Resources - Winning Writers

A Basic Guide to Getting Permissions & Sample Permissions Letter

Publishing expert Jane Friedman explains the legal requirements for quoting or excerpting copyrighted material in your own published work. Topics include fair use and how to request reprint permissions.

A Literary Agent’s Guide to Publishing Terms Authors Should Know

Literary agent Mark Gottlieb currently works at Publishers Marketplace's #1-ranked literary agency, Trident Media Group. In this article from The Write Life, he explains seven essential publishing-industry and contract terms.

Agent Advice: The Complete Series at Poets & Writers

This page on the website of Poets & Writers Magazine, a leading source of writers' resources, collects their Agent Advice columns since 2010. Read top literary agents' responses to readers' questions.

Andrea Hurst & Associates Literary Management

This literary agency generously shares a wealth of industry information with the public. Literary agent Andrea Hurst's website features weekly interviews with publishing industry professionals, advice on book marketing, and manuscript consultations.

Author Media

Author Media features product reviews, marketing tips, and technical advice for selling your books. Their offerings include the Novel Marketing Podcast.

Author’s Guide to Agency Agreements

This 2017 article on the Authors' Guild website discusses the provisions that should be included in author-agent contracts and what they mean.

BetaBooks

BetaBooks is an app for sharing your manuscript with beta readers and keeping track of their feedback. It takes over the task of document conversion when recipients are using different software and e-readers. Writers can also track incoming comments by manuscript version, chapter, character, or person giving feedback.

BiblioCrunch

BiblioCrunch is an online marketplace that matches freelancers with projects in book design, editing, proofreading, and illustration. The basic service, which is free, allows users to post projects and receive proposals. Paid membership adds direct access to the directory of freelancers and the ability to message them directly.

BlueToad

BlueToad helps you publish your content on the web, tablets and mobile devices at a resonable price. A "Hands Free Package" is available if you need maximum support.

Book Editing Associates

Serving writers, literary agents, and publishers. Mainstream, genre, trade, and academic publishing specialists. Copyediting, developmental editing, proofreading, critiques, book proposals, query letters, book promotions, and creative writing instruction. Network coordinator Lynda Lotman takes extra care to screen her staff (read how).

Book Marketing and Book Promotion

Book marketing and selling advice from John Kremer, author of '1001 Ways to Market Your Books.' Informative website includes contact information for book buyers, publicity outlets and more.

Book Marketing Buzz Blog

Experienced editor and publicist Brian Feinblum shares tips about turning media exposure into sales, creating your author brand, using multimedia tools to market your book, and much more. See his Book PR & Marketing Toolkit page for a list of links to his top articles and favorite resources.

Book Trailer Design Advice from Zara West

In this blog post, romantic suspense author Zara West (Beneath the Skin) describes the basic elements of a successful book trailer and how to create them using public-domain music and images.

BookBaby

BookBaby offers self-published authors a full range of services from editing and design to printing, distribution, and marketing. BookBaby is a co-sponsor of our North Street Book Prize—that's how much we trust them! We earn a modest commision when you buy from them using our affiliate link.

BookBub’s Ultimate Guide to Book Marketing

Self-publishing service BookBub has compiled this list of articles from their BookBub Partners blog, covering every aspect of the marketing campaign for your self-published or small press book. Topics include book and cover design, pricing, advertising, creating an online platform, author success stories, and how to track the results of your marketing efforts.

BookFinder

Launched in 1997, BookFinder is a website that lets you compare prices (including shipping costs) from 100,000 booksellers worldwide. A great source for used books, textbooks, or locating a particular edition of the book you want.

BookFunnel

BookFunnel is a reasonably priced subscription service for authors. It handles the technical aspects of distributing e-book review copies in multiple e-reader formats.

Bookshop

Established in 2020 by Andy Hunter, the publisher of Catapult Books, as an alternative to Amazon, Bookshop is an online book vendor that directs a portion of its proceeds to support independent bookstores.

Canceling My Book Deal Was the Best Career Move I’ve Ever Made

In this 2021 article from Electric Lit, Lilly Dancyger describes her long journey to publication of her hybrid memoir Negative Space (Santa Fe Writers Project) and warns writers not to rush into a sub-standard book contract simply because they're frustrated with rejections. Factors to look for in a small press: Amazon and trade-publication reviews, national distribution, social media presence, and editors who will work with you to improve your book.

