New Authors, START HERE!
You want to write a book—awesome! Or maybe you’ve already started—amazing! I am so so proud of you <3
As an indie author with a BA in Editing and Publishing, I know a thing or two about writing and publishing books 😉
I’ll be adding to this page periodically, but for now, enjoy these resources that have inspired and helped me along my own author journey. (I also often including writing tips in my newsletter, so definitely subscribe to that if you haven’t already! Even without the tips, it’s great to research other authors’ newsletters in general!)
Software
4 the Words—I use this online “game” to help me with writing sprints and motivation (especially when writing with friends in different countries/cities!) If you’ve ever used Dr. Wicked’s Write Or Die software, this has very similar features—and much more!
Atticus—I have trialled this software for formatting ebooks (and print). Though I am used to Adobe InDesign, I can’t handle their ridiculous subscription model any longer! Atticus is perfect for authors who want a 1) cheaper option than Vellum and 2) don’t care as much about being able to tweak small details. If you just want to get your book out there quickly, professionally, and with software you’ll own, I highly recommend Atticus. There are loads of tutorials online, and it’s super user-friendly 🙂 I especially love that you can preview the book in multiple formats as you edit—something InDesign is lacking.
Affinity Publisher—This is the true Adobe InDesign substitute. AND VERSION 3 HAS MADE ALL THE DIFFERENCE!! Affinity is now partnered with Canva, and it’s 100% FREE! If you know how to use Adobe InDesign (or Photoshop or Illustrator), I highly recommend ditching the expensive subscription and transitioning to Affinity! The workflow is more intuitive and actually flows with each other—no more having three programs open to finish one project. AND Affinity now supports export to EPUB (which Version 2 didn’t), so there really aren’t any reasons left to stay with Adobe! (Again—if you prefer simplicity, just go with Atticus, or Vellum; I am just too picky now to let software like Atticus take away all of my precise settings for the sake of simplicity…)
Podcasts
Blogs
This blog post by Bill Peschel has some great insights on creating a Book Production Schedule for yourself as an independent author. At the bottom of his post you will also find links to Ingram Spark’s Book Production Schedule and a three-part series of blog posts by Denise Grover Swank on how she created her own personal Business Plan for her author career.
A blog post by Leialoha Humpheries with tips on being a part of or running your own Multi-Author Series along with a free resource!
This post by Jamie McSloy reviews the “20 Books to 50k Challenge” and highlights the positive things you can glean from it while also highlighting the inaccuracies and subjective results.
Outlines
I love spreadsheets, so I made a sheet with 3 different outlining methods—Basic 5 Points, Save the Cat, and Katytastic’s. Each sheet calculates where in your book you should be hitting each point based on your own goal word count. These sheets have helped me so much in outlining my stories, and I hope they can help other authors too. You can find the Google Sheet here—once opened, click File > Make a Copy. Once you have your own copy, you can change the word count in the top left corner (orange box) and add notes for your outline.