Publishing services I trust

Writing tools

Scrivener is an organizational powerhouse

Scrivener lets me to keep all my notes, images, and web pages right where I need them — alongside my writing. I can easily organize and rearrange my thoughts, helping me keep my narratives cohesive and my writing process streamlined. And, I’ve created my very own romance novel template with beats and the meta data I like to track so I start every project totally organized. (Email author@authoreverafter.com and I’ll send you my template!)

Scrivener has project targets

Scrivener’s project targets feature is a game changer for keeping track of my progress. I can set word count goals for my entire project which calculates and updates the number of words I need to write each day to stay on-track.

Scrivener has versatile export options

When it’s time to share my work, Scrivener’s comprehensive export options come into play. Whether I need to compile my manuscript into a standard manuscript format, an e-book, a PDF, or for Vellum, Scrivener makes it happen with just a few clicks.

Scrivener keeps past versions

With Scrivener’s snapshot feature, no earlier version of my work is ever lost. This feature has prevented countless grey hairs when I edit then decide my previous draft was better.

Download the Scrivener free trial.

The trial is exactly the same as the full version but will stop working after 30 days of use. (If you use it every day, it lasts 30 days; if you use it only two days a week, it lasts fifteen weeks.)

LSF is an unofficial expert

Though it’s not officially affiliated with Literature & Latte (the creators of Scrivener), Learn Scrivener Fast has earned its stripes in the field. Its insights and expertise have won it accolades from users across the globe, proving it to be an invaluable ally in my writing journey.

LSF offers guided learning

With Learn Scrivener Fast, I don’t have to fumble my way through Scrivener’s extensive features. The program offers clear, succinct tutorials that accelerate my learning, acting like a fast-forward button to mastery.

LSF provides practical application

I value the practical approach of Learn Scrivener Fast. It offers hands-on exercises that allow me to apply what I’ve learned immediately, cementing new knowledge and building my confidence.

LSF is a constant companion

I bought Learn Scrivener Fast at least six years ago and its updated with the software. With lifetime access to the course materials, I can return for a refresher or update whenever I need to, making it a valuable asset in my writing toolkit.

Join one of three course packages of Learn Scrivener Fast and … learn Scrivener fast! And to make this a no-brainer, the creator, Joseph Michael has a 365 day money back guarantee.

PWA is a grammar guru

ProWritingAid is like having a grammar expert always on standby. Its comprehensive error detection catches everything from simple typos to complex grammatical issues, ensuring my writing is polished and professional. It’s not perfect (my real life editor still earns her money) but I pay her less since my manuscripts are so darned clean.

PWA is a style coach

Beyond basic grammar, ProWritingAid serves as my personal writing coach. It offers style suggestions to improve readability, helping me strike the right balance between clarity and engagement in my romance novels. With the paid version, you can choose your style genre.

PWA provides in-depth reports

Although they sometimes make me want to cry, I’m a big fan of ProWritingAid’s in-depth reports. They offer insights into areas like words I overuse, sentence length variation, and readability, acting as a comprehensive diagnostic tool for my writing.

PWA integrates with other tools I use

The ease with which ProWritingAid integrates into my writing process is a big plus. Whether I’m working in Scrivener, or doing a co-write in Google Docs, it’s there right alongside me, making real-time improvements and suggestions.

Try ProWritingAid for free (no credit card required). You can only analyse 500 words at time, but you still get all the grammar, spelling and punctuation suggestions of the paid version.

ButterDocs reduces app and software chaos

Ditch flipping between multiple writing tools, notes apps, and files – Do your best writing from concept to final draft in an all-in-one writing environment you actually enjoy writing in.

ButterDocs is great for productivity

All your research, planning, notes, and drafts are at your fingertips. Finally, an all-in-one writing workflow. Plan your writing on a digital whiteboard. Plan solo or invite others in to help. View research, ideas, or any kind of note right alongside your writing. No additional browser tabs or tools needed.