Canva

Canva is an online resource site for easy-to-use graphic design templates for book covers, newsletters, periodicals, and promotional materials. Some templates are free. Use their print service to create custom stationery, business cards, and flyers.

Capital Community College Guide to Grammar and Writing

This comprehensive, searchable grammar guide from Capital Community College in Hartford includes lessons on word usage, sentence structure, rhetoric, and writing a research paper. There's even a PowerPoint presentation on "Solecisms of President George W. Bush".

Carolyn Howard-Johnson’s How to Do It Frugally

Carolyn Howard-Johnson's "How to Do It Frugally" website is the portal for her award-winning series of books on marketing, editing, and book proposals. Her guides for indie authors have received honors from USA Book News, the Next Generation Indie Book Awards, the Global Ebook Awards, and others. The Frugal Book Promoter and How to Get Great Book Reviews Frugally and Ethically feature strategies for free or low-cost book publicity. The Frugal Editor and Great Little Last-Minute Editing Tips for Writers will ensure that your self-published book or manuscript submission looks professional. The Great First Impression Book Proposal: Everything You Need To Know To Sell Your Book in 30 Minutes or Less covers pitching your manuscript to editors and agents.

Carrd

Carrd is a free, simple tool for building one-page websites that display well on both desktops and mobile devices. The premium package, which is only $19 per year as of 2021, lets you add features such as contact and signup forms, Google Analytics tracking codes, and payment-processing widgets (Stripe, PayPal, etc.).

ConvertKit

ConvertKit's email marketing service can help you send out professional-looking author newsletters. Service is free if you have fewer than 1,000 subscribers.

Copy Write Consultants

Copy Write Consultants assists with market research for shopping your book project to editors and agents. If you have a query letter and synopsis ready to go, they will generate a list of publishing professionals who are seeking work in that category.

CountWordsFree

Traditional word-processing software will count the words in your document, but this functionality is harder to find for PDFs and other electronic document formats. CountWordsFree is an online program that fills this gap.

Creative Commons

Creative Commons indexes over 300 million public domain and stock photo images available for licensing for your website, book cover, or marketing materials. Searches can be filtered by the type of permitted use and licensing regime.

Damonza Book Design

The design team at Damonza offers a variety of packages for book cover design, print and e-book formatting, and book trailer videos. They have experience in both fiction and commercial nonfiction. Check out their 800+ samples on their website.

Do Daily Deal Services Work?

In this 2017 article at Writer Unboxed, Laura Heffernan, self-published author of the romantic comedy novels America's Next Reality Star and Sweet Reality, compares sales figures and Amazon rankings from 19 "daily deal" sites where she advertised her 99-cent e-book sale.

Draftable

Draftable software lets you compare two versions of MS Word, PDF, Excel, or PowerPoint documents, so you can easily see the edits and changes you made. See a free demo by uploading sample text to their website.

Editcetera

Based in the San Francisco Bay Area, Editcetera has been matching editorial freelancers with projects since 1971. Their clients include book and magazine publishers, businesses and nonprofits, and independent authors and scholars. Services include proofreaders, copyeditors, developmental editors, business writers, technical writers, and ghostwriters. They also offer training programs for editors and writers.

Editing Versus Proofreading Explained

The website of The Expert Editor, an Australian vendor of editorial services for books and dissertations, offers this handy overview of the differences between proofreading and copyediting, and how to choose the level of editing that's right for you.

Editorial Freelancers Association

National nonprofit professional association of self-employed workers in the publishing and communications industries. The EFA works to improve conditions for freelancers and match them up with clients. Employers can post jobs for free.

Editors of Color

Founded by Karen Yin, creator of the Conscious Style Guide, the Editors of Color database is a networking tool for publishers and authors to hire language and content editors, sensitivity readers, proofreaders, and other editorial professionals from underrepresented communities and cultures. The site includes a Database of Diverse Databases that links to directories of LGBTQ, disabled, and POC journalists, cartoonists, editors, and experts in various fields.

