Attention Phase 5 creators: Wrapping up
The time has come to close Phase 5. I have attempted to email you all with the contact info I have, but they are not all going through. Please contact me with your current contact information so I can work with you to wrap up our contract and make you whole. Thank you.
For Authors and Artists
Information and resources for publishing with us and elsewhere
About Publishing in General
There are plenty of folks with plenty of advice about writing, editing, art, publising, marketing, finding a deal, finding an audience, advertising, etc. Here's an ever-expanding list of some of them that may help you on your journey - be it with Phase 5 or elsewhere.
First up - my take on advertising in 2026 - if you are on a shoestring budget, don't do it. Every platform, medium, and available space is overflowing with ads. To get a glance you are going to be paying a pretty penny, unless you target an audience that's so niche, it's about the size of your high school graduating class. Right now, you can advertise without paying for it by being entertaining or making entertainin or engaging content on any of the availble platforms out there. You can also go consignment with some physical shops local to you, or join a local group - in person. Face to face is about the only way for fans to know you are a legit human these days. And right now, that feels really important to a lot of us. I'm not saying a signing - those can be painful. I'm saying do some community stuff. Do some human stuff.
Next up is an article by Dave Chesson (and team?) at Kindlepreneur about the results of their research on author bios. Read that here.
About Ellipses
In treatment of the widespread author addiction to ellipses, see the following: https://www.grammarbook.com/punctuation/ellipses.asp
About EM Dashes
You may know it as the long dash. As far as I'm concerned, the EM dash has a very limited place in fiction because it breaks the fourth wall and can drop readers right out of immersion. Look at yours closely and ask yourself if a couple of commas or set of parentheses might do the job a little more clearly for the reader. Colons and semicolons are likewise not comfortable in fiction, but if you are deep in the explanation of a complicated idea, or summarized what a character learns in researching, it might work.