Resources for Self-Publishers

New tools and new versions of old tools are available every month, it seems. It’s important to stay current to get the most you can from the best tools available. Here are the resources we like the best. In most cases, they are well-established businesses and tools used and endorsed by successful self-publishers across the world.

Writing

First and foremost, we recommend Microsoft Word as your primary word processor or manuscript development tool, whether you work on a Windows PC or a Mac. Word continues to offer the most features and versatility for authors, especially if you learn the most helpful shortcuts and discover the tools that most office workers don’t know about. If you haven’t written a book or other long-form document in Word, then chances are you have never used many of the tools Word offers to make book formatting easier.

If you’re in it for the long haul, you may want to try Scrivener, a highly-regarded writing tool for book authors. Combining a text editor with organizational tools helpful for novelists as well as nonfiction authors, Scrivener may become indispensable for organizing the characters, settings, and scenes you create and the research you do to prepare for writing.

Editing

Microsoft Word’s Editor feature is better than ever — far beyond the spell-checker it used to be. And it’s free to any Word user. But if you can spend a few bucks, there are other, third-party editing tools widely used by serious self-publishers:

ProWritingAid is probably the best available with comprehensive manuscript guidance, virtual beta reader AI, and marketability analysis.

But there’s more: Self-Editing Your Novel is a very helpful YouTube video from a professional editor. Aimed at novelists but includes valuable advice for any genre.

Design & Formatting

Most formatting for print and e-book versions can be done in Word, which has capabilities far beyond what you use to write emails, letter, and short-form documents like brochures or research papers. So, learning the Word-based features designed for formatting books will involve a bit of a learning curve, but the time spent will be worthwhile. Word’s limitations and productivity challenges can be overcome by stepping up to a more specialized book design tool.

  • Atticus — Atticus is the first tool we know of that provides one platform for writing, editing, and book formatting. Great for fiction, but not ready for prime time if you’re creating more complex layouts needed for many nonfiction books. Available for Windows and Mac.
  • Vellum — Available only for Mac. The choice of many successful writers.
  • Adobe InDesign is the one tool that does anything you can imagine doing to your book. It is the default choice of professional book designers and graphic artists. It integrates with Photoshop and other Adobe tools. I’m glad I have invested the time and money to learn InDesign.

Marketing

Book marketing in the self-publishing world is all about the fit between your book and its ideal readers, the people who will buy your book and come back for more. There are dozens, probably, of tools, platforms, and advertising and promotion services who all want to convince you they will deliver more book sales. Here are a few resources that our experience tells us are worth getting to know. Focus first on Amazon and then try other vendors as you’re ready. Each one has its own sweet spot, or particular added value. It will take valuable time away from writing to learn how to use each one effectively, so pick wisely.

  • Amazon KDP Marketing — I recommend that first-time self-publishers produce their first books using Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) and take maximum advantage of the marketing resources on that platform. Who would not want to start out by making their first book available in the world’s biggest bookstore?
  • Publisher Rocket — We really admire what Dave Chesson has created with Publisher Rocket, an essential tool for market research. Find out which books are selling best on Amazon in your genre or that share the same key words you have chosen. See how many copies they sell and how much money are they making each month. Fine tune your content and marketing pitch to the right audience for your books using real-time data straight from Amazon. Get a discount on Kindlepreneur tools. We are a Kindlepreneur affiliate and will earn a commission if you buy.
  • Marketing By Shelby — Shelby Leigh is a solid resource, especially in helping new self-publishers navigate social media to promote books.
  • There are a grwoing number of companies providing various marketing services for self-publishers.
    • Ingram Spark — Ingram is the leading book distributor to independent bookstores and libraries across the USA. Make your book available on Ingram and avoid having to approach stores and libraries individually. Ingram also provides complete print-on-demand services, so you can do-it-all on Ingram, but I advise not doing working with them until you have established your books on Amazon and are ready to it the print-on-demand production and marketing arm of the primary book distributor to bookstores and libraries.
    • Kobo Reading Life
    • Written Word Media — “Your book marketing hub.”
    • BookBub
    • Book Funnel
  • Specialized publishing/marketing channels:
    • Electric Literature — “We are particularly interested in writing that operates at the intersection of different cultures, genres, and media.” Fiction, poetry, graphic novels, etc. Non-profit.
  • Social media platforms. These are the most widely used and talked about platforms for marketing self-published books. Each has a learning curve and costs associated with advertising, so experiment carefully:

Managing Your Publishing Business

Build your productivity tool kit carefully and using high quality tools you have tried and found helpful. Here are some recommendations:

