Founded in 2012, they primarily publish series through Kindle Unlimited, although they have print editions available of some of their work. They were founded by the bestselling romance author Kathryn Le Veque, as primarily a self-publishing operation initially, but they branched out, years ago now. They still publish a lot of Kathryn Le Veque’s books. The editorial team involves a lot more people now, and you can learn more about them here.

Their covers are good and genre appropriate. An author who was published by them in 2022, posted about their experience with Dragonblade, under the user name Lil and it seems to be a mostly positive. You can learn more about them. “Lil” said that Dragonblade helped promote the work more than most small presses but they did contribute.

Dragonblade contracts are 7 years long, and are apparently pretty standard with above average royalty rates, that vary on the length of the book (longer books get a better rate).

Do not submit to them unless you feel like your work is a good fit for their existing catalog. You can get a good feel for that catalog here.

They ask that all manuscripts be between 40,000 and 120,000 words,  Any explicit text must be between consenting adults, and they are not interested in manuscripts that include rape, illegal or degrading scenes. Nothing with bestiality, pedophilia, enslavement, or incest should be submitted to them. They also specify that if your book has excessive sex/heat, to please submit it to the Dragonblade Flame line.

You can learn more about submitting work to them here.

Emily Harstone is the author of many popular books, including The Authors Publish Guide to Manuscript Submissions, Submit, Publish, Repeat, and The 2023 Guide to Manuscript Publishers. She regularly teaches three acclaimed courses on writing and publishing at The Writer’s Workshop at Authors Publish. You can follow her on Facebook here.

Their website is well designed, easy to use, and all pieces are accompanied by appropriate images. They publish highly specific and engaging work, and I really encourage you to spend time with their most recent issue in order to figure out if one of your pieces is the right fit for them, because it has to fit the site as a whole as well as the theme of this month’s issue. You can see the most recent issue here.

They are currently reading for Issue 9 which is focused on the theme of Hometown. They are “looking for writing about film, TV, and pop culture related to your hometown—however you may define it. These could be films shot or set in your town, state/province, or country. Or maybe it’s a town you’ve always identified with, an invented hometown, or a hometown hero.”

The word count for features is 1,000 words, and the max for film diaries is 300 words. They offer an honorarium, but just for certain categories. They offer 30 CAD for features and 20 CAD for film diaries. They close to submissions for this theme on December 31st, 2023. They are always open to newsletter submissions. All submissions must be made via email.

Their submission guidelines are extremely helpful in part because they give you of at least one example of what they are seeking in terms of every category and genre that they publish.  You can learn more here, but you have to scroll through the images on the left before you can get past the about page to the guidelines.

They are not interested in the following

– Straight up reviews
– Excessive summary
– Academic or overly-formal tone
– Flat-out pans (if something is bad, tell us why that’s interesting!)
– Pre-1970s media
– Clickbait/hot takes

Please read and carefully follow the guidelines before submitting.

Emily Harstone is the author of many popular books, including The Authors Publish Guide to Manuscript Submissions, Submit, Publish, Repeat, and The 2023 Guide to Manuscript Publishers. She regularly teaches three acclaimed courses on writing and publishing at The Writer’s Workshop at Authors Publish. You can follow her on Facebook here.

We’re all busy. From balancing our jobs, families and social calendars, it can be hard to justify using our hard-earned free time to write when there’s hundreds of other things we could spend that energy on.

As you can imagine, the problem with that approach is that if we’re not actively making the time to sit and work on our draft or revisions — it’s not getting done.

While the “easy” answer to this conundrum is just: write, we all know it’s not always that simple. That’s why I want to approach some of the main, underlying reasons that keep us from sitting down to write and how we can make more room for our writing process to flourish.

Making Writing a Priority

Before we even dig into practical strategies, I want to give you permission to make your writing a priority. Too often we minimize how important writing is in our lives by putting it at the end of our to-do list, but by treating our writing as something that can constantly be rescheduled or something “we’ll get around to” we’re really just telling ourselves that it’s not a priority.

It’s okay to put your writing ahead of other obligations. Now, I’m not saying that you should let everything fall to the wayside in favor of your writing, but you should give yourself a chance to invest in your creativity and craft. You’ll know best what writing prioritization will look like in your life, perhaps it means waking up a little bit earlier or turning down social invitations with friends or family to make this time for you.

By first giving ourselves permission to choose our writing and actively giving that time the weight it deserves, it makes it easier for you to validate scheduling writing into your busy life.

Creating a Sustainable Writing Routine

One of the biggest secrets of carving out time to write is by being realistic with our schedules and determining how much time we can actually give to our writing. Is it realistic for you to wake up and write first thing as part of your morning routine? Can you spend 10 to 20 minutes on your lunch break or between appointments to type a scene out on your phone?

