***Edit*** April 2024

Wow! It’s been a DECADE since I started my publishing journey. And it’s been a really long time since blogging regularly was a part of my publishing ecosystem. Nowadays I focus all my time on raising my kids and getting my next book written, but I’m still really proud of the posts and resources I published a decade ago. I hope the resources below are useful for you, whether you are just investigating self publishing as a possible endeavor, or if you are deep in the trenches of writing and publishing. Do keep in mind that some of these links are almost a decade old. I do not maintain this page, just add useful things occasionally, so if a link doesn’t work I do apologize, you might try googling the title of the thing you are looking for instead.

***Edit*** 06/04/2020

A fan recently contacted me, thanking me for this list of resources on this old blog post. Thinking about the many MANY things I have learned in the past six years, I decided to update this list with some additional resources and websites I’ve found useful in my career. I hope they are useful to you too!

(Apparently I was really tired when I wrote this post in 2014, I’ll just leave this here, since it’s a good lesson in giving yourself grace in the natural ups and downs of life!)

So this week I don’t feel like I have the energy to write a blog post. You know those days where you just feel ‘blah’ and have a hard time drumming up the drive to do anything? Yep, one of those days. It’s a perfectly normal, and human, thing to go through. Our bodies, minds, and spirits work in waves, ups and downs, not a straight line (of course, I’ve also been re-reading the whole 7-book Harry Potter series, which has been just a tad distracting *innocent look*).

So instead of forcing myself to write a post that would be less than heartfelt and probably bore you anyway, I wanted to share some resources I’ve been using in writing my book. Whether you’re writing essays for school, blogs for pleasure/work, or novels for your career, check out these useful links and the tools they provide.

If there are any websites or resources you use in your writing, please share them in the comments below! And of course, don’t forget to read all the way to the bottom, where Gizmo awaits in all her endearing cuteness to greet you. Next week I’ll be blogging about the amazing Word and Words writing conference David and I are attending this weekend, so stay tuned!

Editing Resources (Updated Jan 2022):

For anyone interested to know, these are the programs I use in my own professional writing:

Writing/editing – I use Scrivener exclusively to write all my first drafts, though I do sometimes use Google Docs when working on short stories because of the convenience of being able to work on it from multiple computers through the cloud. I highly recommend Scrivener to anyone who wants to write seriously. The only drawback is that there windows version isn’t as good as the mac version (I use a mac). Now, once I move onto the editing stage, I generally copy and paste my work into Google Docs to a) make use of its spelling/grammar checker which is better than Scrivener’s, and b) to make it easier to share with people such as my editor and beta readers. I hire a professional editor to do all my editing once I’ve cleaned up the manuscript, and I also use beta readers and ARC readers to help with the editing process.

Formatting – I hired someone to format my books for my first couple, but since then I’ve switched to using Vellum to format and export my books as ebooks, it’s easy to learn how to use and gives you a lot of flexibility not waiting on someone else to do something for you.

Cover Art – I hire professionals who are experts at cover design in the genre I’m writing in, but if I need to do any graphic design work for ads or short story projects, I use Photoshop. There is a learning curve, but there are tons of tutorials on youtube to learn things and once you can use it, it’s very useful. Gimp is a free program that does a lot of the same things, but is more clunky. A very easy online program that has a free and a paid version is Canva. I use it in a pinch for whipping together marketing images if I don’t want to use Photoshop.

Publishing – I publish mostly through Amazon’s free KDP platform, though I use Draft2Digital and Publish Drive to distribute to other platforms (like Barns and Noble, iBooks, etc). I use Ingramspark for expanded paperback distribution (instead of Amazon) so that bookstores and libraries can order my books as well.

