Don't use metaphors in fantasy; your readers will take them literally. Or they may take them figuratively - but if so, they'll also take your magics and transformations figuratively. Either way, you're in trouble.

Sometimes writers say true things about the overall nature of publicity, promotion, and the publishing industry; but alas, not always.

Writers say many true things about their own experiences with publicity and promotion.

There's a rule for what makes good fantasy work, and it's as strange as any riddle ever posed in a fairy tale: In fantasy, you can do anything; and therefore, the one thing you must not do is 'just anything.' Why? Because in a story where anything can happen and anything can be true, nothing matters. You have no reason to care what happens. It's all arbitrary, and arbitrary isn't interesting.

So many problems are solved simply by knowing enough verbs.

Just because you’re on their side doesn’t mean they’re on your side.

If you ask 20 different readers why they read, they will all be right.