The writing life is full of so many twists and turns. Some of them are delightful and some of them are just a touch scary.
As a self-published author, one of the biggest surprises has been the amount of HELP I’ve needed along the way to get things rolling. Fortunately, I’m not on this road alone.
Incredible, smart people have gone before me and have created some amazing tools and resources for writers. These resources have made this journey a loooot easier than if I was having to figure everything out from scratch.
Now, I’d love to share them with you with the hope that they will make your journey a little bit easier as well!
Disclosure: Some of these links are affiliate links. You don’t pay a cent more! But I might make a small percentage off a sale- or a credit towards a subscription.
For Editing: ProWritingAid – $ and Free
ProWritingAid is one of the best editing aids I’ve found. Their spelling, grammar, style, and readability checks help me see how my writing stacks up at a glance. While I have my own opinions on style and grammar (rules were made to be broken after all), the easy-to-use, in-depth reports take me one step closer to having prose that flows.
For Formatting: Reedsy BookEditor – Free
The Reedsy BookEditor tool is a sleek editing and design tool that has made my life heaps easier. It makes layout for ebooks a breeze and you can select from a small variety of paperback layouts as well. If you’re like me and refuse to buy a Mac just to use Vellum and don’t want the extra bloat of Scrivener just to be able to export .epubs, then Reedsy is the way to go starting out.
If you’re ready for the next step up, I recommend Atticus. I haven’t used it myself yet, but it is receiving rave reviews throughout the writing community and it’s definitely on my list of writer goodies I want. It is both a full-fledged writing processor and word tracker along with full formatting capabilities and a wide variety of designs to choose from and more features being constantly added. For what it offers, it is affordable, and you get a lifetime membership- no pesky renewals!
For E-Book Distribution: Draft2Digital: Free
I am so glad that I have found Draft2Digital. Not only is their customer service superb, setting up your book on the site is quick and easy. Having played with several other distribution sites, I can say Draft2Digital’s dashboard is by far one of the easiest to set up and deal with (and that definitely includes Amazon’s which can leave you going “what does THAT button mean?”)
Late in 2021, I was accepted into their physical book beta program, which I’ve decided not to join. It runs on the backbone of Ingram, so to me it makes more sense to go straight to Ingram. However, if you are a more laidback author-type and publishing for pleasure, it could make sense to keep all your puzzle pieces in one place.
D2D also offer free universal book links, through their Books2Read service. What’s cool about their UBLs is that you can create links not just for your books but for any recommended book lists that you would like to offer your readers.
For me, the ease with which I can handle setting up, distributing, and monitoring my books- and the time it saves me- is well worth the small fee D2D takes from my royalties.
People this service would not be a great fit for: Those who have co-authors that they need to split royalties with. For you, I would suggest PublishDrive. Also, if you are at the stage in your author journey where you can afford a PA/VA to manage your book set up and monitoring, then reclaiming the fees from a service like this by directly uploading might be worth it. You would need to do the math to see how that works out for you. For me, my time is better spent on getting a backlist created right now than worrying about the (minuscule) royalties I am paying a distribution service.
Keywords & Book Categories Tool: Publisher Rocket – $
Having gotten my start “back in the day” in copywriting and SEO research, I know how important it is for items and products to be categorized correctly. Every platform that your book goes on essentially operates as a miniature search engine. While they’re all different, they have options for selecting your main book categories and keywords, beginning with the big one: Amazon. So for this tool I was DELIGHTED to shell out some cash. Because doing the category and keyword research the longhand way is a pain and can take daaaays. If you’ve got the dollars, and you want to make sure your book is in the right lists and showing up in the right searches, this is the one tool that is worth its “weight.”
Graphic Design & Stock Photos: Canva – Free and $
I’ll admit: I’m a HUGE fan of Canva. Over the last few years, this “nifty” little drag and drop design editor has really upped its game. For someone who always struggled to learn Adobe products, it’s intuitive to use, has a plethora of templates and effects (as well as blank canvases), and the paid version comes with soooo many stock photos and extra bells and whistles that I haven’t needed to look elsewhere for pics.
An added bonus is that I can upload and save my brand styles including logos, fonts, and colors for a seamless look. The cost for what I get is minimal. And authors will be happy to know that their newest features include cover designs and smart book-mock-ups.
Email Newsletter: Mailerlite- $ and Free
Besides, you know, having a book, keeping in touch with your readers is probably the most important thing you can do. But if your email service provider is difficult to use or stuffed full of features you don’t need, it can make it intimidating to send out a simple newsletter.
