Resources for Writers

Some Helpful Books, Blogs and other Tools we Recommend.

This is an no way meant to be a comprehensive list. These are tools we use personally and have found helpful for new writers.

Alas, we don’t have time to vet new companies to add to the list, so please don’t ask us to do that.  We do not monetize this blog and our time needs to be spent writing the books that pay the bills.

 

Recommended Books

For Self-Publishers

• Secrets to Ebook Publishing Success by Mark Coker (free!)
• Self-Publish Your Book by Jessica Bell
• Write. Publish. Repeat by Sean Platt and Johnny B. Truant
• Let’s Get Visible & Let’s Get Digital by David Gaughran
• How to Self-Publish a Book by Barb Drozdowich

General Interest Writing Guides

• Fowler’s Modern English Usage  Free download
• The Elements of Style
• How to Write a Novel by Nathan Bransford
• On Writing by Stephen King
• Bird by Bird Anne LaMott
• How to Write a Damn Good Novel by James N. Frey
• Save the Cat by Blake Snyder
• And ahem, you might want to take a look at: How to be a Writer in the E-Age: A Self-Help Guide by Catherine Ryan Hyde and Anne R. Allen

Recommended Blogs

Great blogs for Writers

• Janice Hardy’s Fiction University
• The Creative Penn
• The Passive Voice
• Kristen Lamb’s Blog 
• Jami Gold
• Elizabeth S. Craig and check her Writers Knowledge Base for tons of great info.
• Chuck Wendig’s Terrible Minds (warning: his favorite word is the “f”one)
• Penny Sansevieri’s Author Marketing Services  
• Write to Done
• Writer Unboxed 
• Write it Sideways
• The Write Conversation
• Bad Redhead Media
• The Kill Zone
• Helping Writers Become Authors
• Writer UnBoxed
• Literary Rambles

Blog Archives that provide a whole course in publishing

• Jane Friedman
• Nathan Bransford
• Miss Snark

For Agent-Hunters

• BookEnds Literary Agency
• Chuck Sambuchino’s Guide to Literary Agents
• AgentQuery
• Query Tracker
• Literary Rambles

Super-Helpful Blog Posts for Self-Publishers

• How to Self-Publish Your Book (Jane Friedman)
• The Basics of E-Book Publishing (David Gaughran)
• How to Self-Publish a Book on Amazon (Mike Fishbein)

Recommended Newsletters

Contests and Paying Markets for Writers

Contest Listings and Calls for Submissions

• C. Hope Clark’s Funds for Writers
• Authors Publish magazine (free!). They list small presses that don’t require an agent as well as paying markets.
• Winning Writers
• Poets and Writers

Watchdogs, Communities and Helpful Newsletters

• Writer Beware
• CritiqueCircle (Online writing workshop. Very helpful.)
• The KindleBoards:Writer’s Café (be prepared for snark, but there are helpful people here
• Tom Winton’s Authors Helping Authors on Facebook
• Insecure Writers Support Group (Alex J. Cavanaugh’s blog group for writers. Kind and helpful.)
• WANAtribe (We Are Not Alone: Kristen Lamb’s forum for writers. Good people!)
• The International Indie Author: Mark Williams’ Facebook group for cutting-edge news on global markets
• The New Publishing Standard: For the increasingly-important international publishing news.
• The Hot Sheet: Publishing veterans Jane Friedman and Porter Anderson give up to the minute news about the industry. (This requires a paid subscription, but it’s worth it.)
• David Gaughran: Industry watchdog and Amazon whisperer David Gaughran is the guy to keep you up to date on the latest marketing ideas and scams to avoid.

Technical Resources for Writers

Tech Support and Wizardry

• Bakerview Consulting: Author-specific Web design, social media classes, blogging help, and general day-saving.
• Tech Surgeons: Web Hosting for authors and other technical expertise.
• How to Build a Website on Wix from Karol Krol.
• Best Website Builders Reviewed by Lars Lofgren
• Nate Hoffelder.