ButterDocs lets you share your writing, get feedback, cowrite and edit

ButterDocs is a writing environment you’ll actually enjoy writing in

Distraction free formatting. Clean up your writing view with a simple formatting bar only visible when you want it. Use Markdown to simplify even more. Use the focus mode to eliminate all distractions and do what you came to do. USe the built-in timer to maximize your productivity with timed writing sprints. 

Use ButterDocs for free while the software is still in the beta phase. It sof launched at the end of October 2023 and I’ve had access for several weeks. It’s a delight to use.

Publishing tools

 PublisherRocket is a keyword wizard

Publisher Rocket acts like a keyword alchemist, turning obscure phrases into SEO gold. It helps me discover profitable keywords, improving my book’s visibility and boosting my sales on platforms like Amazon.

PublisherRocket is a competitive spy

With Publisher Rocket, I can sneak a peek at my competition. It provides crucial data about other books in my genre, including estimated sales, allowing me to strategize and position my book for success.

PublisherRocket is an AMS ads assistant

Creating effective Amazon Marketing Services (AMS) ads takes hours less time with Publisher Rocket. It generates a list of relevant keywords and ASINs for my ads based on matching keyword searches.

PublisherRocket’s founder is insanely generous—and smart

Dave Chesson, the founder of PublisherRocket, is one of the most generous author supporters in the industry. His semi-regular email always contains great information to help authors become better book marketers. He even gives away a five day course on how to use Amazon ads to sell more books.

Get the free five-day Amazon Ads course for free here.

Or get PublisherRocket now—with a 30 day money-back guarantee. It’s a one-time payment for lifetime access. At least for now. Dave says he’s moving to a monthly subscription model soon …

K-lytics provides market insight

K-lytics is like my personal market analyst. It offers invaluable insights into the Kindle marketplace, helping me understand trends and make data-driven decisions about what to write and how to position my books.

K-lytics looks at specific genres and sub-genres

The genre reports provided by K-lytics are a goldmine. They give me a detailed look at various categories and subcategories, allowing me to pinpoint where my romance novels will find the most receptive audience—and how I can reach larger audiences.

K-lytics provides evolving market updates

The market updates offered by K-lytics keep me on top of shifting trends. The romance genre and many categories are reviewed annually which helps me stay current with reader interests and expectations when it comes to blurbs, covers, book length and pricing.

K-lytics offers a competitive edge

Above all, K-lytics gives me a competitive edge. Its in-depth data and trend analysis equip me to compete effectively in the busy Kindle marketplace, turning the challenges of indie publishing into achievable goals.

Download one full research report for free. This Kindle ebook market report provides data on 28 book categories, including romance. And here’s a free report on Christmas romances, released in October 2023.

Vellum gives me effortless formatting

Vellum turns the daunting task of book formatting into a stress-free experience. With a few clicks, I can transform my manuscript into a professionally formatted book, eliminating the headaches usually associated with this process.

Vellum offers diverse styles

I adore Vellum’s diverse range of style options. From how text messages are shown, to making handwritten notes between my characters stand out, to scene break styles, chapter header fonts, and more, I can easily choose and customize themes to lend an extra layer of personality to my books.

Vellum is a time saver

Vellum caters to both my ebook and print needs. It takes care of everything from creating a dynamic table of contents for my ebooks to setting up page numbers and margins for my print books. And with the instant preview feature, I can see exactly how my book will look on various devices or in print, helping me catch and correct any issues before publication.

Vellum makes ebook conversion simple

With just one click, I can export my book as an epub, mobi, PDF, and more, ensuring my story can be enjoyed by readers on any platform.

Here are the instructions for how to use the free download to check out all the features of Vellum with no risk!

BookSirens reaches new-to-me readers

BookSirens offers me a direct route to avid readers and reviewers who love my sub-genre. By getting my romance novels in front of this engaged audience, I can amplify its reach and garner valuable advance reader reviews (via ARCs) on the three most valuable platforms—Amazon, BookBub, and Goodreads.

