The question I am asked most frequently by aspiring authors is “What does it take to write a really good book, one that people would enjoy reading?” While the simple answers to that question are “great content” and “great editing,” there are two critical characteristics you’ll find in almost every best selling book. The Author’s Passion and Insight. Great books are written by authors that are passionate about their message or subject. When you write with passion about something you have great knowledge or insight about, your book will become alive because it has been birthed through your heart and…

Since I started here as an editor at Xulon Press, nearly eight weeks ago, I have read at least one hundred manuscripts. Almost every manuscript I have edited and reviewed has been nonfiction. They have all been unique in their focus, voice, and message, but almost all of them have contained at least one “common writing error” that I usually have to suggest needs to be changed. The top three “common writing errors” I personally have picked up on are as follows (in no particular order): overusing the exclamation point, writing words/phrases in all capital letters, and misplacing of the…