Lists

Kboards is usually my first port of call for anything book-related. ​Or, more specifically, the Writers' Cafe forum area. Most of the time, if you have a question and google it, kboards comes up with the answer anyway. More than that, there are a variety of interesting and topical posts to peruse. A lot of people were upset about a big change in ownership and management some years ago, but I've always found it highly useful.

Eek, the dreaded Amazon-owned KDP Community! But, don't let that put you off. For me, it has a similar utility to kboards, although more Amazon/KDP-geared. I used to go quite a lot for specific information about KDP and Amazon, whereas now it's more that I skim the "General" and "Marketing" forums from time to time to ensure I'm not missing a beat / any recent innovations. 

There are so many useful communities here that, to be honest, I wouldn't know where to start. Here are a few that I've recently visited, for eponymous reasons. r/scifiwriting, r/publishing, r/PubTips, r/WritersGroup, r/writing, r/writers, r/CharacterDevelopment, r/WritingHub, r/worldbuilding, r/fantasywriters, r/spaceopera, r/wroteabook... and so on. So, so many. Reddit is useful to read about the industry, promote your work and meet like-minded people. I also frequently use it to try to encourage writers to use my free glossary generator (many books could use one!).

I probably use twitter the most out of all of these, although I've included it last because it's less information-centric, and more community-centric. You'll easily be able to find other writers and what they're up to with hashtags like #writingcommunity, #writerslife, #authorcommunity, #authorslife, and so on. Come say hello!

Fiverr is a flatform that connects you with creators (e.g. book cover designers), for a myriad of purposes, and usually for an affordable price (hence the name). It's definitely a mixed bag in terms of the capabilities of the creators and their prices, but there are usually plenty of reviews to help. I don't use Fiverr anymore (my publishers create covers in-house), although my consistently top-performing book's cover was generated this way. The pros: you have a lot of creative control, and the pricing scale is transparent. The cons: interacting with a single creator can be tricky, timings can vary, and instructions need to be watertight.

Ready-made covers are great since they take out the faff of trying to figure out what might work, since you can see a variety of options immediately. The pros are obvious: there is no danger of not getting what you pay for, they're not prohibitively expensive, you might find something better than you could have personally envisioned. Furthermore, when you buy a cover, no one else can buy it again (although images may be re-used, but this isn't abnormal by any means). The cons: it can take a while of perusing to find exactly what you might like. While there are many platforms/websites offering these covers, one that I've used and I believe is reputable is here.

Two of the best DIY cover creators that are easy to use are BookBrush & Canva. BookBrush is geared purely towards book covers, and is the superior option. It also has a variety of options to create professional-looking promotional material. There is a free plan, but I used a paid plan. Canva similarly has free and paid plans, and I used the free plan. It's a little more fiddly, and not geared purely towards books. That said, it's still a very good option!

If you feel a little more comfortable with graphics software, you might want to create a book cover yourself. Or you might want to licence a cover and then make some further edits yourself. You can do this with software like paint.NET (yes, there's a "." in the middle of the name, followed by caps). I should also state, while I call this "complex", it really isn't once you familiarise yourself with it. I love it.

Number 5 is geared more towards helping you decide what you might like for your cover, as opposed to creating the cover itself. Like putting your thoughts onto the page, without the hassle of becoming a draft artist yourself. You can also use it to show designers what you want. The tool... AI picture generators. There are apps such as "Starry AI" and "Wonder" or websites such as NightCafe.

They use complex algorithms that take a sequence of words and preferences you input to create a visual depiction. I don't think legally these are able to be used as book covers due to non-ownership of the assets/individual images used to make the end results, and I'd certainly never recommend this, but the outputs can be fascinating! At the very least, you can tweet/post them.

Numero uno, you need to be able to store the contact details (email addresses) of your readers who are willing to stay in touch with you. These are called your "subscribers" or "subs". Numero dos, you also need to be able to send your subs periodic and professional-looking emails (updates, new releases, etc) easily.

Mailchimp lets you accomplish this all in one. It is probably the simplest and most user-friendly platform of this type to use, which is why I'd use them.

NB: There are a number of alternative mail providers to Mailchimp, but an account with Mailchimp is free until you hit 500 subscribers (it used to be 2,000). Furthermore, it's relatively simple to export your list from one mail provider to another (i.e. away from Mailchimp), should you be close to 500 subscribers and not want to move to a Mailchimp paid plan. Bear in mind, that's also a scenario where you've been successful in building an audience, so well done!

Author Exchange Platforms are what I call platforms like StoryOrigin and BookFunnel (the main 2, Prolific Works is a weak third). They help you gain subscribers to store & periodically email about your work.

I'll focus on StoryOrigin as I believe this gives you the best bang for your buck, is the most effective, and is very user-friendly.

What does StoryOrigin do? Simply, it allows you to swap mentions of your books with other authors, so that you each mention each other in your own newsletter. Don't worry about starting out with 0-few subs, you'll find authors are quite kind and will often still swap. A good guide to understanding all of this is here.

Make note - you're advertising your books through a network of authors, and you're also able to collect potential readers' email addresses, meaning they become your subscribers. It is incredibly easy to integrate your Mailchimp account into StoryOrigin, and instructions to do this are in your StoryOrigin account.

I recommend the Standard Plan ($10/m or $100/year) as I'd be shocked if you weren't able to build a decent sized user base within a couple of months, depending on how much you make use of the platform.
​
BookFunnel is similar, although I've found it a little trickier to use, and a little less effective.

