Resources
Below, you’ll find my Amazon shopping lists and my affiliate links for products and courses that you might enjoy. As an Amazon Influencer and an affiliate for other programs, I earn from qualifying purchases. However, I have only included products I’ve used or that come highly recommended. I hope you find these resources helpful!
Stacy's Amazon Store - Organization, Tech, Writing, & More
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Household Clutter Busters & Organization
Inspiration, Personal Development, & Journals
Technology, Gadgets, & Accessories
Try Audible Plus, an all-you-can-listen membership that offers access to thousands of titles, including a vast array of audiobooks, podcasts and originals that span genres, lengths, and formats.
Try an Amazon Prime 30-day Free Trial. This membership program offers special benefits including: * Instantly watch thousands of movies and TV episodes * Borrow Kindle books * Get unlimited free two-day shipping (no minimum order size)
Try a Prime Student 6-Month Trial. This membership program offers special benefits to college students including: * Unlimited free two-day shipping (with no minimum order size) * Exclusive deals and promotions for college students
Shortcuts For Writers Free & Paid Resources & Blog Guidelines
Grammar, Writing & Editing Software
ProWritingAid – ProWritingAid is my favorite editing software, and is a grammar checker, style editor, and writing mentor in one package. If you’re a new ProWritingAid user and purchase through my affiliate link, send your receipt to stacy at stacyjuba.com and I’ll send you three bonuses:
Bonus #1: My two-page Overused Words Cheat Sheet.
Bonus #2: My 42-minute video that teaches you how to use the Overused Words Cheat Sheet and unleash the power of ProWritingAid and Google Docs/Microsoft Word.
Bonus #3: My ProWritingAid Cheat Sheet to help you get up and running quickly.
Grammar Lion: Comma Mini-Course (Free) – Master the comma and write more effectively starting today with this free mini-course. Don’t let this little punctuation mark slow you down. Stop random comma use and say goodbye to wasting time on comma decisions. In approximately 30 minutes, you’ll know when to say yes to a comma. You’ll also learn when to say no.
Grammar Lion Pretest (Free) – Grammar can be fun when you know the rules! Try the pretest to gauge your grammar know-how. Challenge yourself with 33 grammar questions.
Grammar Lion: A Grammar Refresher – This comprehensive online course will help you navigate the linguistic twists and turns of American English grammar. Take your time and enjoy 12 weeks of learning.
Plottr – Plottr is a visual outlining tool built for published and aspiring writers of all kinds including novelists, screenwriters, playwrights, academics, journalists, writing students, and beyond. Whether you’re an outlining pro or your journey is just beginning, Plottr can help you visually (and creatively) build a plan to write your book.
Plot Factory – Plot Factory is an online story planner that provides you with the tools you need to plan, organize and create stories, fictional worlds, characters, and more. It runs as a freemium app. You get all the necessities for writing for free, and the nice-to-have features with a paid subscription.
Scrivener – Scrivener is the go-to app for writers of all kinds. It unites everything you need to write, research, and arrange long documents in a single, powerful app. At its heart is a simple ring-binder metaphor that allows you to gather your material and flick between different parts of your manuscript, notes, and references with ease. Break your text into manageable sections of any size and leave Scrivener to stitch them together. Integrated outlining tools let you plan everything first or restructure later. And as your project grows, you’ll find that Scrivener grows with it.
Scapple – Ever scribbled ideas on a piece of paper and drawn lines between related thoughts? Then you already know what Scapple does. It’s a virtual sheet of paper that lets you make notes anywhere and connect them using lines or arrows. Creating notes is as easy as double-clicking anywhere on the page; making connections between ideas is as simple as dragging and dropping one note onto another. And unlike real paper, in Scapple you can move notes around and never run out of space.
Graphics Resources
Canva – I love using Canva’s drag-and-drop feature and layouts to design and share logos, presentations, social media graphics, worksheets, flyers, and more. There is plenty you can do on Canva for free, but Canva Pro has many additional features. Get a 30-day free trial here.
