A piercing exploration of grief and transformation in the Sedona desert
In this affecting 7,080-word novelette, the author crafts a resonant story of thirteen-year-old Emma’s journey through grief in the mystical landscape of Sedona, Arizona. When her Welsh Terrier disappears into the desert, Emma’s search becomes an unexpected path toward confronting deeper losses.
The story’s power lies in its emotional authenticity. Emma’s raw moments of vulnerability and her father’s hidden struggles avoid sentimentality while delivering genuine pathos. The Sedona setting functions not merely as a backdrop but as a character itself—ancient, knowing, and transformative.
Secondary characters transcend expected tropes, particularly a shop owner who offers wisdom born from lived experience rather than mysticism. The narrative weaves coincidences that hover beautifully between the explicable and mysterious, trusting readers to find their own meaning in these connections.
What Returns With The Moon reminds us that transformation happens in the spaces between letting go and holding on, between what the desert takes and what it unexpectedly returns. This brief but potent work lingers long after reading, like desert heat that remains in stone after sunset.
⭐⭐⭐⭐½
Not all who wander are lost.
Not all who return are the same.
Not all who change are gone.
When thirteen-year-old Emma’s dog vanishes into Sedona’s red rocks, her search reveals mysterious artifacts and a talisman connecting past and present, teaching her that grief doesn’t just diminish us… but transforms who she becomes in the wake of her mother’s death.
A storyboard is a graphic organizer that consists of illustrations or images displayed in sequence for pre-visualizing a story, motion picture, animation, motion graphic, or interactive media sequence.
Pitching a story, book, series, or movie idea and want to bring it to life or want to visualize key scenes in the story you plan to write?
Tom Brogan wasn’t a killer. He wasn’t ‘made.’ Wasn’t feared. Just a foot soldier—a Drop Man—who did what he was told until the day he disappeared from the Irish mob.
An easy man to forget.
In an irony not lost on him, he found work tending graves in a small-town cemetery. Quiet years passed. He grew old, lived alone, and was buried in memory, haunted by the consequences of a violent life and the weight of bad choices.
But when he returns to Boston for his mother’s funeral and witnesses a mob hit gone wrong, he does the one thing he never did before: He remembers that once, he’d been a good man—and saves someone.
Now, with a boy in tow and the past closing in, Tom faces a fight he was never prepared for.
He wasn’t respected. Wasn’t feared. The mob forgot him. Until now.
He’s an old man standing between a kid and a bullet.
But redemption has a price. And the mob always collects.
Analysis of The Story Idea:
Emotional Weight and Human Realism
By choosing a man who was never fully in—the forgotten cog in the machine, the disposable affiliate—the story positions Tom as someone readers can immediately relate to. He’s not a monster trying to become a man again. He’s a man who tried to survive in a monstrous world, escaped it, and never lost the awareness of his inadequacy. That humility, born from decades of regret and fear, becomes one of his most compelling traits.
He wasn’t respected, so he’s driven by the deep ache of never having been enough.
He wasn’t ambitious; he learned to stay small and survive by not fighting to climb the ladder, not positioning to move higher in the Family.
He wasn’t brutal, so the violent world he once inhabited left scars instead of trophies.
This gives him depth and vulnerability, which makes his eventual steps toward courage and protective violence earned, and thus, profoundly satisfying to the reader.
Subverting the ‘Former Killer‘ Trope
Crime and Thriller fiction is saturated with cold-eyed ex-assassins, bruised but deadly ex-cons, ex-cops, and stone-faced, flawed or damaged ex-soldiers trying to live quiet lives. But a character who wasn’t that guy, yet must become a version of them out of desperation, is far more relatable and terrifying in his transformation.
Tom’s the one who slipped through, not the man who ruled the underworld, held a high place within it, or commanded its respect. He was barely acknowledged.
His unremarkable past becomes his only protection—nobody’s looking for him because nobody expected anything of him… or from him.