BookSirens differentiates my reviewers and theirs

One of the things I appreciate about BookSirens is that I get a link to invite my team to their service for free and I only pay for the reviewers that they find. And, when I know I’ll be publishing multiple titles in one year, I can apply to pay an annual fee for unlimited reviewers instead of a per reviewer price.

BookSirens reviews are high quality

BookSirens ensures that reviewers are genuine and reliable, providing me with authentic book reviews that are more valuable than those ones that simply restate the plot. I can reliably count on getting great quotes from BookSirens’ reviewers in my marketing efforts.

BookSirens provides valuable data

The reader analytics provided by BookSirens help me understand how well my cover and blurb are working based on impressions, clicks and sign-ups. It also tells me how many of my reviewers posted on each of the platforms and what the average rating was.

Best place to start is by searching their extensive database of blog and vlog reviewers and bookstagrammers, which BookSirens shares for free right here.

NetGalley reaches librarians, booksellers and professional reviewers

Not much more to add on that. NetGalley is the only review service that I’m aware of that lets me see exactly what type of reviewer is requesting my advance reader copies.

NetGalley has interesting data analytics

With NetGalley’s analytics tools, I can draw conclusions (or at least gleanings) about the effectiveness of my cover and blurb since reviewers are asked to rate the cover and indicate what lead to them deciding to download my title. 

NetGalley has an air of exclusivity

This is a bit of good news/bad news reason I love NetGalley—the cost is ridiculously high—too high for one individual author to use. It’s geared to publishers. But the romance community has many NetGalley co-ops where ten or more authors pool their money to buy one membership. 

If you’re interested in giving NetGalley a try, I recommend asking your romance author peers if anyone is in a co-op and if they’d be willing to let you use their spot once. If you’d like to join a co-op and can’t find one, email me (author AT authoreverafter) to let me know. If I can find ten authors willing to pay to play, I’ll start one.

Marketing tools

StoryOrigin is ebook distribution made easy

BookFunnel streamlines the process of delivering ebooks to readers. Its straightforward platform ensures that my romance novels reach readers’ devices without hassle. For readers, StorOrigin’s user-friendly interface provides clear instructions, making it easy for them to download and enjoy my books on their preferred reading devices. 

StoryOrigin lets me share exclusive content

StoryOrigin allows me to offer exclusive materials, such as bonus scenes and prequels, to new-to-me readers and my super fans. This feature helps me grow my list and build a stronger connection with my audience.

StoryOrigin is streamlined for newsletter growth

With StoryOrigin’s group promotions and author-to-author newseltter swaps I started my email list at zero and quickly grew to hundreds of subscribers.

StoryOrigin has a robust ARC management feature

As much as I love handing the work of looking for ARC readers over to other service providers, sometimes it’s nice to manage your own team. And StoryOrigin gives you that ability.

StoryOrigin keeps beta readers organized

One of the unique and highly useful features of StoryOrigin is the way it allows authors to manage beta readers by releasing chapters as we decide and based on readers actually providing feedback before gtting the next part of the story. It’s brilliant.

 Like Dave Chesson, founder Evan Gow is a generous author supporter. He has a couple of valuable posts on the StoryOrigin website. Check out 0 to 1,000+ Mailing List Subscribers and How to Get Book Reviews for great info. And then add StoryOrigin to your launch team—it’s worth every penny and ten times more at just $10/month.

BookFunnel is ebook distribution made easy

BookFunnel streamlines the process of delivering ebooks to readers. Its straightforward platform ensures that my romance novels reach readers’ devices without hassle. For readers, BookFunnel’s user-friendly interface provides clear instructions, making it easy for them to download and enjoy my books on their preferred reading devices. And if a reader ever does encounter a problem, the BookFunnel team handles the troubleshooting!

BookFunnel has customizable download pages

With BookFunnel, I can create download pages that match the branding of my books. This consistent visual experience helps immerse readers in the world of my stories from the moment they access the content.

