As an author and editor, I’ve tried a ton of different tools to help me manage my writing and publishing and editing business ventures. Since that’s one of the more common questions my coaching clients ask, I figured it might be time to write something for everyone about this!
This collection of programs and tools are only the ones that I, myself, use or have used. Obviously there are many other tools out there for all sorts of different people, and I’m absolutely certain there are tools I’ve never heard of that might be perfect for me. If you have one you love, please share it in the comments so that I (and others) can check it out!
I’m going to break this down into a couple different categories:
Writing and Editing
Publishing
Workflow and Organization
Marketing
These are the major groups I think that exist for me, and I have at least a few resources and tools that I use in each one. Without further ado, let’s get into the list!
Writing and Editing
yWriter
When I’m drafting books for myself, yWriter is my go-to drafting software. Admittedly, I don’t use most of its features (like character profiles, and everything else), but I find the way it’s laid out easy for me to navigate when it comes to scenes and chapters. It makes it easy to find things when I’m looking for them. Bonus that it’s open source, free software. I also use its read aloud function when I’m self-editing.
Plottr
When I first bought Plottr, my first reaction was “where have you been all my life!?” I legitimately cannot imagine writing without it at this point. Plottr holds my character biographies, my outline, information I’ve researched on locations, factions, and so much more. I also use it to go back and outline the books I’ve written so I can quickly pull up information about them when I am working on future novels.
This program is incredibly powerful, and I cannot imagine trying to write without it these days. It’s become my top-tier recommendation to anyone writing a novel who might be struggling with organizing their notes. I have also used it to plan newsletter and social media content in the past, though I have since migrated to using a different method.
PerfectIt
Known mostly to editors rather than authors, PerfectIt is a Microsoft Word add-on that boasts a huge amount of power. It’s essentially a collection of macros in a trench coat. Also, for those who are uncertain of AI, this product is not AI. PerfectIt uses no LLMs. It also can conform to multiple style guides, and you can create your own based on your preferences.
One of the most powerful things it does is check consistency. It will ensure words are spelled the same way, phrases are hyphenated identically, capitalization is applied consistently, and so much more. This level of polish is incredibly useful for authors, and PerfectIt has been the copilot of many editors I know for a very long time. It’s stable software with a good history that you can rely on.
Microsoft Word
Despite all, I always end up coming back to Word. Once I’ve finished drafting in yWriter, I always export to Word to do my real editing. The ability to track changes and leave comments as well as being able to run PerfectIt is unparalleled. While Google Docs has some upsides, and I have used it for plenty of things, if I really need to have a document be ready, clean, and prepared to go… Word is it. Google Docs tends to have very weird artifacts and errors when exporting to .docx files, and those often translate into typesetting problems. It also hangs with long documents that have many edits. As such… MS Word is still my go-to for my heaviest lifting.
Keyboard Shortcuts
Seriously. Anything that prevents me from having to stop typing and grab the mouse, I try and incorporate. I can’t do the alt codes for characters (dyscalculia), but I learn as many shortcuts as I can remember and have a little list of them I keep. It helps me move far faster when writing and editing.
Publishing
Affinity Publisher
Since Adobe is the Evil Overlord and charges monthly subscriptions, I jumped ship on them ages ago. I now use Affinity Publisher instead of InDesign to create my typeset versions of my books. While it’s far more complex than Atticus, the power of the program makes up for it. I tried Atticus (and cannot get Vellum since I’m not an Apple user) and just could not. It’s a good program, don’t get me wrong, but when you’ve been typesetting as long as I have, it felt like putting training wheels on my mountain bike. Yes, it would put things out faster than laying them out myself, but the lack of ability to really get in there and tweak it made my hair stand on end.
Calibre
Given how bare bones I am with e-book formatting (intentionally so because it’s necessary for accessibility), I tend to export from Word and do a final tune up in Calibre and call it good. Calibre is another piece of open source workhorse software. It handles ebook conversions like a boss and is an excellent way to get an ebook created without much fuss. It might not be as pretty as the ones Atticus creates (unless you know CSS), but e-books are more about versatility than appearance as a rule. It makes files that work and do the job in a way that’s stable and trustworthy. I love it.
Affinity Photo
While I usually hire out my cover design to the fabulous and highly competent Angel Leya (shout out, please hire her), if I need to make a cover myself, Affinity Photo is where I head. Much as with Publisher, it’s every bit as good as Photoshop and does a fantastic job allowing me to do whatever designing I need to do. I also use it to create graphics for books when necessary and tweak scene breaks and other such things for print versions.
Workflow and Organization
Thunderbird
I manage a lot of email addresses (five currently which I know some people will scoff at but for me that’s a ton, okay?). Thunderbird allows me to keep all of them in one location and saves me the headache of having to manage everything elsewhere. I also rely on email filters to help me ensure that emails are directed to the right folders so I keep what I want to keep, delete what I want to delete, and so on. It’s open source and free, as are a number of its add-ons.
