Week Three – TOOLS
Be sure to watch today’s video right here.
Welcome to Week 3 of the WRITE A BOOK WITH TRACEE CHALLENGE. I’m running here on my blog and my Youtube. You ready? This week, I’m talking about my top ten tools that I use to get the many jobs all within in writing, speaking, teaching, and my publishing projects, done, and done efficiently and with less stress and headache.
You already know how much I enjoy writing but anything I can use to make it fun, get it done quicker, faster and while on the go, I’m all for. I’m mostly a desktop computer user, so you can have a TON more tools than those listed here but because I don’t have that much that I need when in my office, I think the list is pretty minimal and that means low (to no) costs. Please also note I’m not advocating spending ANY money. I always tell my novel writing students that writing is one of the most “organic” bells and whistles-free thing you can do. I mean, almost everyone has a computer and while this is an expensive piece of equipment, hopefully everyone has access to a phone (if they don’t have a computer), and a library, where you can use a computer for free, (with a registered library card of course). You can write a book in the text programs if you needed to and be fine but thankfully, there are better tools, many still free, to help you along. Not to mention, hopefully you’re with the mind set that whatever you purchase for your goal, is an investment in your work/craft and yourself as well as your future goals and aspirations.
So while I like my home office and yes, this is where you’ll find me most late nights and weekends, inspiration doesn’t always spark in the home office so I like to ensure that when an idea comes, I can capture it without too much of a headache.
I’ve broken up the tools into two lists. The first are things I feel you should get and begin familiarizing yourself with right now because they can help you right now. The next group of tools, I feel you could probably wait closer to the time when you’re ready to finish up your book and/or will begin to see editing, formatting, cover design to release/publish your book and also if you’ll start a blog to document your journey. Here they are whenever you decide to add them to your arsenal.
RIGHT NOW TOOLS
Evernote, One Note, Google Keep – When you’re on the go, the worst thing ever is not being able to capture a great idea. I use Evernote and I have enjoyed it thus far. It’s free right now though I think my storage is getting tight so I may have see about either deleting (moving) some things or see what the costs will be for the paid version. There are many note capture tools and a couple more are listed here.
One Note
Google Keep
Apple Notes (only available for Mac users)
Notion (seems more for teams)
See this article for the “best notetaking apps for 2020“
2. Second is using Google as a backup for storage – documents, research notes, article links and starts and stops of stories or the entire story; they are handy and I’ve created a lot of awesome content in here. Backing up your work is such an important thing that you want to ensure you can do that and not loose all your effort. It’s loss or crash that will frustrate you the most particularly if you’re fairly new to the writing process. You want nothing to cause you to throw in the towel and losing all your hard-won effort will surely cause you to do just that.
3. Word processing tool – I like Microsoft Word and like many folks I got it at a time when I could purchase the entire thing for a reasonable price. Unfortunately that doesn’t seem to be the case, anymore. So many want to tie and tether you to them forever through subscription service and with such a ‘sharing is caring’ type of world, people are losing revenues, particularly however, I’d say that’s the case for artists. So, click here to read an article to help you understand the differences between Office Suite package vs. doing a subscription package. Note, the article is by MS Office so they will of course promote their own products.
Other word-processing tools include Google, Abiword, Apple iWork (Pages) included with Apple/Mac computers, Corel WordPerfect (before MS Word, and one of the oldest word processing programs), Google docs, Libre Office, Open Office – Writer. Be sure to look deeper into these programs for any policy issues and reviews. Most are open source software programs meaning they are free to the user but is anything really free? The major issue here is loss of data and copyright protections to look out for.
4. Grammarly – while Grammarly can be a great tool, I believe for many new writers there is a tendency to rely too much on it. I wouldn’t rely on it as it’s never ever going to replace the human eye and the current rules of stellar writing -as they change, but they can (even the free version) help with improving your grammar . Try it out!
