Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay After writing 10 books myself and helping countless authors to do the same, I realise that at some point all authors ask Is my book any good? That's the point at which most authors come to me for a manuscript appraisal, but there is another way you can get a good idea of whether your book is 'any good'. When we evaluate 'good' in this context, we usually think in terms of how our book matches up to similar books. We're wondering, Is our book as good as the others out there? Here's a way to find out in 8 steps. Step 1: Take a break and read Take a break from working on your novel of at least 3 weeks (the longer the better) and read at least 3 quality books from the same genre. Choose competition winners and best sellers, books with thousands of reviews and no more than 2% of them 1 star. You're going to examine these books so you can compare yours to them. It's important that you get a feel for the quality of the prose and tightness … [Read more...]