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Writing Resources You NEED to Know About

Many aspiring authors spend hours and hours, alone behind their computers tap, tap, tapping away. Then those hours turn into months, and of course, the months slip into years.

This is admirable. If I’m confident of anything, it’s that to be an author you have to be willing to spend hours of your life equivalent to entire years out of your life slaving away writing. I’m just for sure that you need to read at least just as much.

One thing that gets unfortunately overlooked by many is that you also have to be willing to leave your books and your computer behind sometimes. To engage others.

Not that you can’t be an introvert. Thousands of widely regarded successful authors were introverts. That’s is because in some way or another they were able to overcome, albeit sometimes only briefly, their restrictions and step outside of their comfort zones.

That’s because while writing can take many forms; journaling, hobbies writing, personal letter writing. Authorship is a profession, and that means that it falls within a business structure. No matter how sincerely you believe that Jack Kerouac went from nothing to a fantastic book within two weeks of boozing (which FYI, in reality, he didn’t). If you want to move books from shelves, you will need to approach the task earnestly. With a humble attitude that is open to working with others.

The business of writing, designing, editing, publishing, marketing, and selling your books requires a multitude of strangers. Regardless of whether you have a small budget, or you’re JK Rowling.

In fact, the small your budget, the approach is better suited to involving a large number of people each with small, potentially volunteer style task. For instance, having friends complete a narrative edit before giving it to a professional editor, to reduce the amount of paid time the editor has to spend on the manuscript.

For your first book, I highly suggest having a strong group of people who can offer various products, services, and insights to help you stay focused, motivated, and up-to-speed on the ever-changing self-publishing landscape.

Being a successful author requires a lot more than just writing a great book. You have to get into the weeds, be willing to change out of your writer’s cap and into a variety of other hats depending on where you are in the process.

You may not have the skills or willingness to tackle everything with your own two hands, and that’s why it’s so important to develop your own file of go-to resources along the way.

Here are 30 more resources to tap into along the way!

While this list is mostly self-publishing focused, if you’re going the traditional publishing route, you should still have a rigorous shift through them to make sure you are familiar with what is out there.

Useful Blogs and Sites

1. The Write Life

This workhorse blog is a one-stop-shop offering all you need to figure out how to work with clients, navigate the changing landscape of publishing, learn the ins and outs of social media, grow a following for your blog and find a community that will support you along the way. You’ll always find something useful for your book business here. Try not to get lost in the rabbit hole though. There is so much helpful information here I try to time my visits to make sure I’m not eating into my writing time!

2. Kindlepreneur

If you want to dig deep into the goulash of marketing your books, Dave Chesson of Kindlepreneur is your man. His strategies are groundbreaking. Every successful author has to wear many hats, and Dave shares his years of marketing experience and success to show you how to promote the heck out of your books.

3. The Book Designer

Joel Friedlander, the creator of The Book Designer, says “Writers change the world one reader at a time. But you can’t change the world with a book that’s still on your hard drive or in a box under your bed.” This embodies the Community Writer mentality. Joel gives you everything you need to get your book out of the box with a variety of self-publishing guides, advice, templates, and toolkits. With his experience in book design and advertising, Joel has the creds to help you produce and sell a great-looking book.

4. The Creative Penn

The Creative Penn is run by Joanna Penn, who has been wildly successful with fiction and nonfiction. In her blog and podcast, she covers every aspect of what it takes to start and run a successful author business. She also has a grab bag of books on various self-publishing topics if you can’t get enough on her blog.

5. Jane Friedman’s website

Jane has more than 20 years of experience in the book and magazine publishing industry, with expertise in digital media and the future of authorship. Her site is full of actionable content and detailed strategies for the aspiring author from someone who’s been there and done that many times over.

Podcasts Worth Your Time

6. Podcast – Neuralle (Uncommon)

Please forgive the shameless self-promotion here, but aside from the fact that I will be most likely appearing on this podcast at some point, Neuralle is a fantastic self-development podcast and in my humble opinion a must for any aspiring author or entrepreneur.

