What are the best tools for indie authors? In a sea of companies all vying for your hard-earned money, it can be hard to choose.
Being an indie author has its perks (saying NO to the man, for instance), but it can also be exhausting. Keeping track of book stats, monitoring book reviews on Amazon and GoodReads, contacting book review bloggers, writing a book (and overcoming that pesky writer’s block), and the rest of the other million things can leave us feeling drained.
But being aloof about your numbers is a surefire way to remain stagnant in your writing career.
Fortunately, there are more and more indie author tools coming out that help indie authors do the hard (or just plain miserable) things.
5 Best Tools for Indie Authors:
Some of my favorites (no affiliate links, all just products I love):
Best Design Software: Canva
I use this to make everything from marketing ads to book covers and newsletter templates. LOVE it. You can get a free account to try it first (and you SHOULD), but I have never regretted upgrading to Canva Pro. The best thing about this is it’s a million billion times easier to use than Photoshop. I even use it for conference presentations and designing my bookmarks.
1. Best Indie Stats Monitoring: Reader Scout Chrome Plugin
I use this FREE plugin to keep an eye on my book prices, Amazon followers, and reviews. I would not recommend this for obsessive review readers, though, as it will let you know whenever one comes in on one of your books.
2. Best Formatting Software: Atticus
I love how easy this book formatting software is to use. If you’re not doing anything crazy, I definitely recommend Atticus when formatting your novel for Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Ingram Spark, or anywhere else. Good news, it is NOT a subscription. One-time fee for forever use. Yay.
If you’re curious to see how formatting with Atticus can look, check out one of my books with Amazon’s Look Inside feature. They offer tons of different styles, layouts, and fonts, so this is just an idea.
3. Best Editing Software: ProWritingAid
While nothing replaces an in-person editor, I find I’m able to get my prose to a pretty professional state with this software editing. I feel like it does a more thorough job than the Google or MS Word editors and even a better job than Grammarly.
Just be careful if you’re just starting out–software like these are trying to make your writing sound like the pros–but sometimes that can delete your voice! Only use ProWritingAid once you’re sure you know how to keep you in your writing. I bought the lifetime subscription during their annual Black Friday sale and have loved it.
4. Best Book Delivery Tool: Book Funnel
I love using this book delivery software to send out electronic book copies to beta readers, make cards for selling ebooks in person (these are popular), build my newsletter lists through promos, and deliver e-copies through my Shopify bookstore website. I know there’s also been a big push to use it for landing page sales lately, though I haven’t tried it (yet!).
5. Best Indie Author Website Tool: Shopify
There’s been a big push lately for authors to move to Shopify, so I finally jumped in and tried. Result? I love it! I love being able to sell my books, write a blog, and keep track of all my stats in the same place. The layouts are also super easy to use (drag and drop, my author friends), and look really professional.
What are some of your favorite programs that have helped you the most as an indie author?
