Just Publishing Advice

justpublishingadvice.com/filler-words-a… Filler words and phrases are precisely what the name implies. They fill space without adding any real or extra meaning to a sentence.

justpublishingadvice.com/between-and-am… When do you use between or among? Many of us were taught that “between” is only for two people and “among” is for three or more. However, this is a myth and is not true at all.

justpublishingadvice.com/make-your-writ… If you want to make your writing sound more human, avoid over-correcting. With so many AI grammar and writing tools available, it’s easy to think that more corrections automatically means better writing. But your writing voice doesn’t work like that.

justpublishingadvice.com/starting-sente… The first rule of starting sentences with numbers is an easy one to remember: don’t do it. That said, a number at the beginning of a sentence is usually grammatically correct, whether written as a word or a numeral. So why do most style guides, like MLA and The AP Stylebook, advise against it?

justpublishingadvice.com/limiting-adjec… Limiting adjectives, like limiting modifiers, are words that define or restrict a noun rather than describing its qualities. Unlike descriptive adjectives, they answer questions like which one, how many, or whose.

justpublishingadvice.com/free-and-paid-… Writing and publishing new content can be time-consuming, so offers of free content seem tempting. On top of that, if someone is willing to pay for you to publish content on your site, you might see it as a bonus. But beware. Most of these offers are only to gain a quick backlink, and the quality of the articles can often be very poor.

justpublishingadvice.com/stop-fighting-… How much of your valuable writing time do you lose fighting technology, software updates, buggy tools, or confusing new apps? Trying new tools is always tempting, but how much new or real value do they bring to your writing or publishing projects?

justpublishingadvice.com/commas-with-na… Knowing when to use commas with names and titles is simpler than you think. There are just two key grammar rules to remember: 1. Essential names or titles: If the name or title is necessary for the sentence’s meaning and can’t be removed, don’t use commas. 2. Non-essential names or titles: If the name or title can be removed without changing the sentence’s meaning, wrap it in commas.

justpublishingadvice.com/participle-adj… When you use participle adjectives, also sometimes called participial adjectives, they help describe things, people, states, and actions in a much more dynamic manner in your creative writing. Verb phrase: The wind was howling and tore branches from all the trees in its path. Participle adjective phrase: The howling wind tore branches from all the trees in its path.

justpublishingadvice.com/one-word-sente… Can you use one-word sentences in writing? Definitely. A sentence of one word is grammatically correct. It starts with a capital letter and ends with a period (full stop).

justpublishingadvice.com/words-that-sou… Words that sound like noises, such as boom, splash, and meow, are called onomatopoeia or echoism. While it’s handy to know these two terms, onomatopoeia is definitely a word that is difficult to spell, pronounce, and remember. Luckily, echoism is much easier.

justpublishingadvice.com/authors-who-dr… It’s no secret that most authors don’t like marketing and book promotion. Writing a book is usually a solitary activity of transforming your thoughts into words. Marketing, however, often feels like the opposite because you have to interact, communicate, and put yourself forward.

justpublishingadvice.com/resultative-ad… In the phrases, the door creaked open, and the door slammed shut; the words open and shut are resultative adjectives. Perhaps it’s not a grammatical term you are familiar with, but you probably use it quite often. In the examples above, you can see that the adjectives, open and shut, are derived from infinitive verbs.

justpublishingadvice.com/useful-word-pr… Most word processors look a little different on the surface, but under the hood, they all share the same core features. You might think you are already using yours to its full potential. But in reality, many writers only use a fraction of what these tools can do.

justpublishingadvice.com/download-your-… For new self-publishing authors, you might be wondering if you can download a copy of your published Kindle ebook from Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP). Yes, you certainly can. However, the process is not as straightforward as you might think, and the download link is definitely not easy to find.

justpublishingadvice.com/writing-softwa… I’ve tested and used a lot of writing software and apps over the years. But here’s the truth: they haven’t made me a better writer. Sure, some of them are useful. They can help with things like saving revisions, organizing chapters, restructuring scenes, storing notes and research, and even handling formatting or SEO tasks. But none of those features improved my writing skills.

justpublishingadvice.com/contractions-i… As a general rule, most style guides and grammar references state that you should not use contractions in formal writing. However, it is a point open to debate by writers, editors, and grammarians. Some argue that language should be more relaxed now and that the days of stiff, formal writing are in the past. It might be true to a certain extent, but it is not the rule that has changed. It is how and what we write that has.

justpublishingadvice.com/reduce-the-fil… Why should you check the file size of an ebook? Because it can cost you money. The bigger your ebook file size is, the more Amazon KDP charges you to deliver your Kindle ebook.

justpublishingadvice.com/parallelism-in… Parallelism in writing is often why some sentences feel a little rough or difficult to read, and it’s not always obvious why. If parts of a sentence don’t follow the same grammatical structure, the result is faulty parallelism.

justpublishingadvice.com/disinterested-… Is it disinterested or uninterested? While they sound similar, they have different meanings, which can trip you up in writing.