  • Cloud-based storage. There is nothing so discouraging as losing your draft manuscript or research notes, especially if they were accidentally deleted, the dog ate them, or whatever. Back up and keep all versions of your manuscript in the cloud somewhere, on Google Drive, OneDrive (Microsoft), iCloud (Apple), etc. You never know when you may want to refer to something you wrote a year ago but was cut during editing. Our favorite independent cloud storage tool is Dropbox.
  • File version control. Invent a system for naming and organizing files, such as manuscript versions and research content, that makes it easy for you to find something you haven’t accessed in a while. This may mean including unique key words in every file name associated with a particular book you write to maximize searchability or taking care to create filenames that stack up well when sorted in a file folder on your computer. If you have the storage space, keep a copy of every file, every version, and every change you make. As long as file storage is cheap and easy, why not keep everything — just in case?
  • Evernote — a cloud-based notebook and content management system. Evernote is comparable to OneNote from Microsoft, etc. Great for organizing research notes and links, keeping a journal, and capturing online articles, blog posts, images, and other research content.
  • WordPress — the world’s leading blogging platform and the home base for many self-publisher Author pages. You can start a blog in minutes at no cost and begin sharing your writing as you develop your book. A blog is one way to publish your writing and give it exposure before you’re ready to do a book. Other blogging platforms to consider are SubStack, Blogger, and Medium. Each has its own distinctive features.
  • Shopify — the world’s leading e-commerce platform and home to the direct selling websites so important for author brand development.
  • Creative Law Center — Kathryn Goldman is a well-respected attorney with information, advice, and courses that creators need to protect their intellectual property rights and license others to use their works.

Learning

Experts, Gurus, Observers, and Teachers

Here are our favorite pundits, gurus, thought leaders, bloggers, and teachers who continue to guide authors and self-publishers from the cloud.

  • Joanna Penn at TheCreativePenn.com — books, podcasts, videos, conference. Joanna is a delightful, intelligent pathfinder for authors.
  • Dave Chesson at Kindlepreneur.com — See his article on Amazon termination (yikes!).
  • Jane Friedman at JaneFriedman.com — expert advice and services from many years in traditional and digital publishing.
  • David Gaughran at DavidGaughran.com — His Let’s Get Digital and other books are intelligent and entertaining reads about self-publishing.
  • Dan Blank, WeGrowMedia.com — Coach and consultant to thousands of writers. Worth a look.
  • Ricardo Fayet, Reedsy.com — books, courses on publishing and book marketing.

Birds-of-a-Feather Groups

There are many such groups on Facebook, MeetUp, and LinkedIn. Apply your personal litmus test to a group. Are they your kind of folks? Is what they talk about of real interest or just self-promotion? Can you play by their rules?

Make new friends and colleagues and get clued up on the latest and the fading trends. Reply to questions and pose your own to get traction and visibility. May come in handy. Here are just a few for your browsing pleasure.

Videos

Podcasts

  • The Creative Penn — With more than 700 podcast episodes in the can, if Joanna Penn and her guess don’t know it, it’s probably not worth knowing.
  • The Self-Publishing Advice & Inspiration Podcast — One of several podcasts and resources from the Alliance of Independent Authors. (Available wherever you get your podcasts.)

Publishing Services

Some of these Print-on-Demand (POD) services for self-publishers have grown out of printing companies and some out of book distributors. Each one has pro’s and con’s as compared with KDP. Most will work hard to convince you they offer what KDP doesn’t or they do it better. That tells you alot about who the market leader is. Learn about them thoroughly and try to do free tests with any vendor before investing. And don’t cancel your KDP account if you do. Listed here in no particular order:

Audiobook Production Services

  • ACX — The leader in audiobook tools and services. And yes, another Amazon company. The biggest with the mostest. Great choice to play the long game.
  • FindawayVoices — Originally, an innovative independent service for do-it-yourself’ers, now part of Spotify. Will assume a new name under Spotify effective August 1, 2025. We have used Findaway successfully on an audiobook project that took just one week from idea to live product. We were impressed! They have an easier, faster way to create audiobooks of your titles and make them available on a range of audiobook sellers.
  • ElevenLabs — The future is now! Create a clone of your actual voice and use it to narrate your books. This, and more, at ElevenLabs. Cutting edge with a sharp blade.

Professional Services

These are my favorite freelancer marketplaces, where you can find cover designers, formatters, editors, illustrators, and more. Review their portfolios, create a project, and evaluate the proposals you get. Reedsy focuses on service providers for book publishing while the other platforms are more general in scope. You can find just about anything on YouTube. Pick carefully, or you’ll find yourself, many hours later, watching old episodes of your favorite sitcoms or learning how to install faucet watchers. You’ve probably been there and done that, like me.

Editors, Designers, formatters, others

  • Reedsy: freelance editors, designers, ghost-writers, more. Specialists in freelancers for book publishing.
  • Fiverr: freelance editors, designers, ghost-writers, more.
  • Upwork: freelance editors, designers, ghost-writers, more.
  • The Writer’s Ally: a staff of editors and others. Great vibe.
  • YouTube: Use to search for helpful how-to videos on just about anything. Don’t fall down the rabbit hole!

Broad Spectrum Publishing Services

Some are end-to-end service providers and others are narrower in scope. I have avoided listing companies which require large up-front payments before you ever see a book, then ship you boxes and boxes of finished product leaving you to figure out how to sell them. I think all these are worth a look when you have published your first book and are looking for wider distribution.

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