Our Favorite Tools And Resources
Our Free Guides
Our Favorite Tools And Resources For Writers And Bloggers!
Affiliate Disclosure:
Many of these links are affiliate links, which means Aspiring Writer Academy may receive a commission if you decide to make a purchase. This adds no extra cost to our readers and helps us keep our site up and running. In fact, many of the creators of these tools have given us special discounts that we get to extend to you. To learn more, please visit our Disclaimer page. We share these tools because we believe they are genuinely helpful for aspiring writers.
Websites & Blogging
Bluehost
Bluehost is our favorite hosting platform for all of our websites, including this one.
If you are getting started with your first website/blog we recommend creating a self-hosted wordpress.org site and hosting it with BlueHost. Bluehost has an amazing support team, affordable prices, and is one of the best hosting sites on the market.
Grow by Mediavine
Grow by Mediavine is a great social share software for bloggers.
Grow by Mediavine allows you to set custom images and descriptions for Pinterest. You can choose the default social media images and descriptions for your content that your readers can then share on their own social media profiles. With their beautiful buttons, it makes it easy for your readers to share your blog content. Grow by Mediavine also integrates with Google Analytics so you can easily see your share counts. This is a great tool for bloggers who want to fast track their blog growth.
Yoast
Yoast is our favorite blogging tool for Search Engine Optimization.
The goal of every website and blog is to gain traffic and Yoast really helps you get more visitors to your site. Yoast makes it simple to add good SEO to every blog post you write. Yoast SEO helps with everything from improving your titles to entering meta descriptions for your post and much more. They give you your Flesch Reading Ease score on all your blog posts, help you with your keyword optimization and give you real-time suggestions of things you can do to improve your SEO score for every blog post. This is a must-have tool for any blogger. You can use the free version of this tool forever or upgrade to the pro to unlock even more features.
Email Marketing & Newsletters
ConvertKit
ConvertKit is our number one favorite email marketing platform.
If you are serious about growing an email newsletter for your writer platform and taking your writing career to the next level ConvertKit is 100% the way to go! We love this email marketing service. Convertkit makes it easy to create stunning landing pages, sign-up forms, set up automations, tag and segment your email list, and much more. There are tons of great features that really make the switch to ConvertKit worth it.
Mailchimp
Mailchimp is a great option for beginners.
We used Mailchimp on our sites for years and still use it for some websites, especially if they are geared toward eCommerce. Mailchimp has a wonderful support staff and is super easy to use. But one of the best selling points of Mailchimp is that it is absolutely free to get started. It is free up to up to 2,000 contacts making it the perfect email marketing platform for beginners.
Creating Graphics
Canva
This awesome tool is perfect for non-designers to create beautiful graphics.
Have 0 design skills? Canva is the tool for you! Canva is extremely user friendly and there is no cost to get started. You can happily use the free version forever or you can upgrade to the paid version to unlock even more features. Canva has thousands of ready to go templates and image dimensions that are easy to tweak, or you can even enter in dimensions and create your own custom piece. You can use Canva for unlimited projects, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, Twitter, Youtube, you name it. Canva is a must-have tool for your arsenal.
Adobe Photoshop
Adobe Photoshop is our favorite program for creating top-notch professional graphics and designs. You can use photoshop to create book covers, bookmarks, postcards, and social media content. The sky is the limit.
Adobe Photoshop is hands down the best photoshop tool to date. This is a very complex and advanced program but the possibilities are limitless. As a graphic designer by profession, Samantha uses Adobe Photoshop for almost every project involving any sort of graphics. Adobe Photoshop can be used to create children's book illustrations, blog graphics, and social media graphics and content.
Adobe Illustrator
Adobe Illustrator is for advanced users but for those who take the time to learn this program, there is a lot it has to offer.
Adobe Illustrator is great for creating vectorized images that work great with children's books. We use a combination of Adobe Illustrator and Adobe Photoshop when creating the graphics for our children's book series.
Adobe Creative Cloud
Adobe Creative Cloud is our favorite service for multiple Adobe programs.
The Creative Cloud is a collection of more than 20+ desktop and mobile apps and services. These tools are great for design, photography, video web, animation, and much more. For one monthly fee of US$52.99/mo, you get access to all your favorite programs, hundreds of fonts, all the latest updates and more.
Writing
Microsoft Word
Hands down Microsoft Word is the favorite writing software.