By asking how much time we can actually give a day or a week to our writing, we can then start to build a sustainable writing routine around those times. Maybe writing a little every day doesn’t work for you, but you have some gaps in your evenings a few times a week that you can squeeze some words out. It doesn’t have to be hours if that isn’t feasible for you, and those 10-minute sprints definitely add up!

For some, one way to create a routine around your writing is to tie the act to a physical gesture. For example, sitting at your desk at the same time each day after you make your first cup of tea or coffee. This physical gesture also helps puts your brain in the right headspace for writing. As it becomes muscle memory, it’s also rewiring your mind to say, “This is my writing time.” Other gestures could include lighting your favorite candle, turning on your writing playlist, or reading the last page you wrote to immerse yourself back into your story.

If you’re someone who doesn’t find building a “writing mood” to be particularly helpful, there is still a lot to be gained from creating a writing habit.

Keeping Up the Motivation to Write

Even with giving ourselves permission to prioritize our writing and building a writing routine, there are going to be days when you won’t want to show up for your work. That’s totally understandable! Taking time away from our writing can be lucrative, but often it’s used as a way to avoid our manuscripts. By finding ways to keep up your motivation, you’re more likely to stick with  your writing schedule.

Start by setting yourself up for success — writing is a challenge on its own, and sometimes you need to find a way to ease yourself into your writing time. By outlining scenes ahead of writing them or leaving notes to yourself about what you want to tackle the following day will give you a clear path to hit the ground running each day.

It’s also important to reward yourself! Positive reinforcement can be a huge boost to keep us engaged and focused. Perhaps a skittle for every 100 words? Taking a bubble bath at the end of a writing session or stroll in the neighborhood? Whatever it is, it should be something you can look forward to.

I use stickers to mark every writing session in my bullet journal as my treat for writing — but it also doubles as a collage of all my progress, so I can see how far I’ve come and how much work I’ve actually done on my draft outside of word count. The reward shouldn’t be anything too big, as you want to repeat them throughout the writing process, and you can save that for larger milestones.

By finding more ways to realistically encourage yourself to write, the more likely you are to actually follow through on your writing goals!

Bio: Aliya Bree Hall is a writer and occasional journalist based in Portland, Oregon. She writes romance and horror that predominantly features dramatic sapphics. Hall is also the author of the Author Publish books, “Now Comes The Hard Part: An Authors Publish Introduction to Marketing Your Book” and “How to Revise for Publication,” as well as the short story, “The Forest’s Call,” published in the Quill & Crow Publishing anthology, Bleak Midwinter I: The Darkest Night.

Subplots can be daunting at any stage of the writing process. Drafting is hard enough without the complexities of B and C stories, and self-editing can be frustrating when it comes to weaving those stories into your main plot. It’s all too easy to lose your balance and end up either rushing through your main plot, spending far too much time on an arc that doesn’t need half so much detail, or both. Mastering subplots is the key to maintaining consistent pacing and ensuring that your story doesn’t feel flat in places and overstuffed in others.

Thankfully, this is easier than it seems while you’re stuck in the weeds. It’s a simple matter of choosing the right subplots and touching on them at the right times — with careful planning, your different ideas and themes will start to flow together naturally. At the end of the process, you’ll end up with a more robust draft that enhances your main story, rather than distracting from it.

With all of this in mind, let’s take a look at the best ways to write effective subplots.

Choose subplots that connect to your main story.

The best subplots are ones that inform or complicate the core story you’re telling, whether that’s your plot, your protagonist’s character arc, or your theme. Ideally, you want subplots that feel interconnected to the point that events and/or information from your subplot affect events from your main plot, and vice versa. From a craft perspective, this results in a more nuanced, multi-layered story with stronger characters and a more focused central message. From a drafting perspective, this makes for a much easier time braiding your storylines together and keeping your pacing in check.

To identify these subplots, begin by looking for the loose ends that already exist in your story. There’s a good chance that these little details pop up more than once over the course of your plot (or could easily be written in, since it’s information you’ve already set up). This gives you a few “touchpoints” where you can start connecting your subplot to your main plot without having to add something new from scratch.

Not every loose end has to become a subplot, but they’re a great jumping off point when you’re looking for options. Maybe your protagonist mentions offhandedly that they have a poor relationship with their family — a subplot where they mend their broken bridges could grant them the self-reflection skills they need to complete their apotheosis. Maybe they find an unimportant side character attractive — a romance subplot could flesh out both characters and add some tension to slower “filler” scenes. Even something as basic as wanting to learn a new language could eventually result in them learning some information that’s crucial to the main plot! Finding creative ways to incorporate throwaway details can both tighten up and bolster your story in a way that makes it seem like you were doing it on purpose all along.

Introduce your subplots early on.