Self-Publishing E-book Distributors

• Smashwords. The oldest ebook distributor of self-published titles.
• Draft2Digital. Similar to Smashwords, but easier to use. They distribute to some sites SW doesn’t and vice versa. You also pay them a percentage of your sales
• BookBaby. You pay for a publishing package upfront, but they don’t take a percentage.
• StreetLib. A new self publishing and distribution company. They’ve tripled my sales in some of the smaller markets.
• Lulu—Like BB they provide ebooks and paper books.

Self-Publishing Print Companies and Distributors

• IngramSpark—owned by biggest book distributor in the US, Ingram
• BookBaby—They do both print and ebooks
• Lulu—They prefer to sell in their own store, but they do distribute to Amazon and B&N.

Self-Publishing Resources

• Alchemy Book Covers. Keri Knudson designs brilliant, original covers at reasonable prices. She’s the artist who designed most of my covers, including my favorites: Lady of the Lakewood Diner, No Place Like Home, and So Much for Buckingham.
• Reedsy is a website with lists of vetted editors, designers, formatters and other professionals to build your team.
• Editorial Freelancers Association lists prices for editing services.
• Ebook Launch–Inexpensive ebook and POD formatter that’s highly recommended by Smashword’s Mark Coker.
• Polgarus Studios–Well known and well-respected formatters. (They gave us some very kind help with How to be a Writer in the E-Age.)
• Writers Boon is a discounted marketplace for writers where editors, designers, course providers, book marketers offer 15% discount and more on their services. It also offers unique and efficient book promo opportunities. Joining Writers Boon and access to all its features is free.

EBook and POD formatting Programs

• Calibre is a FREE e-book manager that does e-book file conversion, synchs your devices and manages your library.
• Canva has templates for creating anything from book covers to promos.
• Reedsy has a FREE book conversion editor that creates EPUB, PDF and POD (Paper) book templates.
• Sigil, another FREE download runs on Windows, Linux and Mac. Sigil lets you edit epub files and comes with an on-line manual and user forum. As far as I know, right now there is nothing similar for editing mobi files which is where Calibre comes in. You edit your epub in Sigil, then use Calibre to convert to mobi.
• Jutoh (Windows, Mac, and Linux) is a moderately-priced app that creates ebooks (including covers) in all the popular file formats.
• Scrivener comes in PC and Mac versions and is a full word-processing program as well as a method to make epub and mobi files. Ruth Harris says, “Almost infinitely flexible, Scriv is a must-have for many writers including me. The manual is extensive, the video tutorials are excellent and the help forum is outstanding. Keith Blount, Scriv’s developer, often appears to answer questions and his savvy crew is responsive and will walk you through any dilemmas. Like MSWord, Scriv compiles to both epub and mobi and does it fast. 5 stars all the way.
• Kindlegen is Amazon’s own FREE downloadable tool for formatting your book into a Kindle-friendly format. Available for Windows, Mac and Linux.
• Vellum  Makes ebook formatting easy and elegant plus outstanding support from the developers, the two Brads. Mac only.

Back-ups

• Dropbox is so ubiquitous and so essential for off-site back up that it’s a must-have. It’s FREE, creates one file in the cloud and another on your desktop as you work. DB also synchs all your devices and works seamlessly with both mobile and desktop apps.
• Microsoft offers FREE cloud storage called SkyDrive and Apple’s version is called (guess what?) iCloud. Google’s cloud storage, Drive, is also FREE and works on all popular systems.
• Mozy, Carbonite, and CrashPlan are remote backup services. All offer a FREE trial and various subscription plans for personal and business back up.


Organization

Evernote is a powerful, FREE note keeping app that works on all platforms. Searchable by keyword or tags, includes reminder and web clipping functions, great for keeping research including images, for brainstorming ideas, for parking stuff you’re not yet sure what to do with. Cloud-based, syncs across all your devices.

Nice to Have

Name generators come in handy when you’re stuck for just the right name and offer suggestions appropriate for different periods of history, various ethnicities, celebrity baby names and even literary genres ranging from scifi to steampunk to vampires. Scrivener includes a name generator but there are FREE name generators on line—more here. Some also provide random personality profiles to help you along even more.