That anonymity saved him and condemned him to irrelevance… so it had been… so it was… until the day he acted to save someone else.
Echo and Inversion through the Boy
Having the protagonist see himself in the boy adds resonance and symmetry to the narrative. The boy becomes both his second chance and his haunting mirror. Protecting the boy is not just an act of survival; it’s an act of atonement.
Tom doesn’t want the boy to become what he became—lost… only to turn the wrong way trying to find himself and his place in the world.
He knows what it’s like to have no one show up to save you.
He’s not saving the boy because he can but because he must.
That distinction elevates the story from action thriller to moral fable.
Opportunity for Organic Growth and Tension
Since Tom isn’t a killer or fighter, every decision to act—every punch thrown, every gun picked up—feels earned. It injects real suspense because the reader knows he’s not equipped to handle violence well. When violence comes, it’s clumsy, desperate, messy, precisely what makes it authentic.
His journey isn’t about rediscovering past glory; there’s none to re-live. It’s about becoming something he never believed he could be, not for status, but for someone else’s survival.
Narrative Devices to Support This Arc
To emphasize and deepen this character path, we’ll incorporate:
Flashbacks where real mobsters overlook or humiliate him, showing his insignificance.
Small moments of personal failure hinting at why he never fit in—he couldn’t kill when ordered, hesitated, or helped someone, and was quietly punished.
Internal monologues rich in self-doubt, not cynicism, but honest reckoning.
Symbolic actions—digging graves that mirror his buried conscience or watching the boy sleep while remembering what it was like to be innocent… and unprotected.
ONCE I WAS A GOOD MAN is a story of buried sins and reluctant redemption. Tom Brogan, who was never meant to be a hero, is forced to become one for the only thing he found mattered: a young boy’s life. A gritty, emotional journey into the long shadow of crime, memories, regrets, and the quiet strength it takes to do what’s right… even when you’ve spent your life doing wrong.
Is It A Story Worth Telling?
Yes.
This approach gives the story moral gravity, a slow-burn character arc, and room for powerful emotional moments. Tom Brogan isn’t a lion in winter; he’s a beaten dog who suddenly turns to protect something, someone, innocent. That is far more interesting and moving than a killer seeking redemption.
It also offers a fresh take on the true crime and noir tradition: a story not about the big names, the skilled, deadly, and feared men, but about the quiet ones in the margins—the ones who disappeared not because they were too dangerous but because they never mattered.
Central Themes: Redemption, moral ambiguity, confronting past sins, protecting innocence, and the inevitability of the past catching up.
Potential Strengths: Strong emotional depth, a relatable antihero protagonist, layered morality, and tension-driven narrative.
Character Potential: The old caretaker figure, embodying guilt, wisdom, and sorrow, is inherently fascinating. His internal struggle between regret and responsibility can provide excellent narrative depth.
Worldbuilding is an essential aspect of story development, and we use a disciplined approach to our stories and the work we do for clients. We draw on historical documents, reports, information, and cultural research to fashion background, settings, and foundational lore that fit our work. And this foundational piece—a fictitious book we’re creating—perfectly fits THERED NIGHT, one of our stories in development.
We’ve taken what’s known of the Mangudai, the practices, and principles, and used them as the basis of a fictitious 1930s-era book that is found and read by a young U.S. soldier and OSS officer in 1945 in my story in development, THE RED NIGHT. The soldier is an avid reader and lover of history. In 1945, he found the book in an obscure, dusty, decrepit used bookstore in London. A powerful and thematically rich narrative device, The Way of The Mangudai principles of adaptation, endurance, strength, and mobility of mind and body become a profound metaphor for John Devel’s—THE RED NIGHT’s protagonist’s—transformation. We’ve created a detailed breakdown of this fictitious 1930s-era book to develop how it shapes John Devel’s mindset and tactics in THE RED NIGHT and how it threads through his journey from a wounded combat veteran to confronting a distorted postwar reality. —Dennis Lowery
What follows comes from the first stages of our worldbuilding (subject to further refinement).