Past guests have included Venture Capitalists, Entrepreneurs, Chefs, Restaurant Owners, Body Builders, Strength Coaches, Activists, Winemakers, Filmmakers and many, many more.

7. Tim Ferris Podcast

This show is the first publishing-related podcast that I followed, and it’s still an all-time favourite. It’s hosted by Tim Ferris an American best-selling author, entrepreneur, self-proclaimed “human guinea pig”, and public speaker.

8. Grammar Girl Quick and Dirty Tips for Better Writing

Every green writer should bookmark this podcast. With helpful and insightful tips on grammar and storytelling, Mignon Fogarty’s podcast is sure to help you improve your narrative and technical writing skills.

9. The Writer Files

Hosted by Kelton Reid, The Writer Files is a long-running podcast that delves deep into habits and habitats of famed writers. Reid interviews writers from a broad spectrum, giving each listener a chance to see into the mind of an accomplished wordsmith within their genre or interest.

Forums

10. Neil Gaiman Board

Neil Gaiman’s Official Message Board. Enough said.

11. Goodreads Groups

Goodreads is the mega-site (with over 20 million members) for authors and readers. They have more specific groups than you can count, and if you can’t find an answer or inspiration here, then it doesn’t exist. You might feel a bit overwhelmed, but here’s a smart article on using Goodreads to support your author business.

12. Scribophile

There are tons of writing forums out there to choose from, so I suggest you have a play with a few of them. This one works a bit differently which is why I like it though. Scribophile provides detailed and helpful critiques from a member exchange. The analyses you’ll get are so much more than just a pat on the back – you’ll get actionable ways to improve your writing.

Writing Tools

13. Scrivener

Scrivener is a powerful writing tool for authors that allows you to concentrate on composing and structuring your documents. Get a free 30-day trial and watch some brief YouTube tutorials to get acquainted with the system quickly.

14. Grammarly

This proofreading application is an improved version of your standard spellchecking program. Just copy and paste blocks of text into Grammarly, and it will check your writing for common mistakes. The reason it’s better than most spellcheckers is that it provides useful feedback that will improve the overall quality of your book. You will learn a lot very quickly by taking heed of the side bar suggestions and explanations.

15. Hemingway Editor

Excellent writing is quite often straightforward writing, and Hemingway was the master at that. Whether you’re writing fiction or nonfiction, your narrative should get to the point with simple language. With the Hemingway software, you will learn how to simplify your writing.

Book Publishing and Freelance Help

16. Archangel Ink

Archangel Ink is a one-stop solution for getting your book ready to publish. Archangel offers a range of services to help you with cover design, editing, formatting, audiobook production and much more. I feel that if you haven’t published before you learn a lot by manually going through the process of completing your manuscript via Scrivner, finding editors/cover creators via say Reedsy/Freelancer and then uploading it to KDP/Createspace. However it can be frustrating, so I completely understand throwing down some cash and handing of some or all of this to someone else. I’m currently considering using Archangel Ink to produce and audiobook for me.

17. 99 Designs

This is a service where you post a design project, like your book cover, and dozens of freelancers submit mock-up examples. You then select finalists based on the submissions and choose the winner to work with you to create a finalised version. 99Designs can be pricey, but it’s a great option if you want a professional cover design for your book.

18. Grammarly

I won’t rant on this too much as already do that frequently enough if you don’t have the free version of this you need to get it now. What some of you might not know, is that via the paid version they have an option to connect you with a professional proof reader. I haven’t used this before but considering the calibre of everything else they do I think it’s worth investigating.

19. Freelancer

One the most significant websites for hiring freelance talent. If you want to find the largest pool of people, then this is a great place to look. The app makes chatting with prospective freelancers seamless so you can manage your project and selection of the perfect candidate on the go.