Because subplots aren’t meant to be the major focus of your story, it’s important to introduce them at a point that won’t distract from your core plot. Even if the payoff doesn’t come until closer to the end of the story, introducing new concepts and plot lines too late in the game risks throwing off your pacing and overwhelming readers with information while they’re still trying to process your major story beats.

It’s best to lay the groundwork for your subplots in Act 1, then begin to incorporate them at the start of Act 2. This gives you a chance to ease readers into your various story threads and ensure things flow naturally from start to finish. Let’s go with the above example in which the protagonist has a poor relationship with their family. You could introduce this complication in Act 1 by having the protagonist mention that they don’t speak to their parents outside of cursory holiday calls or emergencies, or start a scene with them storming out of an argument in favor of doing more plot-related activities. Then, near the beginning of Act 2, you could kick off the subplot by having a sibling reach out with an invitation to family dinner in the hopes of patching things up. This gives readers the background they need to understand that family is a source of tension for the protagonist, and that any scenes that feature their family moving forward are going to be significant to the protagonist’s development in some way, even if it’s not immediately connected to the main plot.

There are a number of ways you can proceed from there, but introducing these concepts early gives you plenty of time to build on the subplot and space out its significant beats without making it feel rushed or pulling too much attention from your story.

Include enough major beats per subplot.

Once you’ve introduced your subplots, it’s time to start incorporating them into the greater fabric of your story. Although they can make small appearances throughout your story, there should be a few points at which the focus pulls away from the main plot and centers on a scene dedicated entirely to the subplot in question. A good rule of thumb is planning out three major beats per subplot and leaving any minor details to side mentions in your more plot-relevant scenes.

These beats include the initial Act 2 introduction described above, a second event that occurs later in Act 2 and contributes to the rising tension of the story, and a resolution that takes place near the climax of the story. This resolution can occur in either Act 2 or 3, depending on the progression of your main plot, but should serve as the final, necessary complication that ultimately connects the subplot to your protagonist’s emotional or external arc. Between these beats are bridging details that happen in the background and set up context readers will need for the next touchpoint, with the subplot ultimately coming to a close with a final “check-in” during the closing scenes to let readers know how things have resolved for the protagonist.

Let’s return one last time to the protagonist struggling with their family. The introductory beat involves a family dinner in which the sibling reveals that they’re having a baby and hope to reconcile the family before it arrives. The protagonist spends a few scenes attempting to communicate with their parents to varying levels of success until later on in Act 2, when the family gets together again for the sibling’s baby shower. Minor offenses cause tempers to rise and ultimately boil over in a fight, and the protagonist resolves to be there for their sibling, but never speak to their parents again. This resentment follows them through the last few scenes of Act 2 and ultimately contributes to a major mistake leading into Act 3. The protagonist is miserable and left blaming themselves until their sibling calls to inform them that the baby’s coming. They spend some tense hours at the hospital, but holding the new arrival restores their hope and optimism. They sit down for a serious and honest conversation with their parents, and return to the main plot with the peace of mind and resolve needed to solve their problem. The story ends with the whole family welcoming the baby home, and everyone dedicated to finding common ground.

By spacing out each of these beats and adding the bridging details between, the subplot has plenty of room to breathe and reach a natural and well-timed conclusion right when the protagonist needs it most.

Wrap everything up at the end.

We’re back to talking about loose ends—as in, you shouldn’t leave any behind. Any threads that don’t become subplots should be neatly clipped to avoid your story getting frayed or tangled, and any that you’ve decided to expand should come to a satisfying conclusion by the end of the story. Why do all that work just to trip at the finish line, right?

Now, this isn’t to say that you can’t have vague endings or cliffhangers—those can be extremely welcome, but you should make sure you’re doing them properly and with intention. Subplots that are intentionally left unresolved should still come to a close at a point that makes sense. A character disappearing from the narrative raises all sorts of interesting questions, but only if their last known appearance involved some kind of trigger, like an emotionally-charged fight or a near-death experience they managed to escape. Otherwise, it will seem as though they had no motivation to vanish, and readers will be left wondering if you simply forgot about them. Just make sure that even when your conclusions aren’t complete, they’re at least understandable.

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By following these tips, you should end up with a story that has much more room to breathe and holds enough space for both the plot and the protagonist’s personal development. Readers are left with an emotionally compelling journey that feels neatly paced and comes together in a cohesive and well-timed conclusion. While there’s a good chance you’ll need to continue to tweak and trim details during revision and self-editing, writing effective subplots results in a stronger and more effective story as a whole.

Bio: Ley Taylor Johnson is a freelance fiction editor and writing coach. Having spent all their life in the rainy PNW, they know the value of spending time inside with a good book, and have channeled their passion for storytelling into a career helping indie authors bring their stories to life. Check out their website for more information, and their Instagram for more general writing geekery.