Here’s the fictitious book blurb for:
THE WAY OF THE MANGUDAI A Treatise On A Warrior’s Mind And Movement
Colonel Aldric W. Varnum, D.S.O., O.B.E. (RET.), Late Of Her Majesty’s 4th Hussars Privately Printed For The Author ARDENT HOUSE, GLASGOW, 1931 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
“True strength is not in the hand that strikes first, but in the will that endures—this is the path of the unyielding.”
The Way of The Mangudai is a powerful treatise on resilience and the indomitable will to win—drawn from the battlefield traditions of the Mongol Empire’s most obscure warriors. Written in 1931 by decorated British officer Colonel Aldric W. Varnum, this timeless work explores the tactical brilliance of the Mangudai, elite cavalry who specialized in outwitting larger, more powerful forces through maneuver, deception, and sheer endurance.
But this is more than a study of ancient warfare—it’s a guide for those who have been wounded, outnumbered, or underestimated. Varnum distills centuries of hard-won battlefield insight into strategies for prevailing not with brute force but through adaptability, precision, and resolve.
Whether facing an army or the aftermath of personal loss, The Way of the Mangudai shows how the greatest victories are earned not by those who appear strongest—but by those who can endure and adapt.
For leaders, soldiers, strategists, and survivors… this is the art of turning adversity into advantage and setback into supremacy.
A Contemporary Overview
Conceptual Adoption: ‘Mangudai’ as Training Terminology (1980s–Present)
Origin of the Term’s Use in U.S. Training:
The first appearance of Mangudai in U.S. military culture came not as a combat unit but as a leadership development exercise, originating within elite units, particularly in the U.S. Army’s Special Operations Forces. ‘Mangudai Exercises’ were designed to push officers and NCOs emotionally, intellectually, and physically beyond their limits in scenarios simulating battlefield chaos and ambiguity.
First documented uses were in the 82nd Airborne, Special Forces Groups, and Ranger units, where senior leaders devised multi-day, non-stop tactical simulations intended to exhaust and disorient participants, forcing them to adapt, make rapid decisions, and function while depleted.
The Mangudai Legacy in American Military Thought:
While the original Mongol Mangudai were warriors of the steppes, their principles found a second life in the 20th and 21st-century United States military not through direct emulation but through ideological inheritance:
• Mobility over mass. • Mental agility over brute strength. • Disruption over confrontation. • Leadership under stress.
In American use, the Mangudai has become more than a training label—it is a symbolic rite of passage for those seeking to prove their mettle and ability to lead under extreme adversity.
*Beta moves slower than *Alpha. She’s always at the edge of being on time… or just past. And I have certain rules for chores and when to be at the breakfast table on school days. When you aren’t on time without good reason—not an excuse—there are consequences.
We had one of those mornings Beta couldn’t get it in gear. She was late to the table. I addressed it and meted out the penalty. Minutes later, angry at getting in trouble for being late, Beta lashed out at Alpha over some trivial thing. [Understand that they are twins—Alpha’s five minutes older—and friction arises.] Alpha did not take that quietly, so the breakfast table became a volleying ground for harsh words.
Now, I understand getting pissed off… when I’m pushed too far and go off, it’s epic… and not always productive. I know this and work hard to not let that happen. I try to teach my girls how to deal with anger. So, I did this:
“You girls want to hear a story?” They know to look at me when I’m talking to them. It broke up the punch-counterpunch of comments flying back and forth. I asked again, “Do you want to hear a story?” Both heads nodded. I told them:
Once there were two monks on a pilgrimage [I explained to them what that meant], an older one who had been on several and a young monk on his first. One day they came to the edge of a river. It was turbulent and roiling, with several days of rain in the mountains feeding it. It would prove difficult, but not impossible, to cross; they were both powerful men. They heard crying. Nearby, under a willow tree, a woman sat weeping. In her hands was a small bag she clutched to her chest. She heard them and looked up.