20. Reedsy

Reedsy offers a boutique experience in editing and cover design. Most freelancers here have worked in the publishing industry, so they have a thorough understanding of what will work for your books. But you should also expect to pay more for the freelancers you find here. If you’re going the self-publishing route within fiction, a professional editor is a must, an absolute necessity, seriously. Reedsy is a great way to find one, with almost every budget available. If you can’t afford the lower tier, I suggest saving your pennies or going the traditional publishing route, where a publisher will provide you a professional editor to work with.

Getting Feedback

21. Survey Monkey

Is an easy to use survey builder; ask multiple choice questions and get demographic information about your audiences, like age, sex, or occupation. You can use it for your current email list, or post a survey with a lead magnet somewhere your target audience will see it (forums, pay-per-click ad etc.)

22. PickFu

PickFu allows authors to get instant feedback on your book before you publish using audience polls. This is a more advanced option for those who already have income streams, again I don’t suggest paying for a resource unless you’ve used a free version and had equitable success with it.

Email Marketing

23. AWeber

With a drag and drop email builder, unlimited image storage and an easy to use interface, AWeber is a great option to manage your email marketing communication.

24. MailChimp

MailChimp offers 12,000 emails to 2,000 subscribers – free. That’s what MailChimp can do for you. A great email marketing resource if you’re just getting started. MailChimp is easy to set up, easy to manage and offers an easy to scale pricing plan as your list grows. As the Wix email option ‘Shoutout’ has a capped number of emails you can send but an exportable email list. You can use MailChimp to send additional emails if you are pushing the boundaries of the free Wix option.

25. Constant Contact

You can’t call yourself constant contact and then not be available to your customers. And that’s just what makes this email automation company shine. They offer round the clock support 7 days a week. They also offer 60-day FREE trial.

26. SpyFU

Search for any domain and see every place they’ve shown up on Google: every keyword they’ve bought on AdWords, every organic rank, and every ad variation in the last 11 years. This combined with Wix’s seamless SEO makes key words unbelievably easy. You don’t need to have some ten years long.

Learn how to connect with these domains, too. Find online and traditional leads methods — social media, email, phone, and address — you can’t find anywhere else. So you can look at other authors within your niche and find out exactly where readers are going to find them.

Staying Organized

27. Google Keep

Keep is an excellent organisation tool. It stores every idea, research plan and content structure. Which can quickly be dumped into Scrivner later.

28. Evernote

Another option this is with a few more features is Evernote, you can save snippets of content you find online and go back to all of it in a searchable, taggable easy to find notebooks on Evernote. It also connects to my Google Home via IFTTT which frustratingly Google Keep doesn’t seem to, so I can handsfree keep notes easily.

29. Google Drive

Accessible from anywhere with internet, Google Drive is a great collaborative tool for teams to use when you’re working with content, files, or images in tandem. Google Sheets and Google Docs makes group work seamless, and all work can easily be shared with hyperlinks.

30. Tomato Timer

The Pomodoro Technique is a time management strategy preferred by many authors. It’s not always easy to keep track of the non-writing tasks related to your book projects. With Brain Focus Productivity Timer, an excel sheet (or just pen and paper) and Scrivner’s session tracking you can keep motivated with tangible evidence of how hard you’re working. Not only time associated with the project. Team Viz is another excellent paid alternative to this method, and you can’t forget the simple Tomato Timer (tomato-timer.com)

31. Slack

It’s like super chat. Instant communication. Instant file transfer. Indexed and Searchable. It is fantastic for collaboration if you have a specific project you are working on. Again, use wisely, if you are co-authoring for example. Not if you’re just working with a freelancer for a short time, instead use the platform’s chat for content protection!

32. Lander App

You can learn more about A/B testing here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A/B_testing

I have experimented with A/B testing in the past but didn’t feel that it was hugely beneficial. I think that you have to have a relatively sophisticated reason to use A/B testing. Potentially I’ll use this for a book launch with a landing page in the future. Of those that I experimented with, I found Lander App to be the most straightforward to use.

Again, if you don’t know what A/B testing doesn’t worry, you don’t need to! Don’t jump to trying to use A/B testing, focus instead on the following:

– Mailing list Opt-in rate

– You unique visitor Site traffic

– Total engagement (comments, email responses) / Book Sales

For the third point there, you concentrate on engagement if you haven’t released your first book yet!

