Writers’ Craft video series

First video in Writers’ Craft series Over the next weeks I’ll feature short videos in which I discuss writers’ craft, dispensing knowledge accumulated over the past 40 years in the field of publishing. This first installment is Workspace and Equipment.

Coming this fall and winter from Five Rivers

We’ve had a fabulous year so far at Five Rivers, releasing seven books, and signing contracts for at least that many more. This fall and winter will continue what we’ve started this year, with the release of eight books, possibly more. What do we have lined up for you? Just take a look. My Life as a Troll, by Susan Bohnet Debut author Susan Bohnet has the second book in our new YA line. My…

We’re migrating and morphing

To bring us into this new technological age, update our website, and generally streamline our presence and look, we’re combining two domains, our old domain of 5rivers.org which served us well for many years, and our new domain specifically for the publishing house, FiveRiversPublishing.com. As part of that change we’ll be phasing out the old website at 5rivers.org, and replacing it with an expanded blog/website here at FiveRiversPublishing.com. We’ve installed PayPal buttons in our book…

Common Errors in Fiction Manuscripts, Part 9

Formatting the manuscript So now you’ve edited and honed your manuscript into the best possible work you can. And you’re ready to submit. Here at Five Rivers we’re big on less is more. So, pay attention to our submission requirements, which are: email only, no hard copy submissions DOC or RTF format Times New Roman 12 point typeface double-spaced 1” margins Do not under any circumstances use any of Word’s built-in formatting for chapters, headers,…

Common Errors in Fiction Manuscripts, Part 8

Punctuation Issues: use of single quotes, double quotes and italics, 5R house style, dialogue, proper suffix for adverbs Quotation marks and italics I’m going to delve into purely Five Rivers house style. We have an aversion here to the overuse of quotation marks and italics to create emphasis on a word. If you’ve written your sentence or scene well, emphasis will be implied without any additional gimmick by way of quotation marks or italics. Again…