“Please help me… I’m afraid to cross.” She gestured at the river and gripped her bag tighter. “But I must get home soon.”
The young monk turned his back on her. Their order was forbidden to speak to or touch women. But the older monk picked up the woman and, without a word, forged the river. He put her down on the other side. With thanks he didn’t respond to, she turned to the right-hand path and hurriedly went on her way. The older monk continued straight ahead, and the younger came after him. They walked in silence for another mile. After crossing the river, the young monk fumed (I defined that word for them) in anger. He berated the older monk: “How could you do that — the woman… you’ve broken your vows.” He continued talking to him that way for another mile. Finally, the older monk stopped and turned to him.
“I only carried her across the river. Are you still carrying her?”
I waited for a beat so they’d realize that was the end. Then asked, “Do you understand what he—the older monk—meant?” I saw the wheels turning behind their eyes as a minute passed. Alpha raised her hand [yes, they usually do that with me in a straightforward question-and-answer situation]. I nodded at her.
“The young monk needs to stop being angry.” She looked at Beta.
Beta still looked edgy as I replied to Alpha, “That’s right. Sometimes we carry things too long… far past when we should put them down and move on without them.” I looked at Beta and said, “That’s something to think about,” and left it at that.
With things settled down, we finished breakfast, and soon they were off to school. I thought it another little teaching moment they hopefully took to heart.
Epilogue
The next day, Saturday morning, we had many chores to do. Beta and Alpha, angry at each other over something, had another incident. A minor one that could’ve grown larger. I gave Beta a stare, and she dropped the fight but was cold toward Alpha as they did their chores. About an hour later, when I was making some soon-to-be world-famous D’achos (Dad’s nachos) for them for lunch, Beta came up to me at the stove.
“Dad?”
“Yes, honey.”
She gestured for me to lean down so she could whisper something. “I put the woman down….” Beta had a smile on her face. A moment later, I heard her apologize to Alpha.
*About Alpha & Beta
I have four daughters. My oldest was born in October 1988 when I worked for others. My second-oldest was born 15 days after my resignation from my corporate job became effective on January 2, 1996. So, she’s seen my life as an entrepreneur and business owner from day one. Those early years in business were hard, as they often are, and I became like the father in ‘Cats in the Cradle’ (the Harry Chapin song). Always busy, too much to do and not enough time, eaten up with stress and worry about many things. Then, in 2008, I made some changes and pursued what I do today, writing and publishing. And that made a world of difference in having time for my family. The two youngest—unexpected twins I refer to as Alpha & Beta—have had more daily time with me as they grew up than their two older sisters. And much of it I’ve experienced through the ‘lens’ of a writer. So, our conversations and kitchen table discussions—several times—have turned into ‘stories.’
Note: Two comments on the cover above reference a version with a soundtrack and sound effects accompanying the story. Regrettably, the company I produced that web-server version with switched their business model, and the enhanced version is no longer available.
About this flashfiction story:
One day, I came across this photo of a decaying building sitting on a cliff over a sea, and, struck by it, wondered: ‘What’s its story?’ Here’s what it told me.
The photo that prompted writing the story.
THE STORY
The structure’s skeleton sat raw, crumbling with age from the ravage of seasons and weather on a point of land over the sea. In a ruined bedroom overlooking the water, what remained of a once beautiful woman mourned her lost love. Decades ago, more years than she knew, she had found his body on the sharp rocks below, among those teeth of the sea that grind daily until everything’s eaten away except the memories and regrets of what she’d done, what she had caused. They weighed heavily as she stepped off the balcony each night to join him. When the moonfall sky turned to signal the coming sun, she must leave to climb the worn stone steps to cry until moonrise when she could return to him.