Essayist App

Essayist is an app for academic writers. It will automatically format your text in the standard citation style you choose. Currently supported are Modern Language Association and American Psychological Association formats, with others such as Chicago Manual of Style coming soon. The software allows you to create a list of references that you can click to cite within the text, as well as adding tables and images in the proper format.

ExpertAccess

ExpertAccess is a membership group offering discounted rates for freelance writers to purchase access to LexisNexis, a premium subscription database of U.S. case law, statutes, and news articles. Writers also receive training in how to use LexisNexis.

Fantasy Map Generators and Worldbuilding Tools

This 2021 article from BookRiot recommends 10 websites and software programs that create fantasy maps with detailed terrain. Great for speculative fiction writers and role-playing gamers.

Free Music Archive

Free Music Archive has a large library of royalty-free music clips (up to 15 minutes long) that are searchable by style, mood, pace, instrumentation/vocals, and more. Good for book trailers.

Getting Book Endorsements (Blurbs)

In this 2022 guest post on publishing expert Jane Friedman's blog, award-winning novelist Barbara Linn Probst (The Sound Between the Notes) shares tips for selecting and approaching authors to blurb your forthcoming book.

GLA Blog “Dear Lucky Agent” Contests

Writer's Digest columnist Chuck Sambuchino hosts this recurring free contest at his Guide to Literary Agents (GLA) blog. Each contest is focused on a different genre, e.g. contemporary middle-grade fiction. Entrants should submit the first 150-200 words of their manuscript via email. No entry fee, but to be eligible for consideration, you must mention the contest twice through any social media. Contest is judged by literary agents who are seeking new authors to represent. Winners receive critique and subscription to WritersMarket.com.

Google Fonts Knowledge

Google Fonts is a library of 1,357 free licensed font families and APIs for convenient use via CSS and Android. The Knowledge page adds advice about different font styles and how to choose the one that works best for your project. Learn readability tips regarding line height, kerning, contrast, and more.

Grammarly

Grammarly is a free online program that will suggest grammatical and style edits for your writing. You can add it as a plug-in to your Firefox browser, and use it on common email and social media platforms (Gmail, Twitter, LinkedIn, MS Outlook, etc.) as well as documents. There is also a paid premium version.

HeyWith Lists

HeyWith is a platform for creators, influencers, and experts to earn money by answering questions from the public. This list on their website offers hundreds of links to websites and tools to monetize your social media audience. Categories include crowdfunding platforms, livestreams, online coaching and consultation platforms, podcasting tools, and tools to create and sell subscriptions to your newsletters and blogs.

Hometown Reads

Sponsored by the digital marketing firm Weaving Influence, Hometown Reads is an online community dedicated to matching local authors with bookstores and customers in their area. Authors in one of their featured cities can put up a page about their books for free. Other networking tools include a blog and city-specific Facebook groups. If you live in a Hometown not currently showcased on their site and are willing to help gather authors in your area, contact Hometown Reads to suggest adding your locale to their directory.

How to Build an Author Website

Author websites have become an essential marketing tool. In this 2020 update of her 2015 article, publishing expert Jane Friedman shows you how to get started designing a professional-looking site with the key information about you and your books.

How To Do It Frugally

Website of Carolyn Howard-Johnson, award-winning author of 'The Frugal Book Promoter' and 'The Frugal Editor', contains a wealth of advice for writers and publishers on how to generate publicity for their titles on a limited budget.

Inside Publishing: The Book Publicist

This installment of Poets & Writers "The Practical Writer" column discusses the functions of a book publicist and their continued importance in the new social media landscape.

Jane Friedman’s “MBA for Writers” Lectures

Digital publishing expert and former Writers' Digest executive Jane Friedman's blog contains a wealth of resources for professional writers. Her 6-part "MBA for Writers" online lecture series covers the principles for success in today's rapidly changing industry. You can purchase access to the whole series or individual sessions.

Jane Friedman’s Guide to Getting the Most Out of a Writing Conference

Publishing expert Jane Friedman has been speaking at writers' conferences since 2001. In this article from her blog, she gives tips on how to select the best conference for your goals, being a well-prepared speaker, making the most of networking opportunities, and more.