5. PRINTER
As I mention in the video, HP Instant Ink is an automatic ink replenishment program where you can sign up for one of their tiers (based on page number amounts) and pay a monthly fee to use. )
I currently use the HP Officejet Pro 6900 series – it’s considered an All-in-One “officejet” printer (fax/scanner/printer/copier). It’s not a laser printer and when I do purchase my next printer, I hope to get a laser printer which is more expensive but has very high quality output. The all-in-ones will do the job for small businesses and your children’s projects -which are they even submitting things via hard copy anymore? Probably not. My printer was less than 100 bucks so just shop around. I did purchase it at Staples, but Staples are now Office Depots or have closed completely. Amazon will probably be cheapest.
LATER TOOLS
1- WordPress, Wix other website development – I think that website designs and content are fairly straightforward, what’s really difficult is the number of other things you have to worry about including SEO, keywords, a site that converts visitors into buyers and ensuring you can capture the information of visitors when they visit your pages. As a writer just starting out, worry most about getting the pages up and having a stellar looking home that people will want to see and visit and your presence will follow. There’s no need to break the bank when you don’t have that much to share.
In the video, I talked about some pages you might have for your website, and that short list is also here for your convenience:
Landing / Welcome (first page people see or “come to”)
About Me
Contact Me
Products
Blog page
Always look at other sites and begin to explore what you like and don’t like. If all else fails, call for help. The designer of this site you are on now at www.TraceeGarner.com is Sharvette Mitchell. Click her name to be taken to her beautiful site.
2. Canva – Canva has been around for about 10 years, but I’ve only been using it for about 4 years and I believe it’s one of the greatest online tools ever, not just the best online graphic design tool but the tool of all tools-holy grail. They make it so easy to create wonderful and professional looking graphics for your flyers, events and just about every post I have on all my social media platforms, I used Canva. I even did my best friends funeral program on it, in 2019. I am using the paid (business version), it’s approximately $119.00 annually and the only real reason to do that is to get more access to the stock photos/illustrations. If you see pics you want and you just gotta have them, you’ll have to pay a buck per image, compared to having to pay more at other sites. Since I’m using the business version, I try to make sure that I don’t get any pics that will costs additionally and work with what’s available.
3. Newsletter creation / Database Management Tool – Mailchimp, Constant Contact, Madmimi, Mailerlite, there are so many different programs to help you capture email addresses of visitors that come to your site and sign up to get a free download or ebook, but you can create a newsletter to send to those folks using these programs.
Note, for about 2 years, I was paying for the paid version of Constant Contact, ($ 20.00) month until I hit 2K subscribers, and I really like CC as I mentioned in the video because they were VERY user friendly. However, I would have first started with Mailchimp if I’d had a little more patience to learn it and take the time with it.
4. Large file sharing program
I mentioned in the video that I have used a program called Transfer Big Files
Also mentioned –
Google Drive or
Drop Box
5. A way to accept payments and recieve or send funds through Paypal / Square – Finally, if you ever want to get paid or need to pay someone else for a service or product or service, then both Paypal and Square are great programs that have a long track record. One thing that I will say I used to have a bit of a hang up about is that Cash App seems to be taking over and while I didn’t originally know it was owned by Square, prior to this knowledge I felt a bit of a snob because there is something to say for creating an invoice and sending it and then having that invoice paid in the parameter (and 30 days set). Wish Cash App there wasn’t any of that. I liken it to thinking that the Tick Tock and Snap Chat seem more for the younger set and this is likely true and so it doesn’t always resonate with us old heads that it could be a lucrative way to sell books (or whatever is being sold) unless you write Young Adult books, right? This is just an analogy and it’s up to you to take away what you will from it but my point is to use tools that legitimize your business and how you come across. I’m not saying there is anything wrong with any -and I actually use all three for different things, BUT everything has its place, so consider the image you are trying to promote AND then consider your audience. If you have items to sell you want to collect money no matter what, moreover you don’t want lack of cash to prevent someone from making a purchase as you hope all business entities will accept whatever you have, whether that be cash, check or credit card, so when it comes to money, at the end of the day, the collection methods really do NOT matter. It’s up to you and your own perceptions (some of which need to be let go).
http://www.paypal.com
http://www.squareup.com
Hope you can use some of all of these tools and that they will help you get ready for your book career or just be more efficient and savvy in whatever you endeavor.