BeefText
This thing is great. I’m still getting used to it, but it’s going to be fabulous once I’ve gotten more accustomed to using it. It’s a piece of software called a “text expander” which takes a short bit of text and replaces that with something else. For example, I could write <POV>, and it would take that and immediately replace it with, “Pov slip here; review.” I use this a lot when I’m editing but also in writing emails when I have said the same thing a billion times. I have descriptions of types of editing cued up and so on in there, so I can shoot them off with a few keystrokes rather than reinventing the wheel every time someone asks me what “copyediting” means. It’s also open source and free.
Notion
Okay, so since my friend Chelle turned me onto Notion, my whole world changed. I use the free version of Notion at the moment, but man is this program helpful. I have it paired with the “Ultimate Brain” set of templates, and holy crap is my life better. The templates allow me to set out to-do lists, plan content, write my content, and so much more. I use it to keep track of all my projects, scheduling, and everything else, and it really has become indispensable for me. While I could also use it for my writing projects to replace Plottr, at this point Plottr is still reigning supreme in my world for that. That said, Notion has a million templates or you can create your own for your own needs.
Even the free version (which is what I use) has such a robust set of tools that you can accomplish your goals without having to spend a ton of money. The only real drawback is that it can be kind of intimidating if you don’t know what you’re doing.
Clockify
Clockify is an app that tracks your time. It has an auto mode that can be used to track how much time you spend in any specific app and then assign that to various projects or you can manually enter things in. I use it to track my focus and also to ensure I am making per hour what I should be making on projects. It also gives me a very effective means to track how much I am writing/editing per hour and get a strong idea of how my productivity is measured.
This isn’t to say that you are trying to reach some kind of artificial benchmark, but you can track your time and see patterns in productivity, focus, and when is the best time to work for you over time. It can also help you get a realistic view of just how long things take you on average, which is important data to have.
Marketing
Hootsuite
I’ve been using Hootsuite for many years and really cannot imagine not using it to help me handle my social media posting. It allows me to create content and schedule it across all my platforms at once without pulling my hair out. Honestly, it’s one of the most useful social media tools I’ve got. I also regularly use the AI to help me come up with things to post since that’s one of my biggest struggles. I do the writing myself, but the AI helps me condense it or add emojis.
Canva
What can be said about Canva? If you aren’t familiar with it yet, Canva is a powerful tool that uses a fantastic stock library and allows you to create social media posts and images with very little effort. It’s not as robust as Affinity Photo, but the stock library more than makes up for the fact that it’s a touch clunky to use when compared with other programs. It also allows social media scheduling, but I find it more limited than Hootsuite for that purpose.
Also, using Canva’s stock means that you have proof that you got the stock from a source with a license so if you get a takedown notice, you can find it in Canva’s library and protect yourself from legal action if you need to. While I do not use them, they also have AI tools that you can generate images and text from, though I don’t tend to prefer these resources and use stock images from photographers and artists rather than AI.
Carrd
I use Carrd as a way to collect a bunch of links into a convenient space. My main Carrd (https://www.ehprybylski.carrd.co) as a way to send folks to all my links at once. It has my social media accounts linked to it, my website, various projects I’m part of, and so on. I also have a secondary one with all my Books2Read links that I can send folks when they want to find me.
Website
This one seems pretty self-explanatory, but you’d be amazed how many authors overlook this step and just use social media instead of having their own slice of digital real estate. My websites (http://www.ehprybylski.com and http://www.selfpub.me) are important pieces of my online presence and are where people can go to find the most about me and the places they can hire me, find my books, and learn who I am.
MailerLite
Author newsletters are incredibly important parts of their marketing ecosystem, and MailerLite is where I send mine. It’s powerful, reasonably affordable, and is one of the best EMS’s out there at this point in time. It has a lot of useful tools for a good price and provides a solid backbone to your email newsletter.
BookFunnel
For ARCs and for newsletter cookies and other things, BookFunnel is a great option. I use it for a number of things, and it has integrations into MailerLite and other things. It’s a great way to build out your list and also deliver things. You can also use it for direct selling, which is something I am preparing to develop on my own platforms. (Direct selling is also a HUGE game right now that many indie authors are stepping into. I may have a talk about that coming up on the podcast, but I don’t know enough about it to really do it, so I’ll need to bring in an expert.)
Did You Know…
If you want more information on what I use, how I write books, and what publishing can look like, I’ve got a pair of books out in this very subject. How to Write the Damn Book and How to Publish the Damn Book are both available in e-book and in paperback from your favorite retailers or you can request them from your local library!
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