The couple had walked the beach for more than a mile, their last day and outing before their return to the United States. Cameras in hand, the stark beauty of this part of the Ligurian coast struck them. Jutting cliffs rose over the sea, a jumble of rock and jagged stone amid patches of sand at their base.
Rounding a bend, they spotted the house. It had once been magnificent and offered a majestic view of the sea and coast. They made their way to almost directly underneath and, looking up, high above, were the remnants of what must have been a balcony. At their feet, chunks of masonry were buried in a bed of sand where the rocks that sat at the water’s edge sheltered them from the surf. Letting only swirls of water and the swash of seafoam spill over them. There were other things in the sand, too.
“Paul,” Angela swept the seawrack away with her foot and stepped back. “Look!”
Paul stared at the two sets of tide-buried bones in the silt and sand. Their upper torso just reached the surface. The more prominent one rose higher, spine arched, the contortion of a near-drowning man that had breasted, gasping for breath. The smaller skull rested on the shoulder bones of the larger set; a lighter-boned arm climbed from the sand to drape across its lower rib cage.
Angela knelt and brushed away some of the sand with the bright blue scarf she took from her head. A gust of seawind lifted the tops from the incoming waves and sprayed them as she leaned closer. What she’d cleared revealed more of the arm, something in its small skeletal fist. She nudged it with her scarf-wrapped hand. Shed of the sand, the circle of metal gleamed and came free. Angela touched the ring, and a stiffer blast came off the water with a keening sound through the rocks that made her grit her teeth. She picked it up; her hair whipped in the wind, and a tingle climbed her spine. The bad kind you get when you’ve done something you shouldn’t and got caught. She quickly rose. “I wonder who they were.” She looked above at the ruined house that loomed over them. “And what happened?”
Paul shrugged. “It’s getting dark. We need to go.” He took several quick pictures and snapped his lens cap in place. “We’ll report this to the police back in town.”
They retraced their way along the beach. There was a lull in the wind. In the dead stillness, Angela turned, looked back to where the bones lay, and canted her eyes and ears up to the house. “Listen….”
“To what?”
“That sound.” Angela took her eyes from the house and glanced at the blue cloth, the ring wrapped inside, still in her hand, then at Paul. “I hear crying.”
The Polizia di Stato officer had flirted with her until he realized she was on her honeymoon. He put down the pad of paper he’d made notes on.
“That palazzo is several centuries old. There are many reports of sounds, but no one has lived there for decades.”
“It was a woman crying. I know it,” Angela repeated.
The officer shrugged. “I’m sure it was just the wind.”
“What about the bones?” Paul asked.
“You gave clear directions where to find them.” The officer flashed his bright smile. “We’ll send a forensics team to investigate. They’ll be brought in to see if an identity can be determined.”
“What will happen to them and this?” She touched the ring she’d given him, now in a clear plastic evidence bag beside his paperwork.
“The Carabinieri will find and notify any next of kin if we identify them.”
“And if not… or if there’s no next of kin?”
“Then the ring and a sample of the bones will be kept with the file, and the remnants cremated.”
Angela and Paul returned home to their newlywed life. It matured and became well-seasoned with years of laughter, tears, sons and daughters, triumphs, and tragedies. But at different times, as the decades flew by, her thoughts returned to that day to that place thousands of miles away at the foot of a seacoast cliff beneath an ancient, ruined, and forgotten estate. Angela remembered what she’d heard and wondered if the woman still cried… and if she looked for her ring.
Perhaps you want to write a book or have one written for you. And when it comes to size, you think about the number of pages. Non-professional writers often do. But you should not focus on the page count. Instead, target the right size for your book.
Writing clients often tell me they want their book to be ‘XXX’ hundred pages… 200, 400, etc. Usually a round number. Sometimes they’ll give an example. Something like this: “My story’s a bit like ‘Outlander,’ time travel and romance. Fictional but based on actual events in a different country and setting. From the present to two centuries ago and back to the present. So, maybe my book should be about the same size.”
