Showing titles in Writing & Publishing

Can you learn how to write comedy? Absolutely - anyone can. Scott Dikkers will tell you how. He's co-founder and longest-serving editor-in-chief of The Onion, the world's most popular humor publication, and founder of The Onion Training Center at the Second City in Chicago. He's also a number one best-selling humor author and winner of the Thurber Prize for American Humor. In How to Write Funnier, he tells you everything you need to know to start writing funny stories, how to write funny scenes, and how to write funny sketches.

Now a major film from Academy Award–winning director Clint Eastwood—starring Sam Rockwell, Kathy Bates, Jon Hamm, Olivia Wilde, and Paul Walter Hauser​! This collection of captivating profiles from Vanity Fair writer Marie Brenner spans her award-winning career and features...

How is Tokyo, a city of thirty million people, so safe that six-year-old children commute to school on their own? Why are there no trashcans in Japanese cities? Why are Ganesha idols in Japanese temples hidden from public view? Globe-trotting journalist Pallavi Aiyar moves to Japan and takes an...

To begin with, what the hell is a novel? It's basically a tiny world, where characters are born, live and (sometimes) die. To write one all you need is a notebook and a pen - but along the way you'll want to learn about good writing habits, planning, mastering descriptions and dialogue and how to pull it all together. This book will guide you through the process and orient you towards the goal of publication. From absolute beginner to novelista, this book will change the way you write and think about writing.

Part craft guide, part writing coach and part cheerleader, this audiobook offers useful advice on a slew of common writing and publishing ailments, such as how to end procrastination, how to build a social media platform that reflects your personality, how to get your imagination to overflow with new ideas, how to listen to your intuition when receiving a critique on your work, how to overcome impostor syndrome, what to do when you're stuck in the query trenches, and so much more.

When America entered World War II in 1941, we faced an enemy that had banned and burned over 100 million books and caused fearful citizens to hide or destroy many more. Outraged librarians launched a campaign to send free books to American troops and gathered 20 million hardcover donations. In 1943, the War Department and the publishing industry stepped in with an extraordinary program: 120 million small, lightweight paperbacks for troops to carry in their pockets and their rucksacks in every theater of war.

Call it advertising, call it promotion, call it marketing, but whatever you call it, every business and organization depends on words with impact. You need to grab the attention of potential customers, clients, or supporters and call them to action. Few among us are born talented copywriters, that rare combination of both facile wordsmiths and natural salespeople. Most of us need some help, and even naturals can improve by studying the best. Victor O. Schwab was one of the greats.

A practical resource to help you turn struggle into success and become the writing coach your kid needs—from the creator of the award-winning Brave Writer curriculum Writing is often hard—for kids and for adults. How can we help our children get past the difficulties and learn the writing...

This new edition of Microcosm's popular DIY guide to zine making is updated to address zine making in today's digital- and social-media-obsessed world. Covering all the bases for beginners, Make a Zine hits on more advanced topics like Creative Commons licenses, legality, and sustainability. Make a Zine also takes a look at the burgeoning indie comix scene with a solid and comprehensive chapter by punk illustrator Fly.

In this perceptive, compelling essay, Katharine Murphy offers a profile of Anthony Albanese in motion – a piece about character, the balance of forces, and the mood of the nation. Are Albanese and his party up for change? Are Australians up for it? What does the new prime minister embody, if anything? Has the centre of the polity shifted, with the success of the Teals and the Greens? Where could – and should – the new government be ambitious?

McEwen espouses the pleasure to be found in slowing down, both for the ease and comfort of the thing itself (taking time to go for a walk, to write down one's dreams, to read, to talk, to pray), and for its impact on creativity. There are chapters on walking, talking, drawing, dreaming, on "making space", on pausing/praying, on telling stories. World Enough and Time is aimed at the educated general listener, could be used as a creative primer, and will be of interest to creative-writing students and artists in every genre.

Compelling characters are what keeps readers turning pages and buying books—from fantasies to mysteries to the great literary novel. But how to do you create characters that feel three-dimensional and real on the page? Counsellor and author Eileen Cook shares common psychological techniques to help you build your characters and take your story to the next level. This book covers understanding your character's backstory and how it impacts their choices in your book by doing a structured counselling interview, personality structure, and the Stages of Change.

It is 2008, and Stefania Maurizi, an investigative journalist with a growing interest in cryptography, starts looking into the little-known organization WikiLeaks. Through hushed meetings, encrypted files, and explosive documents, what she discovers sets her on a life-long journey that takes her deep into the realm of secret power.

This is not a book about Iraq's history, nor an inventory of the many Middle Eastern wars that have spun out over the past twenty years, though both wars and history are part of its narrative, from the American invasion to the Arab Spring, ISIS and beyond. This is the story of a people who once lived under the rule of a megalomaniac leader who shaped the state in his own image. Then one day, after yet another war, a foreign army invaded, toppled the leader, destroyed the state, and proceeded to invent a new country. 

Nine out of 10 people who bought other editions of this book consider this a “paradigm shift”. But it’s still a “best kept secret” – by a small handful of world class copywriters. It - and only it – enables you to sell almost anything to anyone (even if you’re selling a “commodity product” or in a competitive niche). It is all possible because of the the new theory “TOC”.

When you're fumbling for words and pressed for time, you might be tempted to dismiss good business writing as a luxury. But it's a skill you must cultivate to succeed: You'll lose time, money, and influence if your e-mails, proposals, and other important documents fail to win people over.

Self-Publishing Simplified is perfect for beginners that want to self-publish on Amazon. It covers all the basics you need to know including: Niche & keyword research, 7 backend keywords, Amazon Ads, publishing your first book, & tips throughout the book. This book is perfect for authors that write kids story books, guide books, how-to books, cookbooks, puzzle books, coloring books, and low content books.

Writing guides are often full of 'tips' and 'tricks' either too broad to be useful, so specific they don't apply, or frustratingly vague. The On Writing and Worldbuilding series is here to change that. Volume III covers a whole new array of topics with applicable, clear, and practical discussions, be it writing character descriptions, compelling dialogue, or worldbuilding cities and towns. While written with an edge for science fiction and fantasy, the help found in this book applies to all genres. Volume III stands entirely independent of the first two volumes with entirely new discussions.

Una mujer que asesina a tres amigas poniéndoles cianuro en la taza de té; otra que mató a su hija minutos después de parirla; un mago al que le falta una mano; un grupo de rock cuyo integrante más famoso tiene síndrome de Down, un cardiólogo que es doble de Freddie Mercury. Esta...

New York Times Bestseller “Both deeper and more democratic than The Elements of Style” —Adam Haslett, Financial Times “A guided tour through some of the most beautiful, arresting sentences in the English language.” —Slate In this entertaining and erudite gem, world-class professor...