Ten Resources for aspiring and experienced Writers
It’s been two years and half-million words in seven novels. Here are ten resources and tools I use/have used in my journey. I hope you find them useful. While these are aimed at a newer crowd, even experienced writers may find something to try. After all, we’re all always learning.
Tools
Visual Studio Code — I do all my writing in this free tool from Microsoft. Don’t get distracted by the fact that it’s for programmers — it’s great for writing (and I’ve tried Word, OneNote, Ulysses, Bear, Scrivener). Here’s a post on how I use it. I do all my writing in Markdown which lets me focus on content rather than format.
Affinity Designer — many of us like to dabble in making covers or maps and other visual aids for our books. I personally love Affinity Designer which is very affordable, no subscription fees, and has great features. It’s good even for beginners and dabblers. The company tends to offer the app at good discounts around major holidays.
PublishQuickly — I have been a long-term guinea pig, beta-user for this app which takes a Markdown file with some tags and provides powerful productivity features (like creating word, ePub, text, boxsets, stats etc.). All my books use this during my writing lifecycle before publishing, and it is my daily companion with Visual Studio Code.
Google Earth — This app is awesome and provides an immersive experience to virtually visiting locations. I use this all the time during when I research locations for my books and need to visualize the places, work out distances and so on. For my recent trilogy on Cleopatra, I provide my readers a link that takes them to a web version of Google Earth, and lets them virtually “fly” to all the major locations mentioned in the trilogy. It’s pretty cool.
Writing Related Learning and Discussion Resources
KBoards.com — a place for both experienced and new authors to share and receive useful tips, techniques, advise, and basically anything on the topic of writing and publishing. The focus leans towards independent publishing. It’s a great place if you’re willing to listen and learn from many talented, experienced folks in the world of writing. You can also find proofreaders, copy editors, cover designers here.
AbsoluteWrite.com forums — don’t be fooled by the site design. This is a vast forum with many, many areas you can explore. In particular, those looking for feedback on their writing samples, understanding the world of publishing (e.g., writing queries), cover designing, and so on, will find a wealth of information. Be receptive to feedback, listen, and learn.
Critique Circle — it has been a while since I’ve used it, but this site was critical in my early days on getting developmental feedback on writing samples. You can publish a chapter and have people provide detailed critiques (and you can do likewise for others). I found this to be valuable when I started out.
Academia.edu — great for research papers. While I can’t speak to other domains, it has been immensely helpful for my historical research as my books tend to combine fact with fiction.
Web Resources and Services
Squarespace Web Hosting — after having tried Wordpress, Wix, Weebly, and even a half-assed attempt at using Wordpress/Digital Ocean, I finally settled on Squarespace. I love the ease of building attractive pages, integrating newsletters, e-mail lists, building gallery pages. It’s a little expensive but I think the convenience has won. You can see my site here, but you will surely find far better designs from people with better talent.
Fiverr — some may scoff at the talent you get, but I have been very pleased with my finds on Fiverr. I’ve used the service for (a) Beta readers — I have a couple of “regulars” I use (b) Box set/logo creators — affordable, quick, and great quality
Depositphotos.com — for licensed images. The collection is extensive and good enough for most of us. I usually avoid using any free images even if it comes with license to use, so this service’s affordable fees compared to Adobe images or Getty made this the ideal one.
There — that’s the first list. I use most of these almost on a daily/weekly basis and they’ve made everything a bit easier. I hope you found something worth exploring further.
My title says ten, but I’ve provided eleven so far. I’ll keep the ten in the title I guess, it’s more catchy!