MockupShots – With MockupShots, you can get lifetime access to a complete library of book mockup images, putting your book into over 600 different settings in only 10 seconds. Create product page images with transparent backgrounds, themed images for holidays and seasons, and action images of your book moving across the screen. The price is regular $198, but with this link you can get it for $80.
I hope that the creators will eventually add even more mockup images to the library. That would make me super-happy and then I could rave about it. But, I don’t regret the purchase as it makes designing my social media graphics much quicker. Below are a couple of images I created with MockupShots.
Productivity, Authorpreneurship, & Planners
Planner Pads – This is what I personally use as a daily planner. Check out the undated versions with start dates that sync with your unique timeline. Choose from spiral bound or loose leaf versions which are available in different sizes and ink colors.
New customers can try the Planner Pad for the first time for up to six months, and if you feel it has not given you an extra hour a day, send it right back to the company for a full product refund.
Black cover – 8.5 X 11
Green cover – 8.5 X 11
Dailygreatness Planners and Journals – Get 10 percent off! The intuitive flow of the Dailygreatness concept gives you a foundation and a structure to your days that supports you in achieving your goals. It’s a simple process that’s fun, creative and engaging. Products include the original planner and journal, a business planner, parents’ journal, training journal, wellness journal, yoga journal, self-leadership planner, success planner, desk pad, accessories, and more. I have the yoga journal!
I’ve also used and liked The Dailygreatness Original Journal and Planner (Orange), which combines a yearly diary, goal and appointment planner, and daily tools for self-mastery. Designed to be used throughout the calendar year, the daily pages will guide you to form great habits through the 8 daily steps of meditation and visualization, intentions, dream journaling, gratitude, evening self-awareness questions, exercise, inspired actions and inspiration. The weekly and quarterly check-ins keep you committed, accountable and motivated. With a yearly review, that celebrates your achievements and highlights new opportunities for the coming year, each stage lays the foundations for achieving self-mastery, reaching your goals and finding and following your purpose. Find out more here.
From Brit Poe of Thriving Scribes:
Author Platform Content Toolkit – A week-by-week, highly customizable plug-and-play content creation system for fiction authors that will help you elevate your personal author brand to all new heights. Includes Content Batching Roadmap, Author Platform Content Plan, 156 Plug-And-Play Author Platform Content Prompts, and several bonuses.
Thriving Scribes Planner – Designed specifically for self-publishing authors, the Thriving Scribes Planner will guide authorpreneurs toward planning their year with intention and purpose. Get ready to plan some epic authorship goals, up your productivity, and design the author business of your dreams. This planner is undated and ready to use at any time of the year. Get the printed version or the digital PDF.
Trello 4 Authors Templates – Plot your next series, novel, and scene while organizing your digital clutter. Manage your future novel and character ideas, book launch, and book creation more efficiently with the Trello templates for authors. Get Trello boards to outline your novels, expand your ideas, and manage your publishing journey. You can just get the templates, or take a full course.
Digital Authorpreneur Home Base – Learn how to use Notion as your online author headquarters. Inside this magical template pack, you’ll find templates to help you run your business, write your books, and manage your online presence plus walkthrough videos to help you customize the system for your unique author business and workflows.
Authorpreneur Unleashed: Workshop Bundle – Five workshops to give you everything you truly need to show up as an authorpreneur CEO. You can choose to purchase ALL five workshops at a discount or pick and choose the individual workshops you want. Workshops cover everything from author business foundations, to mindset, to brand building, and beyond.
Get these freebies from Brit:
Authorpreneur: Activated – (Free) A binge-worthy audio series teaching all the secrets behind showing up as the CEO of your author business and #crushingit. You’re going to be diving into one of 5 secrets to authorpreneur CEOship. Each day you will receive a short 5-10 minute audio training giving you the knowledge you need to implement. You’ll also get actionable workbooks and daily transcripts.
Authorpreneur Stage Quiz – (Free) Take this quiz to find out which authorpreneur stage you are in right now and get immediate access to a custom action plan based on your stage.
