If you are looking for services, products, or people to help you in your writing journey, I am pleased to share a list of people and products I personally vouch for.
No, I’m not getting paid for this.
I just believe in sharing the wealth and helping authors navigate the world of finding the correct team for them. It can be difficult in today’s world because, frankly, we deal with a lot of sharks in the water. There are so many services and products out there, it can be overwhelming.
This list is by no means comprehensive. I’m sure there are going to be people and services out there I don’t know about, but these are the ones I do.
I am not the right editor for everyone. I also only have so much time! If I am up to my eyeballs in work, I may not be available. So here are some amazing editors I trust and have worked with.
Pikko’s House – Crystal Watanabe of Pikko’s House is a delightful person and a good friend. You will be in excellent hands if you need her! She and the folks she work with have edited everything from YA Fantasy to women’s fiction.
Gecko Edit – Kath Kirk is a delight. She works in science fiction, fantasy, romance, and thrillers.
Angel Leya – Angel designs my personal book covers and has designed multiple for Insomnia Publishing. She is amazing at her job and has a large stock of images to help create whatever you have in mind. She mostly works in the fantasy genre and skews toward YA.
Mixtus Media – Jenn is a tremendously lovely human being and an excellent marketer. Her tools and materials are fantastic, and her podcast, YouTube channel, and other social media is full of amazing advice for authors on their marketing.
Best Page Forward – I have taken many of Bryan’s free Amazon Ads Challenges and purchased several of his marketing books. I cannot speak highly enough of him and his people!
Newsletter Ninja – Tammi has absolutely amazing advice for authors when it comes to newsletters. Her Facebook group is an amazing, supportive place full of lovely discussions and laughter.
The Writing Wives – I don’t know Jill directly, but I had the distinct pleasure of meeting and talking to Malorie Cooper for a number of hours when she spoke at the Neurodivergent Publishing Conference in 2023. She is truly wonderful, and her advice is fantastic. Honestly, she doesn’t live too far from me. I need to hunt her down and give her a hug.
This is going to be broken down into a few sub-sections to help you find the type of software you’re looking for.
yWriter – An open-source software used for drafting novels. It has a large percentage of Scrivener’s functionality but is perfect for folks who don’t have the budget for Scrivener.
QuollWriter – An open-source software used for drafting novels. It has a large percentage of Scrivener’s functionality but is perfect for folks who don’t have the budget for Scrivener.
Plottr – This is THE BEST software. It is designed to help authors keep track of notes and research as well as plot structure, characters, and to build an excellent series bible. I also use it to plan my newsletter. This software truly has had a massive impact on my writing.
Centered – While not strictly writing software, Centered helps you organize your writing time and get into flow states to get more words down. It also comes with AI coaches who encourage you. Finally, it knows if you get on Facebook and will yell at you. It’s hugely helpful productivity software.
These pieces of software will not replace an editor. They are incredible tools and should be appreciated as such, but they cannot do the job a human can. They can, however, augment your self-editing process a great deal and help you refine and clean up your manuscripts a great deal! I’m also not going to include the usuals like Grammarly and Hemingway. These are ones you might not know about yet!
SmartEdit – Software that will help you identify adverbs, repeating phrases, cliches, sentence length issues, and so much more. This is one of my co-pilots.
PerfectIt – There is some overlap with SmartEdit, but PerfectIt is more focused on formatting and catching things like different spellings (toward vs. towards). You can use a built-in style sheet or create one of your own with your own preferences. It also corrects things like quotation marks being straight or curly or other small errors.
Editor’s Toolkit – The Editor’s Toolkit has a lot of excellent and very powerful features. Far too many to list here. It performs the functions of about a thousand macros while compiling them into an easy-to-navigate GUI. While this is more focused on editors (and likely more useful to us), you may find it helpful in your journey.
Calibre – This ebook formatting software is open source and free. It allows a deep degree of customization for authors and accepts text style formatting from Microsoft Word or other writing programs. If you know CSS and HTML, you can create your own styles from within the software. It also supports images and adds metadata to the ebook files. It exports in all major ebook styles including epub, pdf, and legacy mobi.
Vellum – I have not used this software myself, but I know many indie authors who swear by it. Vellum is, unfortunately, Apple only, so I don’t have access to it to try it. However, it is easy to use and produces beautiful quality books. It produces both ebooks and print books.
Atticus – Much the same as Vellum, except Atticus operates on PC and other operating systems. However, Atticus has limitations and is designed for beginning formatters. It produces both ebooks and print books and has many excellent features.
Affinity Publisher – When it comes to producing print books, InDesign has been the industry standard for many years. However, with Adobe turning toward a purely subscription-based model, many people are left in the lurch. I was one of them. Enter Affinity Publisher. This software is the equal of InDesign in every way and is a one-time purchase. It is indispensable for print books. I own the entire Affinity suite of programs and think very highly of them and of the company.
Draft2Digital – If you are going wide, I firmly feel that Draft2Digital is going to be an excellent answer for most indie authors. While it doesn’t have all the options that Ingram offers, it provides an excellent range of services for a fantastic price.
Publisher Rocket – This lovely piece of software helps authors research keywords and categories for their books on Amazon. It’s a useful tool to help you decide what keywords and categories are the best fit for your book and the most likely to be of help.
BookFunnel – I swear by this software to help me deliver ARC copies to readers, do promos and giveaways, and more. There is a LOT out there that BookFunnel helps with, and the pricing makes it extremely reasonable to use. Also, the newsletter builders available are an excellent way to develop and grow your newsletter audience.
Canva – Canva Pro is one of the best methods of creating social media graphics I’ve found. While I have access to more powerful software, Canva allows me to create quick social media marketing posts without having to buy and hunt down all the stock images. You can also trust that images you make in Canva won’t get you hit for copyright infringement! It furthermore allows you to make Reels and TikTok videos as well as YouTube intros and more. It’s constantly expanding and is a really useful tool for authors in their marketing process.
MailerLite – While they’ve been doing some things lately to the free tier of service that are frustrating for many of us, MailerLite still stands firm as the best introductory newsletter builder service I’ve found. The free tier offers a relatively robust set of options for users, and paying for it is a very reasonable fee. Between MailerLite and BookFunnel, my ARC campaigns have been far more successful than they ever were before.
