The Qalm Journal
Clear explanations for authors, founders, and professionals making decisions about writing, editing, publishing, design, and launch.
Featured · Business & Books
Most business owners think of writing a book as a personal milestone, something to be proud of. It can also be a long-lived business asset that gives prospective clients a deeper way to engage with your thinking...
Read the articlePublishing, explained
All articles are written by Ahmed Ali and reviewed against the current public sources cited within each piece.
Self-Publishing
Most of what you have read about the self-publishing versus traditional publishing debate oversimplifies it. One side frames traditional publishing as the only legitimate path. The other frames it as a slow, gatekept system. Neither framing is accurate...
Read articleGhostwriting
Ghostwriting has been part of publishing for as long as publishing has existed. Speechwriters, journalists, and professional writers have helped public figures and subject matter experts put their ideas into print for generations. It is not a shortcut or a compromise...
Read articleWriting
The biggest obstacle for working professionals who want to write a book is not ideas, motivation, or skill. It is time. Most writing advice assumes you have four uninterrupted hours in the morning — most working professionals do not have that...
Read articleEditing
When most authors say their manuscript needs "editing," they mean different things. Some mean fixing grammatical errors. Some mean tightening the prose. Some mean restructuring the entire argument or narrative. These are not the same job...
Read articleSelf-Publishing
Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) is the most widely used self-publishing platform in the world. It allows authors to publish both print and ebook editions of their books and make them available on Amazon without going through a traditional publisher, agent, or distributor...
Read articleDesign
The claim that readers do not judge books by their covers is not accurate. Readers make purchasing decisions in seconds, and the cover is typically the first and most influential input. This is especially true on Amazon, where your cover appears as a small thumbnail alongside dozens of competing titles...
Read articlePublishing
One of the first questions most authors and aspiring authors ask is: how long is this actually going to take? The honest answer is that it depends on the kind of book, the method you use to write it, and how much of the production process you handle yourself versus with professional support...
Read articleWriting
The most common misconception about memoir writing is that it requires a dramatic life. It does not. What it requires is the ability to find the thread in your experience — the question your story is trying to answer — and then shape everything else around that thread...
Read articleMarketing
Most authors spend months focused on writing and producing their book and comparatively little time thinking about what happens after publication. The result is that the book goes live with no strategy behind it, sells a handful of copies to friends and family, and then sits quietly on Amazon for years...
Read articleFree project evaluation
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