Website Hosting

33. Freenom – A Name for Everyone

One of my favourite hosting companies, if you’re just starting out, I don’t suggest spending any money on anything if you can avoid it. This is perfect for this, as instead of choosing a.com or a.net you can get a free domain and easily swap with redirection later once you’re profitable. Personally, I use Wix for all website things, but this is an excellent option if you’re just starting out.

34. WP Engine

WP Engine is a hosting company that provides managed WordPress hosting for websites around the world. They have great support, and their servers help your WordPress site run a top speed. I use Wix as I find it far more user-friendly, however, the advanced features do require a minimum annual cost. With WordPress, most features can be scaled up for free, but a bit more mucking around with add-ons and tech stuff.

Farm Safety – National Government Resources Part 2

The federal government in the United States has a special place in being able to provide both federal and local advice and help with specific focus on the agricultural industry. This applies both to advice and guidance in a theoretical sense about all business activities, and in a specific sense to dedicated areas of the agricultural and farming industry.

Agricultural safety and health centres, come under the brief of the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health. Health and safety on farms is a major issue, and this government agency focuses on research and policies regarding the prevention of all workplace injuries on a national level, including agriculture.

Agricultural safety and health centers take this work one stage further, providing help at a more local level, albeit still in a very wide geographical area. Some of the centres based in Washington, California, Colorado, Texas, Kentucky, New York and Ohio.

There are a few other centres as well and their work may even be subcontracted further down the line if necessary. The intent is to be able to provide more localised information and help on a geographical basis, and each center may decide on specific ways of doing this.

Their main role is to provide safety education programs, that take into account the broad locality of where they are based, and can thereby focus on specific issues that have a local bearing.

They are an excellent resource because they can combine both federal and local experience and policies, targeted much more specifically around the locality of an area.

The National Children’s Centre for Rural and Agricultural Health and Safety is a dedicated centre, which as its name implies focuses on providing farm safety in relation to children.

Unlike a lot of other industries, the use of children and young people in agricultural work is still seen as a really good thing, providing valuable experience for young people in a safe environment, providing holiday jobs, and often lifestyle and community experience.

Many young people who work on farms also live there, either as part of the family who own the farm, or as part of a family who work there.

In any event, it is acknowledged there needs to be a special focus on how best to protect children and young people in terms of workplace safety, in ways that do not necessarily apply to other businesses.

This agency oversees that, and try to develop a framework that allows children and young people to grow up and be involved in the nature of the work in a safe and appropriate manner.

The United States Consumer Production Safety Commission is a regulatory agency whose focus is on setting standards for consumers to have confidence in, in terms of the safety of all products within the industry.

This agency tries to work closely with farmers and producers of agricultural products in order to achieve this. It is in everyone’s interests that consumers feel safe in the products they are buying, and this can be an ongoing challenge for the farming and agricultural industry.

The other main government agency worth mentioning is the Environmental Protection Agency. This agency has a broad remit to protect all areas of the environment, most notably the air, water and natural resources of the United States.

This agency has responsibility for overseeing and implementing laws and regulations that apply to pesticides and air and water pollution.

There can be heavy financial penalties if these regulations are not adhered to, and it can be a major challenge for many farms and agricultural businesses to make sure that all their business practices conform to current legislation.

The EPA should not be thought of as purely being a policeman enforcing government law.

It can also be a very effective resource for providing help and advice on what laws and regulations apply particular environment or area, and advising farmers on how best to meet their responsibilities.

Dealing with all types of pollution, either airborne or waterborne it is a responsibility that everyone working in the industry has, and in an ideal world would want to adhere to.

Business pressures can often lead to people taking shortcuts in the hope of getting away with it. This sadly does happen, although hopefully infrequently. It is important that all these government agencies work in a collective and collaborative manner in order to both support and regulate all farms and agricultural practices throughout the country.

