By Cara Putman, @cara_putman
Whether you are traditionally published with a house, writing independently, or using a mix of the two (AKA hybrid), here are a few tools I use to help make my time for efficient.
Thequill.io: Let’s start with where I write my books. I have Scrivener, which most of my writing friends adore, but I struggle to actually write my books in it. I love it for organizing my research, and I love Scapple, another Literature & Latte’s product, for brainstorming my ideas, but for writing I used Word for years. The challenge is I can want to write in multiple places and might not always have the document with me. THat’s where TheQuill.io has been a game-changer for me. TheQuill is essentially an online version of Scrivener. That means I can access it from any device and anywhere as long as I have an internet connection. I’ve written in the car from a hotspot. I can write in 15 minutes on a lunch break at work. Or I can write at home or a coffeeshop. But because it sits on the cloud, I always have access to the most up-to-date version. It also autosaves all the time — and it’s incredibly easy to go back and find an earlier version if you decide you like it better after all. This platform has really been a game changer for me. Currently TheQuill.io is still free though it may move to paid at some point. Scrivener and Scapple have free trials.
Canva: Canva is a wonderful tool for creating everything from social media graphics to book covers. There is a premium tool that unlocks some beautifully pre-designed graphics, but there are an abundance of free templates as well. The graphic above is one I tweaked from a free image on Canva and playing with one of the readily available fonts. They also have an app, so I can create on my laptop or my phone and access my graphics in either place. You can also create IG stories, reels and more inside Canva, but I haven’t played a lot with those functions.
Vellum: With Vellum it is soooo easy to create beautiful ebooks and print books depending on the license you purchase. The cost can feel steep upfront , but the license allows you to create unlimited ebooks (Vellum Ebooks = $199.99) or unlimited ebooks and print books (Vellum Press = $249.99). I purchased Vellum Press and have never looked back. I’ve formatted ARCs and more in 15 minutes or less with a simple upload of the Word document. There’s still much I’m learning — like how to change the default section breaks to cute little graphics based on the theme of my book — but the tutorials make it easy to adjust the format when I want to do so. However, the best part is that the preset formats are clean and varied, making it easy to get a default that you like for your books.
Flodesk: Newsletter are the lifeblood of marketing for most authors. If you don’t have an newsletter you should. For the first 1000 subscribers, most email platforms are free. I started with Constant Contact. When it got expensive, I switched to MailChimp. Then when that got expensive, I switched to MailerLite. This summer I switched to Flodesk. Flodesk is $19.99 a month for unlimited subscribers and emails if you sign up through an affiliate (if you use the links here, you’ll get the discount through my account). I don’t move easily, because it takes time to set up the forms, workflows, and more, but Flodesk has made it easy with beautiful email templates that are quick to use and easy to tweak. The emails are graphics heavy, so if you don’t like that style, it won’t be the platform for you, but with my list staying around 5,000 subscribers, it was $35 a month on MailerLite. I can use the $15 savings a month in other ways! (MailerLite is also very easy to use and a lower-cost alternative to Constant Contact and MailChimp).
BookFunnel: Here’s the final tool that authors need: an effective way to share their lead magnets and other books with readers. I’ve used a couple and switched to BookFunnel earlier this year. I’ve just started digging in to all the ways that I can use BookFunnel. You can create promos and create landing pages for magnet giveaways. You can also easily give out ACRs and more. One feature I want to try is the selling ebooks through BookFunnel on my website as one more way to reach my readers. You can see one of my sample pages for Dying for Love here.
This is a small list of the tools I rely on to keep my writing life moving forward with as much efficiency as possible. I’d love to know: what tools do you use? Which ones do you recommend to your fellow writers?
If they expected silence, they hired the wrong woman.
Caroline Bragg’s life has never been better. She and Brandon Lancaster are taking their relationship to the next level, and she has a new dream job as legal counsel for Praecursoria—a research lab that is making waves with its cutting-edge genetic therapies. The company’s leukemia treatments even promise to save desperately sick kids—kids like eleven-year-old Bethany, a critically ill foster child at Brandon’s foster home.
When Caroline’s enthusiastic boss wants to enroll Bethany in experimental trials prematurely, Caroline objects, putting her at odds with her colleagues. They claim the only goal at Praecursoria is to save lives. But does someone have another agenda?
Brandon faces his own crisis. As laws governing foster homes shift, he’s on the brink of losing the group home he’s worked so hard to build. When Caroline learns he’s a Praecursoria investor, it becomes legally impossible to confide in him. Will the secrets she keeps become a wedge that separates them forever? And can she save Bethany from the very treatments designed to heal her?
This latest romantic legal thriller by bestseller Cara Putman shines a light on the shadowy world of scientific secrets and corporate vendettas—and the ethical dilemmas that plague the place where science and commerce meet.
“Intriguing characters. Romantic tension. Edge-of-your-seat suspense. And a fast-paced ending that will leave you exhausted (in a good way!).” —Robert Whitlow, award-winning author of Promised Land
Since the time she could read Nancy Drew, Cara has wanted to write mysteries. In 2005 she attended a book signing at her local Christian bookstore. The rest, as they say, was history. There she met a fellow Indiana writer Colleen Coble. With prompting from her husband, Cara shared her dream with Colleen. Since those infamous words, Cara’s been writing award-winning books. She is currently marketing book 36 and dreaming up future books, not hard when she sees what-ifs everywhere.
Cara Putman is an active member of ACFW and gives back to the writing community through her service on Executive Board. She has also been the Indiana ACFW chapter president and served as the Area Coordinator for Indiana.
Cara is also an attorney, full-time lecturer at a Big Ten university, and all-around crazy woman. Crazy about God, her husband and her kids that is. She graduated with honors from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (Go Huskers!), George Mason Law School, and Purdue University’s Krannert School of Management. You can learn more about Cara at www.caraputman.com.
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Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Cara-C-Putman/e/B001T2AM3I/