• Does your book need an introduction? How do you write one? One of our editors breaks down 4 reasons why your book needs an introduction.

    4 Reasons Your Book Needs An Introduction

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    Introductions are really important when you first meet someone. It’s what lays the foundation for how you each come across. The same applies to introductions in books. When a reader isn’t properly acquainted from right the start, the rest of the conversation can get pretty awkward. Here are four reasons why you need an introduction section to start your book off on the right page. (Sorry: silly book pun!) To tell readers what they are going to be reading. This is probably the biggest reason to have an introduction in your manuscript. Readers aren’t mind-readers (and neither are editors). In…

  • Moving Foreword, Xulon Press Ask the Editor

    Ask the Editor: Moving Foreword

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    I confess: I started to do a bit of research on the history of the Foreword and had to force myself to stop almost immediately when I began deeper investigation of philology and the Dutch, or possibly German, roots of the word itself. (It happens like that for me sometimes. Research is addicting.) A previous post, Front Matters, explained the traditional intentions of some of the bits of, yes, front matter, the introductory sections that precede the beginning of your story proper. This being Academia month, we thought we’d focus on an element of FM (that’s industry lingo for front…

  • Xulon Press Ask the Editor

    Ask the Editor: Front Matters

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    Until recently, most incoming manuscripts to Xulon HQ had a title page and, maybe, an Acknowledgements page. This month, however, we have been inundated with Prefaces, Introductions, Author’s Notes, Forewords, and every flavor of frontmatter that only people who are paid to care about can actually define. Usually.