I’ll teach you how to create your own book cover on Canva! — EDIT: Get the guide here on my Gumroad page today! ___ If you have been following my blog for a while, you might know that I have been working on SulliWrites’ Canva Book Cover Design Guide since October 2022. …

A free tool to organize and typeset your book. — I love self-publishing. I love both the business and the art of it. I eat up all the success stories and even the failures that I read all over Medium. And while I haven’t self-published something of my own yet, I love helping others finish and print their own books. …

Putting it all together to finish your book cover design! — Once you’ve created your front and back cover for your paperback book, it is time to put together the entire layout! Adding space for the spine and checking that you are within the margins is crucial to having a great print when you build your paperback book — and you…

Are you reaching them? — If you haven’t heard of the “ideal reader” (IR) before, you should start thinking about it now. Ideal readers help writers focus their stories and their intentions into their writing to market to their ideal audience and get their writing spread by word of mouth. Without a clear picture of…

Avoid Settling for the Gig Economy! — You (probably): “Easier said than done, Shelby. If I could make a real living at writing then I would be doing that right now.” Me: “You’re right. Let me explain.” To truly make a “real living” as a writer, going beyond the gig economy is essential. Many new writers struggle…

Famous books can still get it wrong (or right?). — I recently finished Stephen King’s “IT” after spending about a year getting through it — that’s right, not reading it, but getting through it. I listened to the first 40 hours of the audiobook, and the plot had definite highs and lows. Some scenes were excellently paced and included powerful…

Rampant copy-pasting in freelance writing — In the age of Grammarly, ProWritingAid, and Chegg/Easybib, why do writers still think they can copy-paste others’ work into their articles and get away with it? Why? The first thing that you learn when you start writing essays in school that require even the littlest bit of research is don’t copy…

You can do it, too. — It’s no secret that I am an advocate for under-budget authors looking to create dazzling book covers for little to no startup cost. In fact, I’m creating an entire design guide about this! But the one problem with creating your own book cover for free is finding the right image. …

And I call myself a professional… — I’m one of the lucky ones: a full-time freelancer who pays all her bills and follows her passions on the side. I advise how to write, how to earn from it, and how to balance your life with it. …