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by Ali Luke
on
Ever scoured the vast internet for the best writing resources, only to end up lost in a sea of options?
I feel ya.
You’re searching for quality online resources and writing tools that actually work, right?
Well, good news!
We’ve curated a list of over 30 of the most powerful online writing resources for budding authors like you and laid them out in 8 key stages with actionable tips to sharpen your writing skills.
Eager to level up your game?
Let’s dive right in.
Note: I’ve focused on non-fiction books here, though you’ll find that some of the advice — particularly on areas like research and time management — will apply to other types of writing too.
You can’t have a great book without a great idea.
I’ve written a lot over the past eight years, and one thing I’ve learned (the hard way!) is that the ideas that I think are great aren’t necessarily the ones my audience will want to buy.
The following resources will help you come up with ideas and road-test them so you’re sure the book you’ll be spending months of your life on will be one that people actually want to read:
Author: Dave Chesson
Source: Make a Living Writing
This post is all about creating a book that people already want. It’s a guide to doing market research on Amazon, with lots of handy links to free and paid tools you can use.
Author: Dan Blank
Source: Self Publishing Advice Centre (the Alliance of Independent Authors’ blog)
In this post, Dan explains how you can take very specific steps to find out exactly what your ideal audience likes, based on the books they’re already reading and the authors they’re already following.
Author: Debbie Reber
Source: Debbie Reber Writing Coach
Although this is a short, succinct post, Debbie offers great practical tips for digging deeper into your idea — for thinking not only about how to position and sell your book, but also about what to include in your outline and plans.
Once you’ve got an idea that you’re confident will sell, it’s time to figure out the structure of your book and create a full chapter-by-chapter outline.
Your outline is particularly essential if you want to submit a book proposal to agents or publishers. But even if you’re self-publishing, having a solid structure means you’ll end up with a much better book as a result.
These resources will help you corral your ideas and outline like a pro:
Author: Roger C. Parker
Source: The Book Designer
Before you start your outline, you should get all your ideas down on paper through mind mapping. This post explains what it is and how it’s done, and offers some suggestions for making the most of mind mapping software.
Author: David Carr
Source: The Book Designer
If you’re feeling overwhelmed by the idea of outlining, or if your mind goes blank whenever you sit down to plan out your book, David’s post breaks things down into simple steps — with a focus on gathering your ideas then getting them into a logical order.
Author: Lise Cartright
Source: Author Basics
This video and accompanying post explain how to use a writing tool called Scrivener to outline a book by using its corkboard view. In case you’re not already familiar with Scrivener; it’s a paid-for piece of software that many fiction and non-fiction writers use as an alternative to a word processor. It’s highly recommended; see next resource)
Source: Literature and Latte
Writers love using Scrivener to write their books because it creates a much more organized writing experience. It’s not only beneficial for outlining, but will help you keep track of everything once you write the book. The more of your book gets written, the harder it becomes to navigate in tools like Word. Scrivener fixes this problem.
If you want to give Scrivener a try, there’s a free 30-day trial (it only counts the days on which you actually use the software, so you could use it 3 days per week for 10 weeks). After that, it costs $45 (Mac) / $40 (Windows) to buy. It has a bit of a learning curve, but it’s worth it (and you can find video tutorials on its website).
Note: Although I’ve put this as Stage 3, there’s no rule saying you need to do all your research before you begin writing. Some authors prefer to draft first, leaving gaps or sections to come back to at a later stage.
The idea of “research” can conjure up images of dusty libraries, a complicated trawl through a research paper, or daunting conversations with experts. If you’ve never done much research before, the idea of it can be enough to put you off writing altogether.
Research doesn’t need to be difficult, though. All of these resources demystify the process:
Author: Paul Gil
Source: Lifewire
This excellent post isn’t aimed specifically at authors, but at anyone conducting research online. It distinguishes between “hard research” (when you’re looking for objective, scientific facts) and “soft research” (when you’re looking for subjective, opinion-based sources), and offers specific suggestions on the types of sources to turn to.