Authorpreneur Profit Calculator – (Free) Want to know just how many book sales it’ll take to bring a profit into your author business? Let Brit show you.
Marketing Tools
Book Cave Group Promotions – If you’re looking to add your book to group promotions, Book Cave is a promotion site that will creates a special page specific to the group. All authors/publishers involved plan to discount their book to either free or 99 cents on retailers, depending on the requirements of the group, and Book Cave helps with the promotion. You can also have your book featured for individual promotions.
Publisher Rocket – This handy tool, which I own, will help you get your book in front of more Amazon shoppers so you can spend less time marketing and more time writing. Rocket gives you real data that shows you exactly what Amazon customers type into Amazon, as well as how many people search for those keywords every month. With the category feature, you can quickly find relevant niche categories for your books, as well as find out how many books you’d need to sell that day in order to be the new #1 bestseller. Rocket will help you find hundreds of profitable keywords for your Amazon ad book advertising campaign in under 10 seconds. Once you have your list of keywords just click export and paste your keywords right into your AMS campaign, and you’re done!
The site has lots of free resources also, including:
How to Choose Keywords Tutorial
How To Choose Categories Tutorial
ConvertKit – This is the email service provider that I use for my mailing list. It offers automations, customizable sign-up forms, and landing pages to help bring in more email subscribers.
The Free plan includes:
- Management of up to 1000 subscribers
- Unlimited landing pages
- Unlimited, customizable CTAs & signup forms
- 30+ premium landing page templates
- Unlimited traffic
- Customizable domain setup
- Mobile responsive designs
- Unlimited email broadcasts
- Subscriber tagging
- Seamless Unsplash integration
- Creator community
Below are a couple of mailing list providers recommended by my writer friends:
AWeber – One interesting integration is with the design software, Canva. You can read about that here.
Podcast Power from Irene Gabelnick – Podcast Power is a 10-page ebook that shows you a quick and easy system to land live radio and podcast interviews. It includes 5 email templates to get you booked in the media, build your brand, and get seen.
Email Open Rate Booster from Kimi Kinsey – Everything you need to know so that you can get people actually opening your emails more often, reading what you have to say, clicking on your offerings, and buying through your links.
From Elizabeth Goddard:
The Tripwire Training – Elizabeth’s tripwire training (which I have gone through) is an in-depth course covering everything you need to know to start making surprise money with a tripwire offer. You’ll learn how to plan, set up, launch and refine your tripwire funnel in no more than a couple of hours.
The Painless Guide to Hiring and Working With a VA – This class walks you through the entire process of getting your business ‘VA ready’, hiring the most magical unicorn VA out there, how to work together day-to-day so you get the very best support out of your fledgling team, and how to become the much loved ‘favorite client’.
Website & Domain Resources
Namecheap – This is where I purchase my domains. It’s easy and inexpensive.
SiteGround – This is what I use for my hosting. SiteGround has three plans to choose from: The StartUp plan is perfect for people with one website. It’s what I started on. The GrowBig plan (which is what I’m now on for my three sites) is a great value for the money offer, including the option for multiple websites and the Ultrafast PHP that greatly improves website speed. By using my link, you’ll get a significant discount.
Free Time Management For #Writers 5-Day Challenge #Writing
Could you use some time management tips? Then you're invited to check out my free 5-day Time Management for Writers challenge. Every day from Thursday, June 17 through Monday, June 21, I'll be giving my followers a small challenge on Facebook and Instagram. It will be...
New Time Management For Writers Course – Includes Bonuses
I’m so excited! My brand new course, called Time Management Blueprint for Writers: Transform Your Life and Finish Your Book, is now available. This self-paced, comprehensive course will guide you through the process of organizing your life one step at a time so that...
Free Facebook Ads For Authors Introduction With @MDCooperAuthor
Have you been wondering whether it's worth your time and money to run Facebook ads for your books? My friend Malorie Cooper of The Writing Wives has volunteered to visit my Shortcuts for Writers Facebook group to lead a short introductory workshop. This free...