It takes experience to judge the right length for a story, and professional writers use the market to gauge the parameters. But the number of pages is not what you should use as your guide to honing the plan for a book. Instead, use a word count target. I’ll get into that further, but first, here is some context.
One of my past projects, a Historical Fiction series, averaged over 177,000 words per book. In a 6-inch by 9-inch format: Book One is 151,550 words at 422 pages. Book Two is 155,096 words at 436 pages. Book Three is 166,685 words at 478 pages. Book 4 (ending the epic saga), is 237,350 words and over 706 pages.
Book One in the fiction series Outlander by Diana Gabaldon is 850 pages, 255,781 words (format: 6.11-inch width x 1.42 spine x 9.23 length). To give you a nonfiction example: ‘Who Moved My Cheese’ by Spencer Johnson is 25,504 words, 96 pages in 5 x 6.75 format. And ‘If You Tell: A True Story of Murder, Family Secrets, and the Unbreakable Bond of Sisterhood’ by Gregg Olsen is 115,391 words, 431 pages in 5.5 x 8.25 paperback format.
As with any published book, the page count includes all parts (not just the narrative) of the book. Front matter comprises the Title Page, Copyright Notice, Table of Contents, and often an opening statement by the author or an epigraph (to set the story’s tone to come). It can also contain other information that the author and story might require to help the reader. The series project I mentioned above includes 6-8 maps per book, a historical setting preface, a recap of events in the preceding books, a Dramatis Personae (a guide to the cast of characters), and a book-specific opening epigraph. In the back (the back matter), the last page is the author’s bio. With some variation, all published books have front and back material that adds to the page count of the actual narrative.
So—and this is not uncommon—I often walk clients through how the page count of a print book is affected by its format. A 50,000-word book in a 5×8 Trade Paperback format will have more pages than the same number of words in a 6×9 book. The publisher or the self-publisher will determine what book size/format they want to produce the book.
When discussing writing, co-writing, and ghostwriting projects, I focus on word—not page—count. I can then set precise writing goals using a target word count and establish the work’s time frame. When working with a client, those goals become a contractual milestone schedule of deliverables for their project. It includes the Planning & Development stage (the story outline, initial scene/chapter list, and writing plan), the Writing stage (number of words delivered each month), the Internal Edit stage (writer/client collaborative), and if included in the contract, a Post-Draft Edit period of writer collaboration with the client’s third-party editor.
If you want to write a book, I recommend you set a word count target and use it to plan for story development and the actual writing (your word count goals per month). Below are average word counts or word count ranges for works of fiction and nonfiction. These are important because a book intended to be sold commercially is a product, and there are market expectations. A professional writer or ghostwriter will know that market if you plan to have your book written for you. Still, you need to know it too.
Suppose the book you want to write (or have written) is complex, with multiple characters, story arcs, settings, and locations. [See what I mentioned above about the word count size of Outlander and the series I worked on for a client.] In that case, it will probably require planning for a higher word count than the following averages.
Fiction
Based on an analysis of the top 15 sellers in the respective categories at Amazon:
Fantasy: 109,000
Historical: 102,000
Horror: 102,000
Literary: 98,000
Science Fiction: 98,000
Action/Adventure: 96,000
Contemporary: 96,000
Women’s Lit: 94,000
Mystery/Thriller/Suspense: 91,000
Romance: 91,000
Crime: 89,000
Religious: 75,000
Erotica: 58,000
Nonfiction
How-to / Self-Help, Career, and Education: 40,000–50,000 words
Standard Nonfiction: 70,000 to 80,000 words
Creative Nonfiction: 80,000 to 100,000 words
Memoir / Biography: 60,000 to 120,000+ words
Stories can and should find their natural length. Achieving that comes from professionally proofreading/developmentally editing drafts that follow the first. [The first draft should be used to work out the basic story, arcs, theme, and content.] Then refining all elements further, assessing, sometimes addressing, the flow and pace, and marking up for another round of editing/rewriting.
