Nathan Bransford | Writing, Book Editing, Publishing

Helping authors achieve their dreams

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Helping authors achieve their dreams.

I'm Nathan Bransford, author, editor, and former literary agent at Curtis Brown Ltd. I'm dedicated to helping authors find their voice, hone their craft, and pursue successful publication.

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Book Editing You Can Trust

I've been in your shoes.

As a published author and former literary agent who has worked with NY Times bestselling authors, I bring a unique perspective to the book editing process, combining insider industry experience with an author's sympathetic ear.

My services include

Manuscript editing & critiques
Query critiques
Social media & marketing consulting
Coaching on navigating the publishing process
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A few authors I've worked with...
Shadowshaper
by Daniel José Older,
a NY Times bestseller
Rock Paper Tiger
by Lisa Brackermann,
one of Amazon's top 100 novels of the year
Try Not To Breathe
by Jennifer Hubbard,
received starred reviews in Publishers Weekly and Kirkus
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Recent Posts

My blog is a free resource for everything you need to know how to write, edit, and publish a book.

Another mass shooting and another and another (This week in books)

I'm not quite ready to return to full blogging in the wake of the recent mass shooting in California (calling it that doesn't even narrow it down), which hit very close to home literally and figuratively. I and my loved ones are okay, but I'm going through that heavy time where I'm feeling a lot of things around people who…

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The worst sentence structure on the planet (This week in books)

This week! Books! David Owen of The New Yorker and I should absolutely go bowling together because he has written an exhaustive screed against front-loaded, somersaulting sentences, which has a surprising history with roots in journalism and misguided "elegant variation." David my man, tell it like it is: The awkwardness is obvious if you imagine hearing one in conversation. No…

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Do you want the reader to understand your story? (page critique)

If you’d like to nominate your own page or query for a public critique, kindly post them here in our discussion forums: Nominate Your First Page for a Critique on the Blog Nominate Your Query for a Critique on the Blog Also, if you’d like to test your editing chops, keep your eye on this area or this area! I’ll post the pages and…

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Infuse a character's desires into their observations

One of the most fundamental principles for writing a novel is that characters need to want something and they need to actively go after that thing. In genre fiction, this is often either self-evident (the character needs to defeat the dragon or solve the crime) or translated into something very concrete. It's fine to simply tell the reader what the…

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Human arbitrarily deemed "royalty" smashes book sale records (This week in books)

This week! Books! A Los Angeles-area expat who, due to the entirely arbitrary circumstances of his birth and heredity, certain portions of society have assented to deem "royalty," and who parlayed the resulting status and wealth into a marriage with a successful American actress, had a book ghostwritten about his life and went on to smash book sales records, selling…

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My Books

Check out my guides to navigating the writing and publishing process!

How to Write a Novel

The most important thing to know about writing a novel is this: you can do it. Here's How

How to Publish a Book

Ready to pursue a book deal with a Big 5 publisher or try self-publishing? Get Started

I'm also the author of the Jacob Wonderbar novels, a space adventure series for middle-grade readers.

Jacob Wonderbar Cosmic Space Kapow Jacob Wonderbar For President Jacob Wonderbar and Interstellar Time
About My Books

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