Here is a list of random websites, articles, and resources that I’ve found useful over the years:

General resource for anyone interested in writing in any form: if you’re just getting started, check this link out for sure. I can’t take credit for finding it, a fan and aspiring writer sent it to me (thanks Marisa!). It provides a great overview of writing in general, not just as an author but in any career, with many links to helpful resources.

https://couponfollow.com/research/money-saving-guide-authors-writers/ 

Apps and developing technology to help writing

This site has a useful list of apps both tried and true and some newer ones I’ve never heard of. I’m not much one to use apps myself, it’s weird as a millennial to think of myself as “old school” *laughs* but I guess that’s where we are now (as evidenced by the fact that a, ahem, younger-than-me aspiring writer was the one who brought it to my attention, thank you Lauren for sharing what you found!) If you are an app guru or just love using various computer programs to help with the brainstorming, writing, and editing process, some of these resources might be helpful for you!

https://www.qualtrics.com/blog/online-tools-for-writers/

Online spell/grammar checkers. The first one is my favorite, but check out all three to see which one works best for you. A warning: these won’t catch everything, but they certainly help.

https://languagetool.org/
http://spellcheckplus.com/
http://proofread.grammarbase.com/

A voice to text reader to use when listening to your writing out loud to catch editing mistakes: https://ttsreader.com/ or https://www.naturalreaders.com/

Websites of giants in the indie publishing scene who have lots of free (as well as paid) resources for indie writers: https://www.thecreativepenn.com/, https://selfpublishingformula.com/ (I’ve personally bought and gone through Mark Dawson’s SPF 101 and Ads for Authors courses and would recommend both of them, however you don’t need to spend a cent if you don’t have it, he has a ton of other free resources that will carry you a long way. I highly recommend listening to his podcast regularly to keep your finger on the pulse of the indie publishing world).

I also HAVE to mention the 20Booksto50K Facebook group. Even if you don’t have a Facebook account, if you are an aspiring or current writer it would be worth it to get on Facebook JUST for this group. It is a community of tens of thousands of aspiring and successful indie and traditional authors (mostly indie though) pooling their experience and knowledge to help each other. The motto over there is “A rising tide raises all boats.” It’s all about using the free resources and advice to educate yourself and advance your own career. I highly recommend ANY writer or aspiring writer to go join the group right now (yes, right now!) and read their welcome/getting started posts that have a wealth of info that most people would pay hundreds of dollars to learn. There is no subscription fee, no requirements to join (besides following the group rules and not being a jerk to others), and they don’t make a cent off of anything going on there. I’ve never met a more wonderful group of helpful, knowledgable, kind, and supportive people anywhere! It is headed by Craig Martell and Michael Anderle, two great guys I’ve met in person and who have contributed so much to the author community over the years (look up their videos on YouTube if you want extra goodies, they have lots of great advice!)

Useful random name generator to help with ideas for names: http://www.behindthename.com/random/random.php?number=1&gender=m&surname=&nodiminutives=yes&all=yes

Blog post about editing software, check it out!

Detailed walk-through and example of how to properly format a short story/article manuscript for submission, either as a paper ms or electronically:

http://www.shunn.net/format/story.html

Really useful website full of resources for writers, by writers. Definitely bookmark this one: http://writershelpingwriters.net/writing-tools/

Some writing resources for screenplay/script writing – https://www.theaterseatstore.com/blog/writing-for-theater-film

Useful blog post about word counts by genre and what to aim for when writing: http://worddreams.wordpress.com/2010/12/08/word-count-by-genre/

A random list of useful articles about writing:
–https://mythcreants.com/blog/five-steps-to-a-great-plot-twist/?utm_source=newsletter
–http://www.betternovelproject.com/blog/series-outline/
–https://lisavoisin.wordpress.com/2012/10/05/fiction-friday-8-things-writers-forget-when-writing-fight-scenes/
–https://www.writersdigest.com/publishing-faqs/10-questions-writers-must-ask-before-quitting-their-day-job
–https://www.writersdigest.com/getting-published/important-writing-lessons-from-first-time-novelists

Don’t forget to check out some of my previous posts about resources for writers, including:

how to set up your own blog
writer fellowships and grants
publishing short stories
professional development
social networking
authorpreneurship/self publishing/online publishing resources