You can make the above process more efficient by using the average word count for your book type as a guide. Make the optimal size of your book an early consideration in the planning process. It matters to your story development.
Dennis Lowery has ghostwritten 40 books for clients (17 novels, 12 nonfiction, nine memoirs, and two creative nonfiction) and just started his 39th. He has also worked on dozens of titles to help improve, develop, edit, and provide publishing assistance.
The publishing world is competitive. Targeting specific genres and subgenres can enhance the commercial viability of your book. Write smart to sell big. Here’s why this strategic focus is so effective:
1. Meeting Reader Expectations
Genre Conventions:
Every genre has its own set of conventions and tropes that readers expect and enjoy. By adhering to these, you meet the expectations of genre enthusiasts, making your book more appealing to them.
Predictable Audience:
Targeting a specific genre helps you identify and understand your audience more clearly. You can tailor your marketing and promotional efforts to attract this well-defined group.
2. Niche Markets
Less Competition:
Subgenres often have less competition compared to broader genres. By focusing on a niche market, you can stand out more easily and attract readers looking for something specific.
Dedicated Fanbase:
Readers of niche genres are often dedicated and loyal. Once you capture their interest, they are more likely to become repeat customers and advocates for your work.
3. Effective Marketing
Targeted Advertising:
With a clear genre or subgenre focus, your advertising can be more precise. You can use targeted ads on platforms like Facebook, Amazon and Goodreads to reach the right readers.
Optimized Metadata:
When you know your specific genre, you can optimize your book’s metadata (title, keywords, categories) to improve discoverability on search engines and online bookstores.
4. Stronger Branding
Consistent Author Brand:
Writing within a specific genre or subgenre helps you build a consistent author brand. Readers know what to expect from you, strengthening your reputation and making cultivating a loyal following easier.
Series Potential:
Genres and subgenres often lend themselves well to series writing. A successful series can generate ongoing interest and sales as readers eagerly expect the next installment.
5. Community Engagement
Reader Communities:
Each genre has dedicated communities and fan groups. Engaging with these communities can provide valuable feedback, promote word-of-mouth marketing, and create a sense of connection with your readers.
Industry Events:
Genre-specific events, such as conventions and book fairs, offer opportunities to network, market your book, and connect with readers and other authors.
6. Higher Conversion Rates
Focused Efforts:
Concentrating your efforts on a specific genre makes your marketing and promotional activities more likely to convert into sales. You can craft compelling messages that resonate with your target audience’s desires and interests.
Enhanced Reader Engagement:
Books that align with genre expectations are likelier to keep readers engaged. Satisfied readers are more inclined to leave positive reviews, recommend your book, and look for more of your work.
7. Adaptive Strategy
Trend Monitoring:
Keeping a pulse on genre trends allows you to adapt and evolve your writing to align with changing reader preferences, ensuring that your work remains relevant and appealing.
Feedback Utilization:
Focusing on a specific genre makes gathering and using reader feedback easier to refine your writing and better meet market demands.
Conclusion
Targeting specific genres and subgenres is a powerful strategy to enhance the commercial viability of your book. It allows you to meet reader expectations, tap into niche markets, optimize your marketing efforts, build a strong author brand, engage with dedicated communities, achieve higher conversion rates, and adapt to market trends. By understanding and leveraging the unique dynamics of your chosen genre, you can increase your chances of success.
‘Write to Market’ means understanding what readers crave and tailoring your writing to meet those desires. It’s about hitting that sweet spot where your creative idea is shaped to meet market demand.
There are specific things you should look at when evaluating your market. The information you glean can help you write a more commercially competitive book. Here’s what that information should comprise:
Comparative Title Analysis:
Revenue Assessment for the Top 20+ Selling Books in the Genre and Subgenres. See the revenue estimates for top sellers in your genre and subgenres (which show the market demand and potential).
