For Authors

I’ve summarized my resources & services for writing, editing, formatting, cover design, publishing, and marketing books as an indie/self-published author. It’s organized based on the process you’re most likely going to follow (writing, then editing, then formatting design and publishing, then marketing), but since you might want to begin setting up or planning your marketing strategies and generating marketing content while your book is with the editor, there’s an “index” so you can jump to the section that is most relevant to you right now.

If you aren’t sure what your book needs, I offer a Manuscript Feedback service. I’ll read your manuscript and give you big-picture feedback, including recommendations for what types of edits your book will benefit from, market readiness, genre and reader expectations, and a personalized roadmap for getting from where your book is now to achieving your indie publishing goals. I will edit, design, format, etc. ONLY if I’ve done a Manuscript Feedback process first, because this saves both of us time and sets clear expectations.

Note: While many of these links may be affiliate links, I only recommend products or services that I am confident will help you accomplish your publishing goals.

The two services that I strongly recommend to ALL indie authors, regardless of anything else, are Draft2Digital and BookFunnel. Draft2Ditigal distributes your book to all major retailers, so you can distribute wide without having to remember 50+ logins, without having to re-upload files 50+ times to fix a typo, etc. BookFunnel allows you to sell ebooks and audiobooks directly from your own website, deliver them to Patreon supporters, and easily gift ebooks to individuals, advance readers, and email subscribers.

Writing Resources & Services

My Villains course is a deep dive into adversarial impulses and character development with a focus on avoiding the stereotypical other equals evil pitfall that many villains fall into. It’s also useful for books that don’t have a “villain” per say, such as a romance novel with two (or more) protagonists, a memoir, and even narrative non-fiction because adversarial impulses exist in every human being and can drive outer conflict and inner growth.

The Worldbuilder’s Laboratory is for anyone who loves creating complex, comprehensive fantasy or science fiction worlds. Within this membership, you get access not only to the course version of the Worldbuilder’s Manual, you also get templates and tools to create world and character reference books that you can use as a guide for role-playing games, video game/movie/tv adaptations of your stories, and inspiration for marketing.

The Writing Well is an intensive course to deepen your writing skills. While AI can be very useful and I do use it and encourage people to use it ethically, we are writers because we want to write. This course is for those of us who want to keep our writing craft sharp so we can tell our stories with our own words in our own voices.

My favorite writing software is 4theWords because it gamifies getting words on the page. You “fight” monsters by getting words down, and there are special quests and celebrations etc. It’s great for brains like mine that need the extra dopamine to get through the boring-to-me but necessary-to-the-story pieces.

Grammarly also has an AI Detector, which tells you whether or not it thinks a piece of text was generated by AI (I’m not sure how it tells… but it’s available). They also have a Plagiarism Detector, which is really useful especially if you’re writing academic or scientific work.

Editing Resources & Services

I offer all three of these types of edits. Generally, I charge $0.06-$0.09 per word for Developmental Editing of most narrative works (most fiction and non-fiction), $75-$100 per hour for more complex works (eg poetry collections), $0.03-$0.06 per word for Line Edits, and $0.01-$0.03 per word for Proofreading. Once I’ve completed a Manuscript Feedback process with your manuscript, I’ll include information about my availability and pricing for your individual situation.

Developmental Edits

This type of edit looks at structure/plot, pacing/tension, character development arc, and pieces that may be missing or work better in a different order.

Line Edits

This is your typical edit: looking at consistency of narrative voice, checking for over-use of descriptive words, and sentence-level structure.

Proofreading

Proofreading focuses on: typos, spelling errors, grammar and punctuation.

I recommend Grammarly for this because human eyes miss things, but Grammarly catches it. You will probably ignore some corrections that Grammarly suggests, in order to preserve your narrative voice, but at least you know you’ve ignored it on purpose.

Formatting Resources & Services

Vellum is a Mac-based book-formating software. I use this for most ebooks and print interiors. For the majority of fiction and non-fiction work, this is the simplest option. It’s easy to learn and you invest once. It can do emojis, text message style blocks, headings, drop caps (yes even for ebooks), decorative breaks, verse style blocks, handwritten style blocks, and all the basics.

