Chuck Palahniuk; Nuts and Bolts: "Thought" Verbs Thinking is abstract. Knowing and believing are intangible. Your story will always be stronger if you just show the physical actions and details of your characters and allow your reader to do the thinking and knowing. And loving and hating. ...for the next half year -- you may not use "thought" verbs. These include: Thinks, Knows, Understands, Realizes, Believes, Wants, Remembers, Imagines, Desires, and 100 others you ...

5 Famous Books That Were Originally Self-Published The reputation of self-publishing--at least in the pre-internet era--wasn't that great. There's a reason that publishing houses catering to non-professional writers were called "vanity presses." Your stereotypical self-published author was a little old lady with a briefcase full of messy manuscript pages, paying thousands of dollars to produce a poorly proofread doorstop that no one read. And yet some of the greatest creato... 1 

Authors Buy Their Way Onto Best-Seller Lists How are some authors landing on best-seller lists? It isn't uncommon for a business book to land on best-seller lists only to quickly drop off. But even a brief appearance adds permanent luster to an author's reputation, greasing the skids for speaking and consulting engagements. But the short moment of glory doesn't always occur by luck alone. In the cases mentioned above, the authors hired a marketing firm that purcha...