For Staying Organized

Airtable

Who Recommends It: IAM publisher Chelle Honiker
Favorite Feature: Customizable views like Kanban, calendar, and grid

Airtable is a customizable, shareable spreadsheet database that integrates with a range of other apps, including Google Drive, Meta, and Zapier. "Airtable organizes editorial calendars, marketing plans, and project tracking in one place," Honiker writes. "It allows for easy switching between views to match the task at hand and integrates with other tools to automate data updates." Airtable is free for individuals to use with up to five editors.

Notion

Who Recommends It: IAM Creative Director Alice Briggs
Favorite Features: Calendar, and research organization tools

Notion is an all-in-one productivity app that allows you to bring documents, calendars, databases, and to-do lists together into one tool. Briggs uses it for tracking publication schedules and keeping research organized while drafting. “It’s free, and the app works well for on-the-go notes,” she writes.

For General Productivity

Brain.fm

Who Recommends It: IAM publisher Chelle Honiker
Favorite Feature: AI-generated music tracks designed to enhance concentration

Brain.fm provides a scientifically proven soundtrack designed to keep you on task. “Brain.fm creates focus-optimized soundtracks that help maintain deep concentration while writing or editing,” Honiker writes. A subscription costs $9.99 per month.

Habitica

Who Recommends It: IAM Editor in Chief Nicole Schroeder
Favorite Features: Quests and the ability to choose a class for your character

Habitica turns your to-do list into a role-play game, where each item you check gives you mana, gold, and experience. It’s collaborative and free with an optional subscription for additional quests and gear.

For Writing

MS Word

Who Recommends It: IAM Editor in Chief Nicole Schroeder
Favorite Feature: The Advanced Find & Replace tool

Though often seen as an unexciting option, MS Word is the preferred tool for editing and formatting a manuscript with advanced Track Changes and Find & Replace tools. It’s free on the web.

Scrivener

Who Recommends It: IAM Creative Director Alice Briggs and Indie Author Training Community Manager Karen Guyler
Favorite Features: Multiple content views, notes and synopsis panes

Scrivener offers a customizable writing space with organizational features. Both Briggs and Guyler recommend it for its multiple displays and organizational tools. It’s priced at $59.99 for a one-time purchase.

For Image Creation and Design Work

Book Brush

Who Recommends It: IAM Partner Relationship Manager Elaine Bateman
Favorite Feature: Built-in image dimensions for different platforms

Book Brush is an author-specific solution for creating covers, box sets, cover reveals, book trailers, and social media posts with easy-to-use templates.

Photoshop

Who Recommends It: IAM Production Coordinator Grace Snoke
Favorite Features: Guidelines, and ease of duplicating content from project to project

Adobe Photoshop offers ultimate customization for image creation and graphics. It requires a subscription, costing $19.99 per month with the Creative Cloud photography plan.

For Social Media and Newsletter Management

Make.com

Who Recommends It: IAM publisher Chelle Honiker
Favorite Feature: Multi-step workflows that connect design tools like Canva and social platforms

Make.com automates social media tasks by pulling data, generating images, and scheduling posts in a single workflow.

Meco App

Who Recommends It: IAM publisher Chelle Honiker
Favorite Feature: A clean, email-free reading experience for newsletters

Meco streamlines the reading experience by gathering newsletters outside of email apps, keeping users focused.

For Formatting

InDesign

Who Recommends It: IAM Creative Director Alice Briggs
Favorite Feature: Completely customizable formatting

Adobe InDesign provides flexibility and custom options for manuscript layouts, coordinating well with other Adobe suite products.

Vellum

Who Recommends It: IAM Production Coordinator Grace Snoke
Favorite Feature: Ease of copying front and back matter from one book to another

Vellum offers ease and automation for book formatting, integrating with ProWritingAid for error-checking. It’s available for Mac at $199.99 for ebook creation.

For Everything Else

Otter.ai

Who Recommends It: IAM publisher Chelle Honiker
Favorite Feature: Automatic, real-time transcription with speaker identification

Otter.ai provides accurate transcription services for spoken content, with a free version allowing 300 minutes of transcription monthly.

Zapier

Who Recommends It: IAM publisher Chelle Honiker
Favorite Feature: Pre-built integrations that are quick to set up

Zapier automates workflows to manage administrative tasks, free for basic automations, with advanced features at $19.99 annually.

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