Alliance of Independent Authors (ALLi)
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The Alliance of Independent Authors (ALLi) is the professional association for authors who self-publish. Rapidly growing, this global, nonprofit organisation brings together the world’s best indie authors, advisors and services, offering offering contacts and campaigns, education and collaboration — together with trusted guidance on how to self-publish well. ALLi widely champions the interests of author-publishers, within and outside the publishing industry. Director Orna Ross has been named “one of the 100 most influential people in publishing” (The Bookseller).
Join The Alliance of Independent Authors via their website at https://allianceindependentauthors.org. |
Great cover design from Cherie Fox
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Following my decision to republish four of my titles through my own publishing company, I needed new covers for those books. Cherie Fox has done a fantastic job of creating new covers that harmonise with my two Lake Union ones, and was wonderful throughout the whole process.
You can view Cherie's portfolio at www.cheriefox.com. |
Scrivener - excellent novel writing software
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I've written in my book, Write Your Novel! From Getting Started to First Draft, how much I love Scrivener. Scrivener is powerful software for writers, enabling us to organise manuscripts and research easily. Outline and structure ideas, take notes, view research alongside your writing and compose the constituent pieces of your text in isolation or in context.
Scrivener won't tell you how to write—it just makes all the tools you have scattered around your desk available in one application. I love the split-screen facility, which means I can have my notes or research visible as I type. When it comes to publishing my books, Scrivener compiles them seamlessly into whichever format I require. There's a reason many top authors, such as Michael Hyatt and Joanna Penn, use this software! There's a generous trial period, and Scrivener is very reasonably priced. The website has help tutorials and an active forum. Simply click or tap the image to find out more. |
Plottr -easy and effective book plotting software
My aim is to speed up my writing process and make it more efficient. As part of that, I've started using Plottr. Plottr lets you easily arrange (and rearrange) your scenes, plots, and character arcs so you can quickly find your way to the end of your tale — no corkboard required. Once you're done, Plottr automatically generates a clean outline of your story for you to review, edit, and export to Word or Scrivener as the basis of your manuscript. The developers are very responsive and new features are being added all the time. There's also a thriving Facebook group. Why not give it a try? Simply click or tap the image.
- Quickly outline your book with visual story cards
- Filter your timeline by characters, places, and tags
- Colour-coordinate your storylines to keep them organised
- Flip the timeline to view it vertically or horizontally
- Visually organise your characters and places
- Link your characters and places to your scenes
- Create custom attributes to track specific details, like special powers or geographical trivia.
ProWriting Aid editing software
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I love ProWriting Aid! It's manuscript editing software for writers, with lots of excellent features. There's a free version, but it's well worth splashing out on the paid version for its extra functionality (interactive editing, no word limit, offline as well as online use).
So what does PWA do? It checks spelling, grammar and punctuation, as well as searching for overused words, clumsy sentences, vague phrases, homonyms and much more. Use it to look for cliches and redundancies, hidden and passive verbs or repetitive sentence structure. In total there are twenty-seven checks and reports, including one for plagiarism. So why not do your writing a favour, and click or tap the image for more information? |
Mailerlite email marketing
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Are you an author looking to grow your email subscriber list, or to change from your existing provider? I recommend Mailerlite, having recently swapped to them on the recommendation of a friend. It's easy to import your existing list or set up a new one, the 'drag and drop' email builder is simple to use, and the support team is quick to deal with questions. You can create landing pages, pop-ups, and there are many more features. It's free for mailing list of less than 1,000 subscribers. Why not give Mailerlite a go? Click or tap the image to get started.
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Publisher Rocket - find hundreds of Amazon keywords quickly and easily! Plus a free course on Amazon advertising - what's not to like?
I've found Dave Chesson's Publisher Rocket software incredibly useful, and at US$97 it's a bargain (click or tap the image to find out more). If you're an author who uses Amazon's advertising platform, but who struggles to find the right keywords, or even the best categories for your books, Rocket can help. The programme gives you real data that shows you exactly what book buyers type into Amazon, as well as how many people search for these things every month. Using Rocket’s Keywords Feature, you will learn:
With the Category Feature, you can quickly find pertinent and niche categories for your books, as well as find out how many you’d need to sell that day in order to be the new number 1 bestseller.
You can also use Rocket to analyse your market. With a click of a button, you can see your potential competitors, their information, reviews, book covers, and even their daily and monthly earnings. By understanding what works for your competitors, you can create book titles, subtitles, and descriptions that convert better, increase your Kindle rankings, and sell more books.
Dave provides helpful tutorials on how to get the best out of Rocket, and - even better - a free course on Amazon advertising! You can pay hundreds of pounds for other courses, but this material is completely free. I've worked my way through the units, and can testify how useful they are. Here are the links to the course, Publisher Rocket and other resources/useful articles:
Free Amazon Ads course
Publisher Rocket
Book Description Generator
How to choose keywords
How to choose categories
- What keywords shoppers type into Amazon
- Estimated number of times someone types that keyword into Amazon
- How much money other books that rank for that keyword are making
- How many books are competing for that keyword
With the Category Feature, you can quickly find pertinent and niche categories for your books, as well as find out how many you’d need to sell that day in order to be the new number 1 bestseller.
You can also use Rocket to analyse your market. With a click of a button, you can see your potential competitors, their information, reviews, book covers, and even their daily and monthly earnings. By understanding what works for your competitors, you can create book titles, subtitles, and descriptions that convert better, increase your Kindle rankings, and sell more books.
Dave provides helpful tutorials on how to get the best out of Rocket, and - even better - a free course on Amazon advertising! You can pay hundreds of pounds for other courses, but this material is completely free. I've worked my way through the units, and can testify how useful they are. Here are the links to the course, Publisher Rocket and other resources/useful articles:
Free Amazon Ads course
Publisher Rocket
Book Description Generator
How to choose keywords
How to choose categories
Please note that the above, apart from that of Cherie Fox, are affiliate links and I will receive a commission for any sales made. This does not affect the price you pay.