Specific Title Strengths & Weaknesses Breakdown. Analysis of a title’s strengths and weaknesses, why readers bought it, and why some might not buy it.
Specific Title Discourse Breakdown. A comprehensive report on how language is used throughout the book, such as the choice of words, how sentences are structured, and the language and communication strategies used by the author to convey their message and engage with their audience.
Specific Title Thematic & Narrative Breakdown. A comprehensive and detailed thematic and narrative analysis of the story, examining the structure, content, and meaning. Analyzing patterns or themes, looking for commonalities and differences that can be used as writing guides.
Specific Title Structural Breakdown. A comprehensive and detailed structural narrative analysis highlights the structure’s benefits to the reader.
Genre / Subgenre Analysis:
Market Intelligence (Overview)
Market Trends
Reader Demographics & Psychographics
What Readers Need & Desire (Audience Feedback)
What Story Elements and Qualities Readers Look For
Critical Success Factors (for Fiction or Nonfiction)
These are the same Write-To-Market reports we generate and use for developing, planning, and writing our stories. The information comes from qualitative analysis, machine learning and predictive modeling using a combination of historical Amazon, Goodreads and Barnes & Noble reviews, historical customer reviews and ratings, market research, on-site analytics, key element analysis, social media insights and other historical insights to provide a deep understanding of the reader’s demographics, interests, psychographics and sentiment toward books in the genre and subgenre.
“CHIVALRY AIN’T DEAD… BUT IN THIS CITY, IT’S UGLY, MEAN… AND BLEEDING OUT IN A BACK ALLEY.”
In 1948, the world’s gone to hell. The Soviets own Europe, and America’s a puppet state, its cities crawling with corruption, fear, and a few still clinging to a lost world.
John Devel’s a man out of place—too broken by war to fit in, too stubborn to give up. A cane-wielding ex-soldier turned detective, he’s stuck working dead-end cases in a city that’s long forgotten what justice looks like.
When a woman turns up dead near an outlawed dockside nightclub, it seems like just another casualty in the war for the scraps of the old world. But something doesn’t sit right when John talks to Ava Hammond, the club’s singer and bartender. Ava didn’t just witness the murder—she was supposed to be the one in the morgue.
Someone powerful wants her dead. And they’ll make sure John pays if he gets in their way.
Now, he’s in the thick of a conspiracy that runs deeper than the city’s muck. With the Reds breathing down his neck and enemies on every corner, John’s got one shot at survival: protect Ava, get answers, and pray he doesn’t end up just another body in the street.
In a city where trust is a dying thing and every alley’s a dead end, survival’s a game—and in this world, everyone’s got something to lose.
Before we go too far, let’s address the elephant in the room: the title of our book, Don’t Blame Your F#ck Up On The Consultant.
The short answer is that we wanted a provocative title to grab your attention and convey our book’s central message boldly and unapologetically. The title’s adult humor aims to connect with you as a reader with firsthand experience with poor consulting engagement results, making the book relatable and genuine. Our book addresses criticisms and misconceptions about consultants, primarily that they serve as mere scapegoats for broader organizational failures.
This book discusses how to be the kind of client consultants dream of working with. We also explore what makes a better consulting client or even a good prospective client for those who have yet to work with a consultant. This flips the script. We often talk about finding the right consultant to hire, but what about being the right client? What we share in this book goes well beyond that. It’s all about understanding the dynamics of a true partnership and how to get the best from any collaboration.
We wanted to be bold, irreverent, and authentic. We believed that using profanity in our title would pique your curiosity enough to pick up this book and start reading.
![The Things We Carry [Creative Nonfiction]](https://adducentcreative.com/wp-content/uploads/THE-THINGS-WE-CARRY-2025-by-Dennis-Lowery-768x1152.jpg "The Things We Carry [Creative Nonfiction]")