Social media is a useful way to engage with potential readers. Personally, I'm no whizz at this sort of thing, and have found it more of a marathon than a sprint, but I can certainly vouch for its utility. You can follow your favourite authors / those who write in a similar genre, and see what they're doing to promote themselves, while establishing your brand. You can also interact with potential readers on various threads, often about your favourite books. You might even make some steadfast friends! The general wisdom (that I also subscribe to), is that you can't be really present on more than one social media platform, so trial a few and see what suits you. I sacked Facebook in (it's so buggy and slow for me), and mostly use twitter, although I'm also using Instagram more and more. I don't use TikTok as, from what I understand, you're advised to interact way more than I have time for.

BEWARE OF SOCIAL MEDIA ADS. In my experience (and opinion!), creating ads for your books, or things like gaining more followers, is a waste of time. The ads suck money from you, or are break-even at best. I reckon these social media platforms are focused on trying to take your ad money, instead of actually delivering results. Focus on being authentic and building your brand, posting about not only your work but related/interesting topics. That's worked best for me.

It's important to make sure that you are able to easily collect subscribers: whether (1) you're directing them to a sign up link, or (2) they organically look for your sign up link (e.g. via searching your name on google). Most of the time, this is effectively accomplished by having a sign up link on your website. You can generate them easily using Mailchimp, and there are a few different options. Information from Mailchimp about how to do this is available here.

Within your book's back matter (if you're unsure what this is, here's a helpful guide), simply include your website address. This is linked to "4. Website sign up form", in that you're showing readers where to locate you, and once they're there, they can see your subscriber sign up link from Mailchimp (or any other mail provider you use). This really is a no-brainer to include in every book of yours, since it's completely free and expected by most readers. If you have already published a book without this back matter, usually it's not tricky at all to add it in and re-publish (especially if you're using Amazon KDP).

This software, or a very similar equivalent (such as Open Office, Google Docs, etc), is well worth the investment as a decent catch-all. If there was only one tool I could use to aid with my writing, it would be this processor. Its word and grammar checker is fantastic. Furthermore, once you become au fait with using it to write with, you will also probably begin to learn about using styles to create headings and other types of formatting that help you navigate the document (as that's what your book is!), and create your desired eBook or physical book template.

This is FREE and the next most important thing in terms of spell and grammar checking, after Microsoft Word. Before I pass my book to proof-readers, and certainly before it sees the light of day to anyone else such as an editor, I run my manuscript through Grammarly. It catches mistakes that Microsoft Word misses, and also finds different types of grammatical errors. There's no reason not to use it.

Hemingway has a similar overall sleek feel to Grammarly, but it's geared towards readability (as opposed to catching mistakes, per se). Therefore, you can use the two in tandem. Of course, you can disagree with a lot of what Hemingway comes up with, but it's still useful to gauge the algorithmic perception of your writing.​ Oh, and it's also FREE.

Being able to jot down notes on-the-go is non-negotiable. You might wake up at night having had a useful dream, have a spark of inspiration on the tube or the bus, or realise something mid-conversation with a friend that you need to subtly note down. You need to be able to quickly take notes. Pretty much 1 billion apps offer this, but you need to find one that you're comfortable with. Personally, I use Telegram (saved messaged), since I have it synced to my phone and computer, so can write notes on-the-go and use/delete them later. I also believe it's highly encrypted (compared to many other messaging services).

This is also FREE, fast, and simple to use. It's a program I wrote in python to help authors create glossaries without having to trawl through their books for hours. You simply upload your manuscript (in Microsoft Word format), and a text file is created with glossary suggestions. Also, it helps authors find errors that aren't discovered by other software, like inconsistently named characters. Glossaries are so important, especially for Fantasy and Sci-Fi, and are increasingly in demand by readers. Give it a go!

This is the most popular resource for readers to catalogue, keep track of and rate their books. Readers are able to put books into to-be-read lists, and much more. While Goodreads is a little clunky (even with the recent visual "overhaul" that I personally don't think is an improvement), it's a must have. Make sure to add your book(/s) here if the details have not been automatically pulled in, and create your author profile page.

BookBub serves a similar purpose to Goodreads, although it is a little more niche, and more geared towards helping readers discover books (as well as informing them of fresh releases and price promotions). That said, it takes very little time to setup a profile on BookBub, so go ahead! Anyone who "follows" you on BookBub will receive an email whenever you publish a new book, providing you make sure that it appears on the BookBub platform.

If I'm honest, I barely use LibraryThing. I hate its UI/UX and think it's a bit of a dead zone (maybe it will be retired or is in the process, I don't know). However, some readers do use it in a similar, even more niche way to Goodreads. Also, dislike aside, the more arrows pointing your way online, and in reputable book-loving places that have some degree of clout, the better.

Amazon Author Central is an Amazon-owned platform where you can add information about yourself and your book(/s) to augment what's displayed by default. This information populates Amazon's product pages for (1) your book and (2) your author page (accessed if a reader on Amazon clicks your name). Overall, you and your work will appear more professional. Plus, Amazon Author Central gives you additional tools to monitor your progress (in terms of book ranks, reviews etc).

Finally, but very importantly, you need a website if you are serious about writing. While the above platforms are easier to get started on (which is why I ranked them in that order), I believe this is the second most important platform to establish, after Goodreads. Websites can be pretty cost effective, and there are a variety of website builders to use, which are essentially drag-and-drop mediums. I use Weebly, for example. Take a look at high-flying authors in your genres and peruse their websites for inspiration.