Must See Resources for Maryland Small Business Law Issues

As any business owner can tell you, there’s a huge range of potential small business law issues which you can run into, starting from the business’s inception, and continuing practically each and every day from there. However, the good news is that there is a great deal of free information available online to help you sort through the mess. Here, you’ll find a list and overview of recommended, high quality resources for Maryland small business law issues.

The first place you may want to visit will be ChooseMaryland.org. This is Maryland’s Department of Business and Economic Development website, and it has many fantastic resources, including its step by step guide to starting a business.

You’ll also find a huge range of documentation and resources for Maryland business law, business-to-government issues, certifications, contracts and permits, and more. If you’re ready to jump right into it, you can download their 88-page “Guide to Legal Aspects of Doing Business in Maryland” to see for yourself what you’re dealing with.

Another destination should be Maryland.Gov. When you visit that website and navigate to “working” you’ll see a series of resources and links about business. This will take you to other official state websites and documentation on everything from labor laws to taxation and more.

The Maryland Department of Assessments and Taxation website is available at DAT.state.MD.US, and has a great deal of helpful information for Maryland small business law issues, including the appropriate filing and registration of a new business entity, the tax levels and financial-legal concerns of small businesses and on down the line from there.

The next website doesn’t deal with Maryland law issues specifically, but it’s all about the successful operation of a small business, and dealing with common legal matters. The site is Nolo.com, and within that, its “Running Your Small Business” guide. It has in-depth guides on issues such as contractors, eCommerce, business litigation, buying and selling businesses, and more.

Of course, there are also official federal government websites, such as the U.S. Small Business Administration, and Business.Gov. These will deal with federal issues, but will also provide information for state-level concerns, while providing access to the appropriate state-run departments.

Hopefully you now know about a few more places where you can go to learn more about Maryland business law issues. There’s a lot to consider, and whenever you’re in doubt, you should always seek professional legal assistance. The cost of hiring a lawyer is small when compared to the costs of not doing so, and in many cases, free consultations will be available.

Entrepreneurial Approach to Resources

Howard Stevenson and his colleagues at Harvard Business School define entrepreneurship as “the process of creating or seizing an opportunity and pursuing it regardless of the resources currently controlled.” This approach, Stevenson maintains, has greatly contributed towards the success of entrepreneurs. He points out that entrepreneurs seek to use the minimum possible amount of all types of resources at every stage in their venture’s growth. These resources include human resources, financial resources, assets and a business plan. Rather than own the resources entrepreneurs need, they seek to control them, according to Stevenson.

Studies indicate that entrepreneurs with such an approach towards business substantially reduce the risk in pursuing opportunities.

1. Capital: Since the amount of capital required will be smaller, it will mitigate risk by reducing the financial exposure and the dilution of the founder’s equity.

2. Flexibility: Entrepreneurs are in a better position to commit and decommit quickly when they do not own a resource. The flexibility of business thus gained can be very useful to a firm, since it enables them to respond faster and reach decisions quickly. In addition to this, the entrepreneurial approach to resources allows strategic experiments, which means that ideas can be tried and tested without committing to the ownership of all assets and resources in the business. For example, it is wise to raise capital gradually as the need arises, otherwise one may end up spending it too early on wrong decisions. Inflexibility also results from committing permanently to a certain technology, software or management system.

3. Low Sunk Cost: The cost of closing down a firm or a venture will also be lower if the ownership of resources is less. If the up-front capital commitment is huge, abandoning such a project will also be very costly.

4. Costs: Fixed costs will be lower, which will have a positive affect on breakeven. Of course in that case variable cost may rise.

5. Reduced Risk: Apart from reducing risk in general, other risk events such as risk of obsolescence of resource are also lower. For example, biotechnology companies have used venture leasing as a way to supplement sources of equity financing.

One should not assume incorrectly that this approach means that a firm cannot afford to buy resources. The fact is that not having ownership has its own advantages and options in the form of flexibility of business and reduced risk. However, at the same time these decisions are very complex, and considerations such as tax implications of leasing vs. buying and other existing laws and regulations have to be thought of thoroughly and carefully.