I recently made the jump from Mailchimp to Mailerlite. While I love Mailchimp, I’ve enjoyed the clean interface and easy-to-use newsletter builder of Mailerlite. The automations are simple to set up with a visual builder. It’s free up to 1k users (although you have to upgrade to use a few of its super-premium features like click maps.) For most authors who send a newsletter monthly or weekly, and need to integrate a website and/or simple e-commerce store, I see Mailerlite being a perfect fit.
Social Media Post Scheduling: Later – $ and Free
When it comes to social media scheduling, it’s hard to beat Later. I’m currently using the free version of the app and except for the promo campaign for my book launch, I’ve found it to have aaaalmost all the features I want in a hard hitting social media tool.
It has a gorgeous visual planner, you can save captions and media, set up linkin.bio, and post to FB, IG, Twitter, and Pinterest. Paid versions include the ability to post videos, Stories, and have a TON of analytics, so it’s definitely something I plan to upgrade to.
Knowing Your Numbers:
Book Report (for Amazon-Exclusive authors) – Free if you make under $1k/mo
BookTrackr (for wide authors) – $
Pulling your sales data can be a pain (especially when you’re a wide author.) Having a handy data cruncher do it for you will save hours of time. Both of these options are simple to use and free or pretty low-cost.
Launch Planning: The Book Launch Planner – $
Probably one of the biggest hurdles for me in my writing journey so far has been figuring just HOW to get my book out in the world. The sheer number of tasks it takes to get it available for my readers can be overwhelming when I just want to write.
However, writer Mandi Lynn has faced this challenge herself and created the perfect tool to help overcome this. The Book Launch Planner gives a succinct list of the tasks you need to accomplish along with a tidy little planner to… plan… out when you will do them.
Task Management: Asana – Free & $
I call Asana my second brain. Seriously. I use the projects in it to organize ideas and save research for future books, stories, and poems as well as all the tasks that come with juggling the marketing and business side of things. I use it not only for my writing life but for personal tasks as well. (As my husband can tell you, as soon as I walk out of the room, I forget what I said I was going to do, so I need the help remembering.)
There are many things that I love about Asana but for me there are three big selling points.
Asana’s app can be used online, on your computer, and on your phone. I frequently save tasks to the app on my phone and enjoy having everything synced instantly. Everywhere. No more wondering which app, notes folder, or notebook I scribbled it in. It’s not as bulky or confusing as Evernote, so for me it works perfectly.
Another thing I love is being able to toggle between a list view and a calendar view of all my tasks. This lets me focus on just the tasks for one day. Or if I’m in project planning mode or need to see, say, all the social media posts or blog posts that need to be scheduled for the month, I can quickly spot them with the handy color-coding that is built in as well.
There is a variety of project layouts as well in Asana, so there is a lot of flexibility in setting up projects. From lists, to tiles, to calendars, and even Ghant charts, you can find the setup that works for you.
Asana has a lot of other features that I don’t currently use in the free version I have. But knowing that when the time comes to bring on team members to help me, that Asana can easily scale up with me is reassuring. I won’t have to recreate the wheel to manage tasks for my team
Emotive Writing: The Emotion Thesaurus – $
If you’re anything like me, it’s easy to fall into an old groove while writing. And while grooves are comfortable, they can make for repetitive reading. So, whenever I find my characters pacing, stomping, or crossing their arms too much- I break out both The Emotion Thesaurus and The Emotional Wounds Thesaurus to jar me out of my comfort zone. And add a little zing to my writing!
Word Count Tracker: WriteTrack – Free (donations encouraged)
How do I love WriteTrack? Let me count the ways! First, it’s not just your ordinary word count tracker. You can simply track your word count, but you’d be wasting its abilities. With WriteTrack you have the ability to set a total word count goal, how long you want to take to write it, and then the magic happens.
Write Track gives you a word count daily goal that you can adjust EACH DAY as you know whether you will have time to write that day or not. Don’t like writing on Sundays? Set your “weight” to 0 and it will adjust your word count goals on all other days while keeping you on track to finish on time. Missed a day because of a doctor’s appointment? No problem!
Gone are the days of doubling up. It adds a small number of words over the whole of your project, avoiding the dreaded feeling of overwhelm. Also, for you NanoWrimo lovers – you can sync WriteTrack to your Nano account and not have to post twice!