https://open.substack.com/pub/writeperiod/p/over-1-million-usd-in-fellowships?r=26yiz2&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email

Self-publishing has transformed the literary landscape, offering authors the autonomy to publish their work without traditional gatekeepers. Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) is at the forefront of this revolution, providing a platform for authors to reach a global audience. However, navigating Amazon KDP can be daunting for first-timers. This guide unpacks key strategies to ensure a successful publishing journey. https://www.writeforyou.me/blog/how-to-master-amazon-kdp-a-guide-to-self-publishing-success Want to learn how to master the art of writing and publishing quickly? Grab a Premium membership in our community! With a premium membership, you get free writing and publishing courses. With new courses added each quarter, you'll always be ready to move through writing and publishing challenges. You also receive the weekly Author's Brew coffee chat, where you get your writing and publishing questions answered, and Write On Track goal setting to keep you on target for only $9 a month.

Twelve years ago, I found out I had Celiac disease. It's a disease in which your immune system attacks your small intestine whenever you eat even a tiny amount of gluten. Basically, if an Olympic swimming pool were a loaf of bread, you would only have to eat a crumb the size of a small cooler inside that swimming pool, and you'd be sick...for three weeks. You may be wondering how this relates to writing a book. When I first found out I had Celiac disease, I looked online for how to travel gluten-free. I found a few blogs on "50 GF Restaurants in NY City," but I couldn't find any information on how to pack, fly, cruise, or, really, any practical, useful application advice. So I decided to start my own podcast, Travel Gluten Free, because I knew I wasn't the only person in a world of 8 billion people who was celiac and loved to travel. I was part of an online blog-writing group in 2016. I pitched the idea to the group. The overwhelming response? "Your title is too niche; it's never going to work." I spoke with a friend who was in the podcasting field at the time---this was when podcasting was just coming out of its infancy. I pitched him my topic, and he said, "It's perfect. People know what it is and who it's for." I looked online for books, podcasts, or any content that consistently talked about traveling gluten-free. While there were a few gluten-free platforms and influencers and about four gluten-free podcasts, no one had a platform dedicated to gluten-free travel. So I ran with Travel Gluten Free and launched my podcast in 2018. In one year, I had people asking me to write a book. I published The Guide to Traveling Gluten Free in March of 2020, and despite the pandemic, it made the Amazon Best Seller List. And almost ten years later, there are now 25 more podcasts that talk about gluten-free recipes, how to live gluten-free, how to be gluten-free, but only one that talks about traveling gluten-free - and that's my podcast. And my book? It's still the ONLY comprehensive travel book that teaches you how to travel while being gluten-free. Even after six years on the market, the gluten-free scene is exploding. No one else has written and published a book like this. And now I'm working on my second edition.