A List of 194 Tools and Resources: Apps, Trends, Marketing Tips, and More

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It’s about that time again for another roundup post. This time I’ve got a bunch of tools and resources that cover a wide range of topics, from freelancing to marketing to reading and more.

Book Creation Tools/Help

• Book Creator
• Comic Book Paper
• Omnibook
• Vellum
• Vivliostyle (and why it’s important)
• “Automated Cleanup for Word Manuscripts“
• Beyond XML
• Online-Convert
• Format Book in Word
• “Building the Better Ebook and Beyond“
• “How to Find the Best Ebook Format“
• “How to Self-Publish Digital Manga“
• “Indie Writers and Proofing a Proof“
• “Pronoun announces a better royalty rate“
• “Q&A with Pronoun“
• “The Simple Pre-Proofing Checklist“
• “Ingram Spark vs CreateSpace for Self-Publishing Print Books“
• “Why a PDF Isn’t an Ebook“
• “Amazon launches beta version of Word conversion tool for ebooks: Kindle Create“
• “Fancy Free: Some Fun CSS Tricks for Ebooks“
• “Elements of Style: CSS for Ebooks #2“

Apps/Tech

• Cloudshelf Reader
• BuzzTube
• Flipp
• FlipWord (learn a language)
• “Microsoft Edge can now read your ebooks out loud to you“
• PliegOS (microcontent)
• Aurasma (augmented reality)
• “Children’s author platform Authorfy to Launch“
• “Ebook Lending Startup BookBites Tracks Children’s Reading Progress“
• Exact Editions
• Explain VR
• “Litsy Social Smartphone App for Booklovers“
• German Digital Library
• “Softcover Is A New Self-Publishing Platform Aimed at Technical Authors“
• Digital Roll Simulator
• “Cogswell Students and Richard Chuang Check Out New Technologies“
• “How to buy and read ebooks in Edge as part of the Windows 10 Creators Update“
• YouTube TV

Data/Research Tools

• JSTOR Labs Text Analyzer
• TopicGraph (explore scholarly books)
• UserOnboard (breaks down user onboarding experiences)
• “Fast Facts: The Most Popular Surnames in the U.S.“
• “New Publisher Sales and Trends Data (Books, Ebooks, Audiobooks) From American Association of Publishers“
• “Pew Survey: Traditional Library Visits Dip; Mobile Access Surges“
• “Ranking America’s Largest Publishers“
• “Actually, more data may not be what you’re hoping for“
• “Every Amazon Books Location, Mapped“

Marketing Tools/Research

• Beacon
• “Google Tests Feature That Media Companies, Marketers Publish Directly to Search Results“
• “These 2 Companies Are the Best Way to Profit from Marketing“
• “Why do books publish on Tuesdays“
• “You can now gift ebooks with Google Play Books“
• “French bookstore’s Facebook photos go viral“
• “New Data Shows Facebook is Still King and Twitter is Falling“
• “Chase Had Ads on 400,000 Sites. Then on Just 5,000. Same Results.“
• “Amazon Launches Self-Service Marketplace for Subscription Providers“

Events/Associations

• BookGig
• Association of Writers & Writing Programs
• Memory Makes Us

Translation

• “Indie Authors in Translation“
• “Making Translation Contracts Understandable“

Worth Reading/Consuming

• Numerical Gurus
• HarperCollins Archives
• OneZoom
• The Broad Experience
• The Keyword (Google blog)
• U.S. National Animated GIF Archive
• Time Travel (web archives)
• VIDA Women in the Arts
• “Danes have the best work-life balance in the world thanks to these 3 important beliefs“
• “Emoji“
• “EPUB v. Web: A Cautionary Tale“
• “Getting Next-Gen Messaging based experiences to work“
• “Multimedia: American Archive of Public Broadcasting Launches ‘Speaking and Protesting in America’ Online Exhibition“
• “Origins of the Interactive Book“
• “The Movie With a Thousand Plotlines“

Business Assistance

• x.ai (personal assistant)
• Cafe Wifi (work from coffee shops)
• Calendly (schedule meetings)
• IFTTT (connecting services)
• Remote Control (collaboration for remote teams)
• StormBoard (for brainstorming)
• “The Secrets to Finding, Training, and Managing Great Virtual Assistants“
• “How to Email Virtual Assistants“
• “Thinking About Hiring An Assistant? Here’s What You Need to Know“
• Publisher’s Assistant
• Sequel
• The Cadence Group
• “The Indie Authors Business Guide“
• “The Top 10 Mistakes Writers Make When Self-Publishing a Book“
• Applicant Tracking System
• Gender Decoder for Job Ads
• Check My Job
• Design Sprint Kit
• Business Innovation Factory
• Facebook Workplace
• Flow