Author: Ryan Dube
Source: MakeUseOf
This is a fascinating, very in-depth look at the “hidden web” (or “deep web”, “invisible web”, etc.): the huge volumes of online information that are not accessible via a standard search engine. While some of this won’t be relevant to authors — e.g., the first section is more focused on personal, family research — it also looks at academic writing, particularly research around academic databases and search engines like JSTOR.
Author: Chandler Bolt
Source: Self-Publishing School
This post takes a closer look at the idea of writing first, then researching. Chandler focuses on efficient research: making sure you find out what you need to know to write a great book, without spending too much time bogged down at this stage.
Source: Help a Reporter Out
This huge mailing list is a fantastic resource for researching pretty much anything. You can send out a message saying what you need and find loads of great sources: individuals who’ve signed up to receive messages about their particular area(s) of expertise.
Note, though, that HARO requires your website/blog to have an Alexa ranking of one million or less before you can send out a request for sources. (To give you some idea of rankings, Smart Blogger is at 47,868 and my own site Aliventures is at 639,675.)
You can sign up to HARO as a source, if your book’s topic is your particular area of expertise. That way, you can get quoted in other people’s articles and books — which is a great way to market your own.
Once you’ve got an outline and you’ve done enough research to at least begin — it’s time to write! (Not everyone can afford to hire a ghostwriter, after all.)
One of the biggest struggles that authors face, though, is actually getting their writing done consistently.
Maybe you love coming up with ideas and even writing outlines and noting down interesting bits of research … but when it comes to the actual writing, you end up stalling.
Whether your problem is a lack of time, or you’re simply struggling to focus when you sit down to write, these are some great resources to help you:
Author: Charlie Gilkey
Source: Productive Flourishing
In this post, Charlie explains why it’s difficult to get into creative projects in very small chunks of time — and why a two hour block of time works better.
Author: Jeff Goins
Source: Goins, Writer
This post offers a lot of excellent tips and many are specifically about finding the time and keeping up motivation to write. It also includes a handy chart of roughly what word length equates to what type of book (e.g. “20,000 words = short eBook or manifesto”).
Author: Michelle V. Rafter
Source: WordCount
Michelle takes a look at some key difficulties that writers face (like managing their own expectations and the need to work on multiple projects), and offers practical tips for staying productive. While some of these are familiar ones (like “turn off distractions”), others might be newer to you.
Author: Charlie Gilkey
Source: Productive Flourishing
These excellent planners come in various different flavors depending on what you’re trying to accomplish. Some help you plan over a long-ish period of time (the Momentum Planners) and others are good for breaking down tasks (the Individual Project Planner) or are designed for specific aspects of your work (the Blog Post Planner and Calendar).
Writing a book can seem like a daunting project and at this stage you might start questioning whether you have it in you. But you just need to get that first draft out of your system.
If you can write a blog post, you can write a book too! You can even structure your book chapters like blog posts. Many non-fiction books use the same direct, conversational tone you’d use on your blog. Some even use blog posts as the basis of a book (e.g. Michael Hyatt’s Platform and Darren Rowse’s 31 Days to Build a Better Blog).
Use the following resources to help you get your power words out of your head and onto the page::
Author: Joanna Penn
Source: The Creative Penn
There’s no rule that says you have to type your book … if you prefer, you could write by dictating it. Many very prolific authors (including freelancers and “indie” fiction authors) are huge fans of dictation. This podcast — with full transcript — takes a look at the process and how to get started.
Author: Matthew Stibbe
Source: Articulate
If you find your attention wandering as you write, this list has lots of great ideas to try — from the super-practical, like using “TK” to mark facts to look up, to the more inspirational, like the “rock and river” principle.
Author: Steve Silberman
Source: NeuroTribes
This huge post is packed with great advice from non-fiction authors writing on a wide range of subjects. Some of the tips deal with the pre-writing and editing, but there’s a lot of focus on the writing itself and how to get the words down on the page.
Source: Amazon
While there are free dictation options out there, many authors recommend using Dragon NaturallySpeaking — which you can use not only to dictate but to browse the web, edit your text, and more. The most recent “home” (not premium) version is currently $39.72 on Amazon.
Alternatively, if you’re on a tight budget, Google Doc’s “voice typing” feature has a decent reputation and is free.
Once you’ve finished your first draft, take some time off from writing and celebrate! Many would-be authors never get this far.