BookFunnel lets me share exclusive content

BookFunnel enables me to offer exclusive materials, such as bonus scenes and prequels, to new-to-me readers and my super fans. This feature helps me grow my list and build a stronger connection with my audience.

BookFunnel integrates with popular email marketing platforms

They have a plan that doesn’t automatically send new readers to my lists, but since I’m not the most reliable with admin, I rely on the function that automatically adds every person who downloads my books into my welcome automation. That one feature is worth the subscription fee to me.

Have a look at all the features that you get when you join BookFunnel.

BookSweeps is focused on reader engagement

BookSweeps has proven to be a reliable partner in reaching out to readers. With its reader magnets and genre-specific promotions, it contribted at least 2,000 romance readers to my email list in under one year.

BookSweeps is targeted to genres

With BookSweeps, I can precisely target my promotions to the right genre. Whether your latest book is a heart-thumping romantic suspense or a tender contemporary romance, you can reach the exact readers who craves these stories.

BookSweeps is affordable marketing

BookSweeps is like a cost-effective marketing assistant. For a reasonable fee, it handles complex promotional campaigns that not only save me time but also guarantee returns through increased reader engagement and book sales.

BookSweeps finds your followers

BookSweeps not only helped me grow my email list, it was the cornerstone to reaching the “magic” 1,000 followers on BookBub which lets me run special promos. I’ve not yet used it, but now they also offer promos to help you grown your Amazon followers.

Create your free account. Then, from your dashboard, click JOIN A PROMO to see all the campaigns that are coming up.

MailerLite has an intuitive interface

MailerLite’s user-friendly interface takes the stress out of email marketing. Its drag-and-drop editor simplifies the process of crafting eye-catching emails, making it feel more like fun than work. (Well, maybe not quite that fun, but certainly better than dusting).

MailerLite is tried and tested

One feature of MailerLite that I particularly value are the highly-effective email marketing forms that drive signups and boost conversions. I can create custom forms that match my brand and each book. They also have embedded forms and pop-ups to collect subscribers and promotions to spotlight important messages (which I haven’t used yet).

MailerLite has robust analytics

MailerLite provides comprehensive analytics that help me understand my readers better. By tracking open rates, click-through rates, and subscriber growth, I can measure the effectiveness of my campaigns and continuously improve my strategies.

MailerLite has exceptional automations

MailerLite’s automation features save me time and ensure consistent communication with my readers. I can set up automated emails for welcome sequences, book releases, or follow-ups, keeping my readers engaged and informed without constant manual effort.

Get started on MailerLite for free and grow your list 1,000 subscribers before you’re billed.

SendFox is easy

One feature of SendFox that I appreciate is its simplicity. The platform is user-friendly and straightforward, making it easy to create, schedule, and send marketing emails. The email sign-up forms are so well-designed it took under five minutes to create mine and start collecting names. Have a look: Sendfox.com/danika

SendFox is integrated

SendFox plays well with other tools in my author arsenal. It seamlessly integrates with platforms like BookFunnel and Facebook, allowing me to streamline my marketing efforts without having having to use Zapier (I cannot express how much I hate using zaps!).

SendFox is affordable & effective

As an indie author, budget is always a consideration. SendFox offers an affordable solution for email marketing without compromising on critical basic features or deliverability. I’ve tried other inexpensive email solutions but when emails aren’t reaching their destination, cheap is counter-productive. SendFox has industry-leading deliverability rates.

SendFox has solid audience analytics

SendFox provides insightful analytics about my audience. By understanding who’s opening my emails, clicking links, and engaging with my content, I can tailor my messages to better resonate with my readers, making each communication more impactful.

Get started with 5,000 subscribers for just one $49 payment (or 10,000 for $98)! One time payment. No monthly fees. For real!

MockupShots is a kick-ass digital designer

MockupShots is the ultimate platform for displaying my book covers as promotional graphics. With its diverse collection of mockups, I can effortlessly showcase my novels as real ebooks and paperbacks not only in stunning and realistic settings, but as memes, as videos, in testimonial graphics and more.

