• How To Write an Award-Winning Children’s Book

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    During the month of June, we’ve been cheerleading a segment of authors who write some of the sweetest books around: those who write children’s stories. To cap things off, we’re featuring a special guest blogger, Terry Doherty of Mom’s Choice Awards and The Reading Tub. We wanted to find out what she looks for when in an award-winning children’s book, and she was kind enough to share some of her expertise! Writing for children seems like it would be easy, right? Kids have the most active imaginations, they’re open to any and all ideas, and of course they LOVE stories.…

  • How to Show Emphasis Without Typing in All-Capitals

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    As an editor here at Xulon Press, I have read hundreds of manuscripts. Maybe even thousands. However, the top three things that I’ve seen on a consistent basis is: overuse of the exclamation point, misuse of the semicolon, and capitalizing words and phrases in order to convey emphasis to the reader. While we’ve covered the first two, we haven’t covered what it means to capitalize entire words and phrases, so allow me to explain. It’s pretty well-known that if someone says something to you through text, email, instant message, or any other written/typed communication in all capitals, it means they’re…

  • Book Search Optimization, Metadata

    Xulon’s Book Search Optimization / Metadata Service: Explained

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    Out of all the services that Xulon Press’s editorial department offers, there is no guessing which one is the most complicated to our authors. In fact, the average person probably doesn’t know what “metadata” or “search optimization” means. It probably sounds like a few technical terms that only a Google engineer could possibly understand, right? Wrong. It’s actually a pretty simple concept, if explained in layman’s terms and not technical terms. Xulon Press offers, for an additional fee, a “Book Search Optimization” service or what is sometimes referred to as a “metadata” service. Most people these days get a lot…