Having the right tools in your tech toolkit is crucial to managing every aspect of your author business. Whether you’re just starting out or are a full-time authorpreneur, refining your tech stack can streamline your workflow and enhance your productivity.
Tech tools—document editors, spreadsheet software, notes apps, and the like—are a part of all our lives, even outside of our work as writers. Many of those will serve you well as an author-publisher too. As your business expands, you’ll want to add the right tools at the right time to pave the way to success. In this article, the Alliance of Independent Authors (ALLi) will break down the essentials for building and perfecting your tech stack, tailored to your level of experience.
Beginning Authors: Building the Foundation
As a beginning author, your primary focus is on refining your craft. At this stage, your tech stack can be basic, but it will form the foundation of your publishing efforts. It’s important to assess your options carefully to make sure the foundation is solid.
Writing
Your most important tool as a beginning author is your writing software. You probably already have a viable tool available to you: a document editor like Microsoft Word, Apple Pages, or Google Docs. These will all allow you to capture your thoughts on electronic paper, but it’s valuable to consider more specialized writing tools. Scrivener, which I use, offers robust features for organizing your manuscript, research, and notes in one place, but this power comes with complexity and a steep learning curve. Atticus, a web-based app, is easier to use and also enables you to generate the files you will need to upload to the various distribution platforms.
To assess which might be right for you, speak with others in your writing community, scan the web for recent reviews and overview videos, and whenever possible, make use of a free plan or a trial period to see if the tool meets your needs before making a long-term investment in it.
Editing and Proofreading
The editing and proofreading tools built into tools like Word, Pages, and Docs are getting better every day. As with every tool in your toolkit, tap into all the functionality that is available to you. For more editorial firepower, consider specialized tools like Grammarly, often recommended for nonfiction, and ProWritingAid, often recommended for fiction.
AI tools can also help you improve the quality of your writing. In my final polishing edit, I often prompt ChatGPT with questions like, “In this sentence, what are 3 alternatives to the word <X>?” The results often jog loose that perfect word that was hovering just outside my mental grasp.
Making full use of all the editing and proofreading tools that are available to you before giving your work to a professional editor will ensure you make the best use of that editor’s skills and time.
Production and Distribution
If you have chosen writing software that doesn’t have an easy-to-use, built-in means of generating the EPUB and PDF files you will need to upload your book to production and distribution platforms, it pays to get a tool specifically optimized for this purpose. Many Mac users use Vellum, which is focused solely on this function. On the other hand, one of the selling points of the Atticus writing app is that it has this functionality built in.
Marketing and Promotion
One of the few recommendations to authors that has remained consistent over time is the need to build an email list and to use a tool specifically designed for this purpose. Using your personal email account not only conveys an unprofessional image but also risks running afoul of email regulations. There are a number of good options; search online for recent reviews from authors and look for comparisons of features and functions to choose the one that’s right for you.
Emerging Authors: Improving Your Efficiency
As an emerging author, you’re looking to refine your processes and expand your reach. Your tech stack should evolve to support these goals, incorporating tools that help you manage the growing complexity of your author business.
Writing
The efficiency of your writing process becomes more important at this stage. You might consider additional tools such as Plottr, which can help speed the development of your story and also offers time-saving features, such as the ability to capture information about storylines, characters, and settings for reference—especially valuable if you’re writing a series.
Financial Tracking
As your publishing business grows, tracking your financial performance becomes more complicated, especially if you are distributing your books via multiple retailers. Having a tool that will gather this data and help you assess it is vital. ScribeCount, with its visual depictions of sales and royalties across platforms, time frames, geographies, and more, gives authors insight into their author business that many would struggle to get with a sophisticated spreadsheet.
Marketing and Social Media Management
Promoting your books and connecting with new readers is vital, but you won’t want the work to eat into your writing time more than is absolutely necessary, and tools are available to help.
Want to share advance reader copies with your street team or sign up for a newsletter swap? Explore tools like BookFunnel and StoryOrigin. These tools are worth the cost if for no other reason than they relieve you of having to provide customer support to readers trying to get your EPUB file onto their e-readers.
Eager to have a presence on multiple social media platforms? Consider tools like Buffer or Hootsuite to schedule posts across multiple platforms, saving you time and ensuring a consistent online presence.
Experienced Authors: Fine-Tuning Your Toolkit
As an experienced author, you’ve established a successful author brand and likely have a substantial backlist. You will be fine-tuning your tech stack to maximize efficiency, revenue, and long-term growth.
Task Management
Since you may coordinate work across a team, consider tools like Trello or Asana. I use Trello’s robust free version not only to organize my own work but also to coordinate with colleagues like my business manager, podcast producer, and co-authors.
Financial Management and Tax Tools
As your author business grows, so does the complexity of your finances. Add finance tools to your toolkit to manage this data and capitalize on the insights they can provide. Weigh the benefits of ubiquity against alignment with your own financial know-how. In my author business, since I knew I would sub out this work, I chose QuickBooks because it’s easy to find finance pros with expertise with this tool. If I would’ve wanted to take on this work myself, I would have explored more basic and less expensive options.
Perfecting your tech stack is an ongoing process that evolves as you grow as an author. As you explore what works for you, visit ALLi’s publicly available blog, which has a whole category devoted to tools and tech, at https://selfpublishingadvice.org/category/ai-tools-tech. ALLi’s SelfPubConnect also provides authors with a community to discuss their options and find support for the ones they’re using. By strategically refining your tech stack at each stage of your business, you can ensure your work as an author-publisher is of the highest quality and greatest efficiency, paving the way to success.
Matty Dalrymple, ALLi Campaigns Manager