After you’ve set your work aside for a few days or weeks, though, it’s time to read it through and start making notes about everything you need to change, cut, or add.
If you can afford to bring in a professional editor, do! But before that, these resources will help you shape and prune your own work:
Author: Ali Luke
Source: Aliventures
This post explains that when you edit, you’ll want to make changes in the right order: there’s little point perfecting a sentence or paragraph that you later cut completely. Work on big-picture revisions first, then smaller edits, and finally proof-read.
Author: Blake Atwood
Source: The Write Life
Even if you are using a professional editor (or turning to beta readers for help), you’ll want to give your book an initial edit yourself. This straightforward post offers practical and realistic advice on how to do just that.
Author: Stacy Ennis
Source: JaneFriedman.com
Finding the right editor for your book can be tricky; in this post, Stacy outlines some key things to look for — not just an editor who’s experienced, but also one who works well with their clients.
If you want to go for traditional publication, it’s normal to approach publishers once you have an outline and a sample chapter or two. Some first-time authors prefer to write the full manuscript first, though, so they’re confident they can complete it.
These days, more and more authors self-publish (for full creative control and a bigger share of the royalties). This may be a good route for you if you already have an established audience.
The three resources that follow cover the different publication routes.
Author: Jane Friedman
Source: JaneFriedman.com
While your outline is part of a book proposal, it’s far from the whole thing. This post explains what you need to include — and emphasizes the importance of making a strong business case for your book.
Author: Joanna Penn
Sources: The Creative Penn — Ebook and Print Book
These two excellent, detailed guides from prolific indie author Joanna Penn explain in very straightforward terms how to go about self-publishing in both ebook and print formats. They look at a lot of practical, tactical considerations (like “exclusivity vs. going wide” and whether to use print-on-demand).
Author: Rob Nightingale
Source: MakeUseOf
If you’re self-publishing, you need a professional-quality cover. It’s always best to hire a professional, but if you’re determined to design your own cover, read this article first. It’s packed with great tips, with lots of examples and links. If you’d rather bring in a pro, this post is still useful because it tells you what to check for once they’ve completed their design.
Author: Joel Friedlander
Source: The Book Designer
One of the best ways to see what works in book cover design is to look at lots of different examples. Each month, Joel publishes a whole load of ebook covers (mainly fiction but some non-fiction) that have been submitted to him — along with his comments.
Publishing your book is far from the end of the process of creating a bestseller: you need to market, too.
This is the case even if you traditionally publish. Unless you’re already an established name, your publisher will not have a huge budget for promoting your book — and you’ll be expected to do a lot of the work yourself.
Marketing can seem a bit daunting or mysterious at first, but these resources break down the process and make it much more straightforward:
Author: Tom Morkes
Source: TomMorkes.com
This very thorough guide explains how to market a book effectively, explaining why you need an email list and how to go about setting one up. Tom includes case studies, screen shots, and lots of links. You may well want to bookmark the post so you can refer back to it.
Author: Nina Amir
Source: Write Nonfiction Now!
This round-up post brings together lots of excellent advice from different authors: some of the suggestions are high-level strategic ones and others are very specific, like suggestions on what to include in your online media kit.
Author: Debbie Young
Source: Self Publishing Advice Centre (the Alliance of Independent Authors’ blog)
The use of “puff quotes” (endorsements on the cover of your book) is a divisive one. Some authors feel they’re a huge boost to sales and marketing efforts, and feel they’re useful for adding extra information on the cover … but other authors think they could be actively off-putting.
Author: Joseph Alexander
Source: Self Publishing Advice Centre (the Alliance of Independent Authors’ blog)
This post doesn’t just cover marketing; it also looks at some other areas like integrity and quality, prioritizing, and moving into publishing other people’s books as well as just publishing your own.
Whether you’re a student or a seasoned pro, writing a book isn’t easy.
Writing a bestselling book is considerably harder.
Of course, nothing can guarantee success, but with this curated list of online writing resources, you’re a step closer to realizing your dream.
Use it as your personal writing center to enhance your creative writing skills.
So, roll up your sleeves, start with an online resource, and take action!
Writing
Ali Luke