Diagram Prize

The United Kingdom may be teetering on the Brexit abyss but you, Diagram Prize voters, have plumped for European unity in the only referendum that really matters.

How does an author turn a viral article into a published book? In the case of writer Gemma Hartley, whose September 2017 Harper's Bazaar article on emotional labor, "Women Aren't Nags-We're Just Fed Up," went viral on publication, it helped that she was prepared. "This was one of the few cases throughout my freelance career when I thought, I could write a whole book on this," she said.

Authors with strong brands enjoy numerous marketing advantages over those whose brands are weaker. For example, authors with strong brands are more likely to earn coveted book reviews and retailer merchandising. The results of such wins then feed into a self-reinforcing cycle that generates more readership, greater visibility, and more sales.  Read more

We put a tremendous amount of stock in endings. The concluding paragraph or a novel, or the final novel in a sequence of a dozen books, can secure an experience in our minds, or taint the hundreds or thousands of pages that came before. The logic is perverse: the longer the series-the more words preceding the last one-the more weight we give to that wrap-up.  Read more