[Edward Austin]

Mr. Korman,

Hi! My name is Edward, and I've been a fan of your books for years, especially the Masterminds series, Restart, Unplugged, and Ungifted. Your writing and publishing at such a young age inspired me to publish my own book, which after working at it for a few years, I finally published as of December of 2024, and I wanted to thank you and wondered if you might be interested in reading it! It's called the Orb of Sovereignty and I will include a link below. Thank you for inspiring me and so many others with your work.

Amazon.com: The Orb of Sovereignty (The Dragonscale Trilogy Book 1) eBook : Austin, Edward: Kindle Store

Sincerely,

Edward Austin

Conhratulations, Edward! I really do know what that first one feels like, even though it was more than 45 years ago for me! I promise to have a look ASAP -- right now I'm writing to a deadline and juggling 2 kids in college, one about to graduate, and one freezing in the snowbelt.

Thanks for your support for my work, and very best of luck with THE ORB OF SOVEREIGNTY! And the trilogy, right?

                                             Regards,                                                                        -----Gordon Korman-----

[Emma Ungureanu]

Gordon Korman, 

I am such a big fan of your books especially Ungifted, The superteacherproject and Faker. Anyways though, I have written three books. sadly, I still need to edit them before I publish. Once I publish I probably want to write more books since I love to do so. Hopefully I write many more before I become an adult and before I have another job. Any tips on writing?

Sincerely, 

Emma. 

Hi,,Emma,

I'm glad to hear that you are so dedicated to your writing. Have you ever sent anything to a publisher to see if you might be able to sell it? I have never self-published any of my work, so I'm not familiar with the process.

Tips: edit as though you were a stranger reading the manuscript for the first time. Be ruthless. And keep writing -- stories, books, diaries, even shopping lists! Everything you write makes you more familiar with the use of language. And I can't stress this enough: PLANNING is everything. Plan your story before you start to write. If you plan well, you're always writing toward something, never losing your thoughts, or getting out of character. Planning is the big secret.

Good luck! I hope to be writing you a fan letter one day!                                   -----Gordon Korman-----

[Marco Agustin]

Hi Gordon, 

im making a book of my own, in the horror/action genre. its sort of a mix of the two with a bit of thriller. its name is locked in, and its going to be a trilogy. im also making a sport based book called blind hitter after i finish, and i could use some tips on how to write, edit, and publish. heres a chapter if your interested! please respond, im a big fan of alot of your books, and i wish you could give me some tips. especially on publishing and editing! also please tell me what font you use and which size your words are! Ex: size 12 or 13 or something. Thanks!

 

sincerely, Marco

 

 

 

 

 

 

_{Jake stared as The monster swung its head back and forth, smashing into the walls. everything was crashing down. and then CRACK! something burst, a pipe Jake guessed, although he didn’t think these monsters were advanced enough to make pipes when they were still using spears. A black liquid started flowing out, and all of the things at the bottom of the monster started sizzling like they were burning. Jake didn’t want to be part of that. he started climbing the rocks, he was going to die anyways. he might as well try to get out instead of standing there. psst. “Up here,” said a voice. Jake looked up a dangling hand was there, reaching out at Jake. there wasn’t any better options, though. that stuff was rising faster than he could climb, and soon he would be in it if he didn’t manage to climb quicker. He reached out to the hand and grabbed on. The hand gave one quick squeeze to make sure he was there, and then it started pulling him up, surprisingly fast. in just a couple of seconds, Jake was already out of the huge crater, and he was on the desert sand again. he looked up, and saw a sentinel waving at him.}

_{“Thought you might need some help getting up from there.” he said, flashing a crooked smile at him.}

_{“Your not going to try and kill me?” Jake asked, unsure if he should trust this thing or not.}

_{“Of course not! I don’t kill things. the names hands by the way. whats yours?” he said, but unlike the other monsters hand said it in a friendly tone. one that made jaake want to trust hims so badly, yet he couldn’t.}

_{“Jake” he said, standing up. they reached out to shake hands, but then the earth shook, and they all fell to the floor.}

_{“What did you do?” asked hands, staring at Jake, with a weird look on his face. Jake peered over into the whole. The monster was gone, and bubbles were in the liquid now.}

_{“There was a monster…” Jake started, but then the ground shook again. There was something under them. “Why are you even here?” Jake asked hands.}

_{“I was asked to scout out the area because of what happened when you were down there, since I’m pretty fast, and useless at combat.” Rumble. Jake looked at the palace. There was a huge wave of sentinels coming towards them. hands must have seen the look of horror on Jakes face, because he said, “Don’t worry. they wont come after you. rules are they have to kill the bigger threat first, and you’re not much of a threat right now. THAT thing is.” he said, pointing behind him. Jake turned around, just to see the big monster pulling itself up the rock. the liquid had soaked into all of the cracks, and formed a sort of skin over all the bones and meat. Jake was going to die. the monster opened its huge gaping mouth and-
“GET DOWN!” roared hands, wrapping his arms around Jake and launching him away. A huge purple laser blast came from the monster’s mouth, scorching all of the sand, and barely missing him and hands. The army was still far away. Jake would never be able to defeat this with just hands by his side. He needed to hide. but this was a desert, no trees, cities or even buildings within a mile.}

