Gay Romance Authors Blog

 

Books, books and more books.

Because after all, that's what we're all about, isn't it? Reading, writing, editing, reviewing, critiquing and breathing good old books. Apart from doing all of this, we also have to market them to the public, entertain people with promotions and grow our author brand. It's a daunting task indeed.

That's why I wanted to share some of my 'trade' practices with you. I've found the following things make me far more productive and makes my life easier as I navigate the mire of building my own business as an author.

CLICKUP

This was a gem of a find. I’d been searching for years for something that gave me this sort of functionality. The designers have built ‘The One App to Replace Them All’ – Tasks, Docs, Goals, and Chat. It’s multi function, including Process Management and Team Collaborations, and they update it with new features every week. I was using Trello, but Clickup is so much better. I am loving it.

MAILBIRD

If you’re like me, performing a number of job roles and needing to manage multiple email addresses, this is your app. It’s easy to use, easy to add different accounts without all that messy having to know your domain, the server number, user name, etc and all that techy stuff, and allows me to manage all my email accounts in one place. It also updates features regularly.

This assistance all means I have time to have yet another cup of coffee...

ALLAUTHOR

One of the best and most diverse author promotion sites out there. New features constantly added, their team very ready to respond to questions and all in all, I find this site invaluable in making my teasers, scheduling tweets, advertising, creating quality book mock-ups and gifs and a host of other features.  

KIZOA

This takes a bit of time to learn, but it produces amazing book trailers and videos, and is a go to resource for me. I’ve made some wonderful book trailers using this application.

PACEMAKER

This app allows me to create a goal driven entry for my Work in Progress (WIP) and map my progress, change it as circumstances change and have a method of seeing how productive I am (or aren’t). It’s my work productivity bible and without it, I’d be stuck.

ADAZING/AUTHOR ACADEMY/AUTHORLAB

A great source of free book mock ups and cover templates, along with a host of other features. Along with this is the Author Academy. For a fee, you can explore and use loads of material and advice related to the publishing world. Author Lab is brilliant too but a little expensive. I was lucky enough to get it when it was only $40, on a special offer. It gives me more time to do what I should be doing – writing. With coffee, of course...

FYLE

I cannot tell you how much this app helps me when it comes to keeping track of my expenses, royalty statements and income. It’s another invaluable one. You create a specific tax year report, or expenses/income folder, email your receipts into the relevant one from your email account, and voila! It creates a report that can be downloaded as Excel or CSV, without you having to do any work. My accountant loves it – he has access to my account and all I do is let him know it’s all there and completed and he uses it to file my returns. If he wants to print something, he can, otherwise it’s all available for audit online.

HELLO WOOFY - an application with a rather unusual name 

There are a load of social media scheduling tools out there and I've used them all. I like to be able to create posts for future publishing, like to my Facebook Author Page, Twitter, Instagram accounts.

I've used Loomly, ContentStudio, Buffer, Hootsuite, TweetDeck - they all work but I wanted something a little different. I found Hello Woofy online and thought, hell, why not give a try.

I'm still working it out, as I'm fairly new myself but if what the promise all comes to be, I think I'll stick with it. It 

Disclaimer - I receive no commissions or bribes for any of the applications I've noted above lmao. I'm simply passing on my experiences. :) 

So there you have it. I hope this proves useful to you, I know they certainly make my life easier. So you’ll end up having more of what’s below to spoil yourself rotten…Me Time.