There has never been a better time to self-publish your book. You may already have a book in the making without realizing it. That blog you've been lovingly curating for years? It could be made into a book. All those long-form inspirational Facebook and Instagram posts that your fans love? Also could become a book. That stack of journals you've accumulated since college? You get the idea.
As a creative entrepreneur you already have oodles of ideas and writing that could be the basis of a self-published book. And now more than ever, self-publishing is mainstream. It's not associated with "vanity press" as it may have been (rightly or wrongly) 15 years ago. There are more self-publishing platforms, resources, and distributors to choose from, both print and ebook (and audiobook formats are taking off in a big way now too).
I'm here to help.
I've put together my favourite resources on a variety of topics to help writers navigate the publishing process. This list is getting long, so here's a handy index to find your way around.
As a creative entrepreneur you already have oodles of ideas and writing that could be the basis of a self-published book. And now more than ever, self-publishing is mainstream. It's not associated with "vanity press" as it may have been (rightly or wrongly) 15 years ago. There are more self-publishing platforms, resources, and distributors to choose from, both print and ebook (and audiobook formats are taking off in a big way now too).
I'm here to help.
I've put together my favourite resources on a variety of topics to help writers navigate the publishing process. This list is getting long, so here's a handy index to find your way around.
Contents
Writing, Motivation, & Creativity
Books on Writing/Creativity:
Blogs that Will Motivate You To Keep Writing (and not be so hard on yourself)
Creativity Tools
- On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft, by Stephen King
- Write Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within, by Natalie Goldberg
- Bird By Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life, by Anne Lamott
- The War of Art: Winning the Inner Creative Battle, by Steven Pressfield
- The Artist's Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity, by Julia Cameron
- Zen in the Art of Writing: Releasing the Creative Genius Within You, by Ray Bradbury
- The Creative Habit: Learn It and Use It for Life, by Twyla Tharp
Blogs that Will Motivate You To Keep Writing (and not be so hard on yourself)
- Steven Pressfield's blog, especially the Writing Wednesdays series
- Tara Brach's blog and podcast will help you practice mindfulness and compassion
- James Clear's website for his treasure trove of articles. His new book Atomic Habits is also highly recommended.
- Getting Things Done blog (based around the classic book Getting Things Done: A Guide to Stress-Free Productivity, by David Allen)
- Our blog over at Bookends Writing
Creativity Tools
- Online course: Creative Cross-Training for Writers (practice writing in different forms to develop your craft)
- Free mini-course: Build Your Best Writing Habit
The Craft of Writing
- The Story Grid: What Good Editors Know, by Shawn Coyne -- a methodology for revising your story
- Expressive Subjects: 25 Writing Prompts to Unleash Your Creativity, by Jon Parsons
- Story Engineering: Mastering the Six Core Competencies of Successful Writing, by Larry Brooks
- Revising Your Novel: First Draft to Finished Draft: A Step-by-Step Guide to a Better Novel, by Janice Hardy
- The Art of Styling Sentences: 20 Patterns for Success, by Ann Longknife
- How to Write a Sentence: And How to Read One
- Line by Line: How to Edit Your Own Writing
Traditional Publishing & Literary Agents
Life Cycle of a Book
- Here's an illuminating graphic describing the life cycle of a book from writing to distribution.
Where to find literary agents
How to write a query letter
How to write a query letter
- Free Reedsy course on query letters
- Complete guide to query letters (Jane Friedman)
- Guide to word counts by genre (Writer's Digest)
Online Tools/Apps
Self-Editing
Software
- Hemingway Editor -- Use this great app to write as boldly and clearly as Hemingway. It will flag all sorts of useful areas to rewrite and finesse.
- ProWritingAid -- Grammar checker and style editor, kind of like a personal writing coach.
- AutoCrit -- Online editing tool that gives recommendations for improving writing, with a focus on genre-specific analysis.
Software
- Scrivener -- Best-selling writing software that helps you write your first draft and move through revisions seamlessly.
- yWriter -- Great alternative to Scrivener. Standalone software.
- Wavemaker -- Free online app to help you write your book. You can reorder sections easily.