_{“I know what you’re thinking. but we still have a chance. we just have to knock this thing down.” he reached out his hand at Jake. “Or die trying.” Jake took his hand and stood up. hands had a point. might as well die doing something than doing nothing. Jake looked at hands.
“Alright. whats our plan then?”}

_{“I assumed you would know honestly.” said hands.}

_{“Really? so we don’t have any plan. guess were going to have to wing it.” Hands started laughing for apparently no reason.}

_{“Haven’t heard that joke before! the Nezoks usually die when they’re learning to fly, so theyre one of the weakest tribes.” he said, like this was something everybody knew.}

_{“Whatever let’s go” Jake said. This guy was a bit too cheerful for being in the middle of a war. “The army will probably arrive in a couple minutes. we just have to stall it until then, so that’s our plan.” Jake said. it wasn’t really much of a plan, but it was better than nothing. hands launched his hands outward. They seemed to go on infinitely. Jake hadn’t even thought about that. how had hands reached down there to get him, when he was all the way at the top? answer: stretchy hands. what an ironic name. hands threw himself full force at the leg of the monster. It looked like a dog with spikes and no eyes, which was weird, considering everything else here looked pretty humanoid. The spikes on the top of his head jammed into the leg, but it didn’t even flinch. it just stomped its leg, sending out a cloud of sand and dust, and hands fell to the floor, his arms winding back towards him. with a SNAP! They went back in place, as if his bones got separated in the process. Jake shuddered.}

_{“So what do I do?” Jake asked, even though he didn’t want to do anything. he wasn’t strong. a single flick from that things toe would probably be enough to blow him into smithereens.}

_{“No need. The army is here.” said hands. Jake turned around. hands was right, the army had arrived, wielding their spears, swords, maces, and things. they readied their weapons and- FOOM! a laser from the monster’s mouth blasted out, slicing right through half the soldiers.}

_{“HE CAME BACK!”}

_{“I KNEW THEY WERENT DEAD!”}

_{“SLYBACK WILL KILL US ALL!”}

_{“THEY LIED TO US!”}

_{all of the voices started yelling at once, but the one-word Jake heard the most was Slyback. He assumed that was the monsters name, but what was up with all the screaming? the soldiers started turning around and running back to the palace.}

_{“Wait! come back! we need you!” called hands, but it was useless. they wouldn’t listen. whatever that thing was, it was enough to destroy the most powerful tribe in this whole continent, and Jake had a feeling it would be enough to destroy his world too.}

Hi, Marco,

Thanks for posting. Welcome to the world of bookwriting!

I've had to make it my policy not to read other people's work -- I haven't got the time, and I think it's unfair for me to judge someone else's writing style. But I've read what you sent me in such tiny print. It's shaping up to be an exciting story -- but it needs a editor, and badly! And editors will stop readng anything with spelling and grammatical errors.

You're asking about publishing. Here is my routine. I write my story, read it over a gazillion times to polish it up and correct typos, and send it to my publisher (I have 3). They do the editing, make suggestions if they want any changes. Then they pay me an advance payment for it ( the rest of the payments are based on sales of the book.) I have never self-published or paid anyone to print my books. So I'm not familiar with self-publishing at all.

Editing? My advice is to find someone you trust -- an aunt, a teacher, Mom, big brother/sister, etc -- and give it to him/her to read and present you with an HONEST opinion.

I haven't got the slightest idea what font I use. I work on a tiny Apple computer, and I like it a lot.  

My advice would be to finish your book, and work on making it perfect, no matter how many times you have to read through it and no matter how long it takes. Writing is super-fun, but editing is WORK!

Good luck, Marco!                                                                                               -----Gordon Korman-----

[Marco Agustin]

Thank you!

[Marco Agustin]

Hi gordon, 

while writing my story, i came up with a couple more questions for you. so here they are: how do you make your chapters like 4-8 pages long? i find it difficult to enlarge my chapters, and i could really use some help with that. also, what font size do you use? i would really like to make my font size bigger. Thank you!

-Marco

Marco, your manuscript has nothing to do with the font size your book is published in. Use any font size you like while you''re writing -- if you're working on a computer, the  computer should allow you to enlarge it.

Your chapter has to be planned so that it tells the part of the story that you choose for that chapter. Some of my chapters are 4 pages long, and some are as long as 11 or 12 pages. It depends entirely on what you say in the chapter, and no one knows that but you -- it's your story.

I think you need to relax a little -- the work can be stressful, especially when youre worried that it isn't going well.        --GK--