My Top 5 Writing Resources
Before I get to the rest of my blog post, here is a special announcement for Audible members. Hey listeners, listen up! For a limited time Audible is running a special. You can share any book in your audible library to friends for FREE! This is a great way to introduce your friends to a favorite author or just a good book you might not normally be able to afford to gift. So share away! And please think of sharing my books to your audio-loving friends if you don’t mind. Here are the links: Claimed: Brides of the Kindred Book 1, Hunted: Brides of the Kindred Book 2, Sought: Brides of the Kindred Book 3, Found: Brides of the Kindred 4, Crimson Debt: Born to Darkness Book 1, Scarlet Heat: Born to Darkness Book 2, Ruby Shadows: Born to Darkness Book 3, and Purity: Pure and Tainted Book 1.
Now onto the rest of my blog post. The best advice I can give you is that every writer’s journey will be different, so if something doesn’t work for you then try something else. And, just because others say something doesn’t work, does not mean it will not work for you. Discover your own path.
That said here are my top 5 writing resources some are free and others are not:
Number 5: Motivation
If you are still writing your book and need some motivation, Nanowrimo is an event that helps a lot of people with that and gives you a lot of information and support at the same time.
Number 4: Book Covers
These days they actually make it pretty simple to create your own book cover. I use Canva for my social media images, but they also have the option to create a book cover on there for FREE if you so choose. You could also try finding someone on Fivver. Just make sure to read the fine print, so you know what to expect.
Number 3: Writing
So you’re ready to write your book, now where do you put it. Of course, you can write using Word which is perfectly fine, but if you’re looking for something that offers a bit more than there are actually quite a few different options for you. Scrivener is not free but there are a lot of people who love using it. There are also some FREE options such as: Calibre, StreetLib and Jutoh. Some of them offer even more services, but they may come with a price.
Number 2: Grammar
It can be very difficult to catch any spelling or grammar mistakes in your own writing (nearly impossible sometimes). So you really need to get some outside eyes on it to help you see those mistakes. This could come in the form of Beta readers which could be family or friends if you’re willing to let them read your work. They are not necessarily a proofreader or editor, but if you don’t have much money, they really can be very helpful in spotting some errors. Of course, you could hire an editor or proofreader which is preferable, but it can be expensive. If you don’t have that kind of money to spend, and you don’t have any Beta readers. You can try out Grammarly. They have a FREE version which is actually pretty good. The only problem with it is that you can’t attach the free version to Word which can make it difficult to correct any longer book.
Number 1: Formatting
Knowing how to format your books is a huge deal for self published authors. Thankfully, there are some FREE resources that can help you in this department. Amazon is the big guns in the self-publishing world, and they have their own specific formatting guidelines that might or might not work for other places, but you definitely would need to follow them with Amazon.
Another place that I have found a FREE formatting guideline that helps to cover quite a few of the others is on Smashwords.