- Fictionary -- Online story editing tool for fiction. It allows you to visualize your story arc and evaluate your story scene by scene.
- Scapple -- Mindmapping tool by the creators of Scrivener.
eBook and Print Book Creation Tools
- Print cover template from KDP
- Calibre is an ebook management open source software.
- Kindle Create transforms your manuscript into a formatted Kindle ebook.
- DIYBookFormats.com
- DIYBookCovers.com
- Canva: Free social media and graphic design tool.
- Reedsy Book Creator
- Smashwords style guide (free download) is a step-by-step guide to formatting ebooks.
- BookBaby free interior book and cover templates to download.
- Book Design Templates has lots of resources on how to format a book.
- Vellum is a Mac-only software that allows you to format your book in ebook and print formats.
- Epub Validator validates your epub file to meet the highest standards of digital publishing.
Reading
- The StoryGraph - an alternative to Goodreads
- BookBub.com - great site for ebook deals
Editing
Top 5 Grammar Books
Style Guides/Usage Resources
Other Awesome Books to Peruse
- The Best Punctuation Book, Period
- Woe Is I: The Grammarphobe's Guide to Better English
- It Was the Best of Sentences, It Was the Worst of Sentences
- Practical Grammar: A Canadian Writer's Resource
- Sin and Syntax: How to Craft Wicked Good Prose
Style Guides/Usage Resources
- Conscious Style Guide: The essential guide to conscious language to help writers and editors think critically about using language—including words, portrayals, framing, and representation—to empower instead of limit. In one place, you can access style guides covering terminology for various communities and find links to key articles debating usage.
- Trans Journalists Association Style Guide: A great tool reporters, editors, and other media makers can use to begin to improve trans coverage.
- OneLook Dictionary
- Online Etymology Dictionary
- Common Errors in English Usage
- Corpus of Contemporary American English
- Google NGram Viewer
Other Awesome Books to Peruse
- Style: Lessons in Clarity and Grace
- Elements of Style, by Strunk and White
- Sense of Style: The Thinking Person's Guide to Writing in the 21st Century!
- The Creative Writer's Style Guide: Rules and Advice for Writing Fiction and Creative Nonfiction
- The Artful Edit: On the Practice of Editing Yourself
Book Marketing
- Book launch info hub from Tim Grahl
- How to make 3D covers for social media
- Book Marketing 101 from Kindlepreneur.com
Self-Publishing
Here are the top self-publishing channels (distributors and aggregators) for indie authors. Also check out this excellent overview on the Reedsy blog):
Amazon
Apple Books (iTunes)
IngramSpark
Lulu
Aggregators
Smashwords is a popular distributor of indie ebooks. See their how-to guide and the style guide for preparing ebooks for upload to their site.
Publish Drive is an ebook publishing platform and featured global partner of Apple.
Draft2Digital converts your document to an epub and distributes it in their online stores. They take 10% of the retail price per sale.
- KDP Direct Publishing (KDP) for ebook selling. KDP Select is when authors choose to publish exclusively through Amazon for 90 days. Readers will be able to read unlimited ebooks enrolled in Kindle Unlimited, exclusive to KDP Select authors.
- Barnes & Noble Press is a self-publishing platform, updated and streamlined version of Nook Press). You will be able to sell directly online and see your books in their B&N stores.
- Kobo Writing Life ("do-it-yourself" publishing portal) (ebook retailer)
- Step-by-step guide
Apple Books (iTunes)
- Publish your books directly from iBooks Author
IngramSpark
- Platform for print-on-demand and ebook publishing. Their print-on-demand division is Lightning Source.
- IngramSpark is a great gateway for offline selling, getting your books into bookstores and libraries. It connects your book to every major ebook retailer in the world, like Amazon Kindle, iBooks, Kobo and emerging retailers.
- IngramSpark Academy -- free self-publishing courses online
- Ebooks for self-publishers
Lulu
Aggregators
Smashwords is a popular distributor of indie ebooks. See their how-to guide and the style guide for preparing ebooks for upload to their site.
Publish Drive is an ebook publishing platform and featured global partner of Apple.
Draft2Digital converts your document to an epub and distributes it in their online stores. They take 10% of the retail price per sale.
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