Microsoft word is the primary program used by most writers. This program allows you to create professional-quality documents, reports, letters, and résumés. Unlike a plain text editor, Microsoft Word has features including spell check, grammar check, text and font formatting, HTML support, image support, advanced page layout, and more. By having the Microsoft 365 subscription you can get all the latest word updates as they come out.
Scrivener
Scrivener is an incredible app for writers.
Scrivner's word-processing program/outliner designer is an excellent system for authors to organize their notes, documents, and research in an easy to use system which allows you to keep everything you need all in one place. This is a fantastic tool that many authors absolutely love.
Editing
Grammarly
Grammarly is a great tool for basic editing.
Grammarly is an amazing free tool that helps catch basic spelling, grammar, and punctuation mistakes. This robust spell check has a chrome and desktop extension, so you can have grammar and spelling checked while writing online or offline. The free version is absolutely incredible and catches a lot, but the paid version has even more advanced suggestions and features. This is a great tool to use to edit before sending your manuscript to your critique group to edit and review.
Note Taking App
Evernote
Evernote is a great note-taking app that syncs across all your devices.
Evernote makes taking and organizing notes a breeze. You can write down your note on your phone then later access it from your computer. This handy app has a lot of great features that can help writers stay organized and not lose important ideas.
Book Formatting
Adobe InDesign
Adobe InDesign is our favorite tool for formatting books professionally. This is a very complex advanced program not advised for beginners.
Adobe InDesign Is the tool we use when formatting books into epub formats and other formats. Adobe InDesign has a steep learning curve and is recommended for someone who is already familiar with the adobe suite. However, it is fantastic because it allows you to have full customization and control over the layout of your book and formatting.
Adobe Acrobat
Adobe Acrobat is a fantastic tool for writers. There are so many different useful applications for it. From easily electronically signing PDFs to formatting children's picture books there is a wide range of useful possibilities for this program.
Adobe Acrobat Is the tool we use when formatting all of our children's picture books. With this program, it is extremely simple to edit PDFs, Convert them to Microsoft Office docs or other formats, and much more. You can organize multiple files, combine multiple PDF documents into one, and create engaging content. Acrobat is also extremely useful for quickly electronically signing book contracts. As a writer having a program that is geared towards working with PDF Documents is a must-have tool.
Social Media Scheduling
Tailwind
Tailwind is for sharing blog content to Pinterest.
Tailwind has drastically increased our blog and website traffic from Pinterest. Tailwind is an amazing tool that makes it insanely simple to bulk schedule out pins. You can select the best time to publish them for the most engagement. There are super cool features like Tailwind Tribes, where you can collaborate with other pinners in your nitch to help grow your reach. With Tailwind, you get access to great analytics to track your reach on Pinterest. There is a lot you can do with Tailwind! Highly recommended for those who want to start drastically increasing traffic to their website or blog.
Buffer
Buffer is easy to use and has a low price tag making it a great tool for beginners getting started with scheduling out their social media content.
Buffer is an awesome tool for those who are just starting to dip their foot into the water of scheduling out social media. Buffer includes all the top social networks and for as little as $15 a month, you can start scheduling out posts on up to eight of your social media profiles. Buffer gives you lots of great tools to make creating a full social post calendar less stressful.
Collaboration Tools
Dropbox
Dropbox is a great file storage and sharing program that makes collaborating with others super easy.
Have a large book trailer that is too large of a file to send over email? Need to collaborate with a book cover designer or web designer? Dropbox makes it super easy to upload large amounts of files. We love using Dropbox on lots of our projects.
Google Drive
Google Drive is another one of our favorite file storage and sharing tools.
Google Drive is a cloud-based storage system that makes it easy to save files online and then be able to access them later from any device. Whether that is a tablet, smartphone, or computer doesn't matter. Google Drive also makes sending large files to others a breeze. You just upload your files and share them.
Zoom
Zoom is our favorite tool for video meetings, group chats, even webinars. It's a great way to connect with other writers.
Zoom is a free easy-to-use video communication service that makes collaborating with others simple. This is a great tool for one-on-one video chats, group meetings, webinars, and much more. Zoom makes video conferencing easy with its wide variety of tools. It is simple to share your screen, draw on a whiteboard, and share PowerPoint slides. There are also paid plans to access even more features but there is a lot you can do with the free version.