Ask the Book Doctor

by Bobbie Christmas Q: After five years I have completed my autobiography. After submitting many query letters with the word count of 777,568, I have been informed that as a…

by Bobbie Christmas Q: I have several acquaintances who have given up writing because they could not sell their first book or two. One is a woman who wrote two…

by Bobbie Christmas Q: What’s the difference between book doctors and book coaches? A: In a nutshell book coaches work on you, whereas book doctors work on your manuscript. Coaches…

by Bobbie Christmas Q: A friend of mine is a male writer with a manuscript that has a female as the lead character in first person. He has repeatedly gotten…

by Bobbie Christmas Q: I am writing a non-fiction book about basketball teams, and my editor and I are confused about the use of numbers in the book. I have…

by Bobbie Christmas Q: I want to write articles for magazines. I’m especially interested in travel writing and hope a periodical will pay for my travel. I don’t know where…

by Bobbie Christmas Q: Is The Chicago Manual of Style the standard for editing nonfiction book manuscripts? What do you say about the comments below made by two editors I’ve…

by Bobbie Christmas Q: One of my critique partners said I use too many gerunds and participles and said I have several dangling participles. I thought I knew the parts…

by Bobbie Christmas In recognition of Punctuation Day on September 24, I pulled some of the questions people asked me about punctuation. I based all my answers on Chicago style,…

by Bobbie Christmas Q: After five years I completed my autobiography. After submitting many query letters with the word count of 777,568 I have been informed that as a new…