Business Strategies

• “8 Tips for Indie Ebook Authors to Sell Print Books at Local Bookstores“
• “How to launch a successful SaaS product“
• “How we redesigned the Femtrepreneur website to function better, convert more subscribers, and make more sales“
• “My 2017 Writing and Creative Business Goals“
• “My 101 Lifetime Goals list (and why you should have one too)“
• “Series redesign: Building on a Quite Interesting Brand“
• “Seven Years and 300 Episodes. Creative Lessons Learned From Podcasting Since 2009.“
• “The Mastery Journal and How to Self-Publish Premium Products“
• “The One Crucial Business Strategy You’re Missing Out On“
• “Use Surveys to Discover Marketable Nonfiction Book Topics“

Career Advice

• “25 Ways Successful Entrepreneurs Approach Business“
• “10 Words Smart People Always Use (And 7 They Never Do)“
• “The 6 Most Profitable Blogger Career Paths“
• “Career Transition 101“
• “5 Ways to Redesign Your Career in Publishing“
• “How I Built a $5,000/mo Freelance Writing Business in 4 Months“
• “How to Avoid Sabotaging Your Creative Process“
• “How to Handle Criticism“
• “The Introvert Entrepreneur“
• “Why High-Skilled Freelancers Are Leaving Corporate Life Behind“
• “Why So Many Smart People Aren’t Happy“
• “How to finish a novel“

News/Trends

• “How Inkpop went bust and inspired a community of would-be writers“
• “New Article Discusses The Benefits of Self-Publishing Electronic Casebooks“
• “Radish Uses Serialized Genre Fiction to Attract Readers, Investment“
• “Self-Publishing in 2017: The Year in Preview“
• “Shelfie Closes“
• “What Canada’s Shelfie Data Suggest About Ebook Subscriptions“
• “Canadian Retail: Rakuten Kobo Aquires Shelfie Technology“
• “Snap Makes a Bet on the Cultural Supremacy of the Camera“
• “Is Inclusive Access the Future for Publishers?“
• An Authoritative Look at Book Publishing Startups
• “Book Publishing Employment Down by One-Quarter in 10 Years“
• “The age of self: the strange story of how YouTubers saved publishing“
• “The Human Network: The Digital Shift“
• “The Fall Entertainment Generator“
• “The Indie Ebooks Evolution“
• “The profit margin of error“
• “The state of blogging, content marketing and online publishing in 2016“
• “Two YA Authors Tweet Mutual Interests into Six-Figure Deal“
• “What Ever Happened to Google Books?“
• “What is the current state of the hashtag?“
• “What Makes a Bestseller?“
• “Which books are coming to TV in 2017?“
• “Writing in Place: An ‘Ambient Literature’ Project in the UK“
• EPUB Summit 2017 Summary
• “Creator Spotlight with Extra Credits“
• “Amazon considers opening augmented reality furniture stores“
• “Microsoft Unveils Digital Bookstore“
• “I taught my 5th-graders how to spot fake news. Now they won’t stop fact-checking me“
• “Fact Check now available in Google Search and News around the World“
• “Not OK, Google“
• “Google’s ‘Project Owl’ a three-pronged attack on fake news & problematic content“
• “More ways to support causes“
• “The Future of Augmented Journalism“
• “Goodbye Stars, Hello Thumbs“
• “Book publishing in the digital age“
• “The Ageless SME“
• “Why You Should Read Books You Hate“
• “Sourcebooks Creates Magic with Augmented Reality Books“
• “Indie Pub Debuts Audiodrama Promoting Books“
• “There’s a Japanese Word for People Who Buy More Books Than They Can Actually Read“
• “For Your Next Adult Coloring Book, Shade in Data on Climate Change“
• “Amazon is Taking Over Everything“
• “This Startup Raised $215,000 Defying Gender Stereotypes to Empower Girls“
• “How Amazon, Once Again, Is Driving Down The Value of Books and Undermining Authors“
• “20 years after IPO: How Amazon came to dominate ebooks, electronics, and the cloud“
• “NBC Universal to Expand Strategic Focus on Games and Self-Publish Titles“
• “Literary agents aren’t dead: Shark Tank for books“

Products

• Lumi (packaging service for products)
• Woot (daily deals site)

Productivity

• Down for Everyone
• “How to Watch YouTube Videos on 2X Speed”
• “2 Tactics to Help Authors and Publishers Work More Productively“
• “Capture Ideas in Google Keep, Bring Them to Life in Google Docs“

Security

• Have I been pwned?
• “Has Your eBook Been Pirated?“
• “You would be surprised who pirates ebooks the most“
• “Chrome Plug-in Turns Amazon into a Pirate eBook Site“
• “RIP Internet Privacy“
• “Social DRM and Watermarking for Ebooks“
• “How do I add a watermark to all pages in EPUB or Kindle?“
• Epub watermark
• “Watermark for EPUB“
• “VPNs are for most people, including you“
• “The Best VPN Services of 2017“
• “Introducing Expanded YouTube Partner Program Safeguards to Protect Creators“

Learning Code/Coding

• Code.org
• Can I use…
• HyperTerm
• “Three recommendations to enable annotations on the web“
• “What’s your flavour? Selecting the right XML for your content“
• “Fighting front-end fatigue with tooling recipes“
• “Using the Chrome devtools new code coverage feature“
• “Painting with Code“
• “Teaching Computer Programming to Kindergartners“