InDesign is great for books that need complex layouts such as illustrated children’s books, works of poetry that require special formatting, and textbooks. It’s more expensive and harder to learn than Vellum, but gives you flexibility in formatting complex layouts and exporting as epub, fixed layout epub, and pdf for ebook and print interiors. The biggest reason to consider InDesign is that it makes formatting print covers MUCH easier, but you’re likely to have your cover designer do this for you.

Cover Design

While there are many excellent cover designers out there, I don’t have anyone specific to recommend right now. For myself, I use AI image generation tools (such as Midjourney, Leonardo, Canva, etc.), then edit and create my cover designs in Canva and/or InDesign.

Alli has a directory of vetted publishing services here, which includes some cover designers. Definitely check a designer’s policies about their use of AI so you can make an informed decision about whether they are using AI ethically, and so you know if you need to disclose that AI was used as part of the cover design process.

Publishing Resources & Services

Draft2Digital is great for publishing ebooks everywhere. You pick and choose which platforms and list prices you want for each book on each platform in each country. Their list of platforms includes library platforms such as Libby and Hoopla, which means your readers can request their library put your book into their ebook catalogue. They’ve got some print options as well, that I haven’t fully explored yet. Draft2Digital is free to set up, they take about 10% of the list price as a distribution fee, collect your royalties from all the platforms where you’ve made sales, and direct deposit your royalties into your bank account. This is by far the easiest way to get your book out there. Seriously.

BookFunnel is great for distributing freebies to email subscribers, making direct sales, integrating with Patreon to reward supporters with early editions, special editions, advance reader copies, etc. They deal with all the customer service questions readers may have when they try to get your book onto their preferred reading platform so you don’t have to. They’ve also added options for group promotions, making it super easy to add a lead magnet free book to a group promotion relevant to your genre to cross-promote your work. BookFunnel charges a yearly fee, but they’ve got a variety of plans and you don’t pay any royalties to BookFunnel ever.

IngramSpark is the indie branch of Lightning Source, the biggest printer of print books. They offer print-on-demand services for paperbacks and hardbacks in a wide variety of sizes and styles. I’ve seen their full-color children’s book samples and the color quality was consistent and vibrant (except where the artwork itself was intentionally faded or subdued). They will make your print books available everywhere, print from the closest of their global printing facilities when you sell a copy, and follow standard publisher royalty rates. They’ve got calculators for figuring out if your list price is high enough for bookstores to get their 30-40%, you to get your 10-20%, and the production costs to be covered. They do charge a book set-up fee, but you can always find a code that gives you 100% off of this fee if you’re a member of Alli: the Alliance of Independent Authors.

BookVault is a UK-based print-on-demand service. They have distribution options to print bookstores, like IngramSpark, and print in the UK and the US. BookVault is very picky about the formatting of files, so be prepared to get error messages the first time you upload your files. They have templates, I recommend you download and use them. BookVault is best for special editions and print box sets. You can explore the special features they offer here, and the details for their box sets here.

Marketing Resources & Services

My friend Kelly McClymer has an accountability community with a gamified strategy for getting your marketing tasks done, having fun while you do, and remembering to combine short-term and long-term strategies to support launches, special promotions, and long-term sales. Learn more about Book Marketing Bingo here.

Community & Networking

Being an indie author can be lonely. Which is great if you’re an introvert, but isn’t necessarily awesome when you’re ready to build a business around your writing. Here are some communities that offer guidance, support, and opportunities for finding other authors who’s work might be great for a cross-promotion.

Turning creative projects into a viable business isn’t easy. At Amagi Path, the Creators and Entrepreneurs levels are where I guide you through how to apply specific meditation and mindfulness practices to build your creative muscles, recover from burnout, and develop a path to a creative business that is sustainable for you (not one where you can’t write because you’re too busy using up all your energy making ad graphics…)

The Alliance for Independent Authors is a global network of independent authors. They’ve got a lot of advice about independent publishing, leveraging rights (such as TV/movie, translation, etc.), and more. It’s a deep-dive education into the modern publishing world and a supportive community of authors who believe that lifting all boats helps everyone.