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Self-Publishing
Tools & Resources

The resources below are what I use to self-publish my stories, and some of them are tools that other indie authors have recommended, so they are all useful. Hope they help you, too. :)

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Also, most of these are free or budget-friendly.

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Writing/Editing

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  • Scrivener - for organizing your writing (one payment of $45)

  • Grammarly - for proofreading (has a free plan)

  • Hemingway App - for editing (has a free plan)

  • Pro Writing Aid - for proofreading and editing (one payment of $97) - *best editing tool

  • Scribophile - my favorite platform for finding beta readers and critique partners (free)

  • for arcs???

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Book Formatting

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  • Reedsy Editor - it formats your book beautifully (free)

  • Free Formatting Templates - from Derek Murphy, on Word, InDesign, and (free)

  • Vellum? - formats your book easily and beautifully ($100) - Mac only

  • Atticus - formats your book easily and beautifully (price) - Windows

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Book Covers/Design
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  • Canva - it has a lot of templates for social media promos, book promos, even book trailers, and yes, book covers (mostly free)

  • 100Covers - cheap and beautiful book covers

  • The Cover Collection - they create beautiful professional covers and they have premades!

  • 99designs - you can start a book cover contest here and pick your favorite design (price)

  • Book Design Tutorial - Derek Murphy explains the rules of book cover design (free)

  • Bookow - gives you a cover template for your paperback and barcode (free)

  • Free Mockups - free book mockups for your promotional images

  • BookBrush - makes beautiful promo images

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Publishing/Distribution

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  • Kindle Direct Publishing - publish your ebook/print book on Amazon (free)

  • IngramSpark - go wide, aka publish your book over different platforms (price + fees) - the most popular aggregator, but be wary of the fine print and the hidden fees before using it

  • Draft2Digital & Smashwords (which have merged) - distribute your ebook over different retailers (if you are not in KDP Select on Amazon) (free)

  • Lulu - distribute your print books widely (free)

  • Babelcube - find a translator

  • ACX - get someone to narrate your book

  • PublisherRocket - helps you find the best categories and keywords for your book ($

  • Self-Publishing with Dave - a Youtube channel that shares a lot of related news and tools (free)

  • Creativindie

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Author Platform

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  • Author Central - create an author page on Amazon (free)

  • Goodreads Author Program - create an author page on Goodreads (free)

  • Wordpress & Blogger - free website builders that are somewhat old-fashioned and a bit hard to use sometimes (esp. Wordpress)

  • Wix - my favorite website builder (has cheaper plans, from $5/month)

  • There are book communities on every social media platform - bookstagram, booktok, booktwitter, booktube, etc.

  • To collect emails, you can use Mailchimp, SendFox, or ActiveCampaign

  • bookfunnel -

 
 
Book Promotion/Marketing Strategy

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  • Story Origin - helps with group promotions, newsletter swaps, etc.

  • Awesome Gang

  • TKNight

  • Bookbub - the place to be if you want to promote your book to a big audience

  • For reviews, you can use Netgalley or

  • Book Trailers - you can find someone on fiverr.com to make you a book trailer ($9+)

  • Book Cover Animation - Morgan Wright makes awesome animations ($13)

  • Book Blog Tours

  • ProlificWorks

  • For giveaways, you can use Kingsumo or Rafflecopter (free)

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Communities & Other

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  • WtiterBeware

  • KBoards

  • Erotic Authors on Reddit

  • alli

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