MockupShots is a time saver

Since I don’t have any design skills, creating eye-catching book mockups used to be stressful and a hassle, but in just a few clicks with MockupShots, I can transform my book covers into professional quality graphics.

MockupShots is a brand builder

With its user-friendly interface and intuitive tools, I can easily customize the mockups to match my brand’s unique style, adding a “Danika touch” to my promotional materials.

MockupShots is generous

While other mockup apps limit users to only creating mockups of books with their name on the cover, MockupShots lets me make graphics for my friends. I like helping friends!

As one of MockupShots first users a few years ago, I get to offer super special deals to my poeple—better than a 50% discount with my link—$97 for lifetime access instead of $207, which is the price regular folks pay. Check out all the features of MockupShots.

Carrd.co is simplicity

Carrd.co offers a clean, intuitive platform that makes creating a stunning website a breeze. With its user-friendly interface and easy-to-use tools, building a website feels more like creative play than technical work. Carrd.co is also entirely customizable to match your fonts, colors, layouts, and more, giving you the freedom to let your personal brand shine. No word of a lie, I make finished sites for members of AuthorEverAfter.com in under two hours!

Carrd.co is a one-page wonder

The beauty of Carrd.co lies in its focus on single-page layouts. This approach fits perfectly for authors who only need a landing page for a book launch, an author bio, or a simple contact form. It’s like having a digital business card, clear, concise, and to the point. It also has multi-page templates if that’s what you want and need.

Carrd.co is budget-friendly

As a new indie author, finding cost-effective solutions is key, and Carrd.co delivers. If you want your own URL that will cost you more each year than hosting your site on Carrd.co.

Carrd.co is mobile responsive

The importance of a mobile-friendly website can’t be overstated, and Carrd.co shines here. Its designs are responsive, ensuring my site looks great and functions seamlessly on any device, be it a desktop, tablet, or smartphone.

Get your 100% free author website now! Scroll to the bottom of this page to see a few of the websites I’ve created with and for members of Author Ever After for inspiration about what you can include on an author website before you even publish.

Writer’s life tools

Spark Your Romance provides daily motivation

What better way to keep your writing motivation high than a daily dose of inspiration? The 21-Day SMS Challenge sends you daily voice and text messages to fuel your writing drive, keeping you on track to finish your romance novel.

Spark Your Romance provides lasting mindset development

More than just motivation, the 21-Day SMS Challenge is like a personal mindset coach. Through these daily interactions, it will help cultivate a resilient and positive attitude towards your writing journey, an essential element in seeing your romance novel to completion.

Spark Your Romance is convenient and flexible

The first SMS challenge I took was by Gretchen Rubin. I love the fact that these challenges are available on my phone at 9am, allowing me to engage with the content at any time I have a break during the day. No need to be at my computer, which is a plus for me.

Spark Your Romance is a reliable accountability partner

Last but not least, the 21-day Spark Your Romance Challenge acts as a personal writing accountability partner. With a consistent check-in each day, it encourages you to maintain your writing progress, helping you, step by step to bring you romance novel to life.

Join the Spark Your Romance challenge and get a 25% discount using the coupon code HEA.

Scribd is affordable

Scribd offers a cost-effective solution for my audiobook addiction. I love listening to romance novels and Scribd has thousands of titles by indie authors and bestsellers to keep my ears happy!

Scribd is amazing for research and inspiration

As a romance writer, Scribd serves as a gold mine of ideas and inspiration from authors who publish wide. I can easily dive into a wide range of romance novels, studying successful works, understanding trends, and sparking fresh concepts for my own writing.

Scribd has dozens of the best craft books for (romance) authors

The breadth of content available on Scribd is astounding. With its unlimited reading feature, I have access to a plethora of books and audiobooks for writers—and some magazines, too.

Scribd let’s me pause my membership

If I know I won’t need the subscription for a few weeks, I can pause the subscription, so I’m never paying for time I’m not actually using it.

Join Scribd using my link and get 60 days to try it for free (instead of the standard 30 day free trial).