Tools To Help You With Your Ghostwriting Career
If you’re going to be a ghostwriter, then you’ll need to be able to do more than just be a good writer. I’ve put together a list of some tools you can use to get better at your craft so you can spend more time actually writing and making money and less time on the administrative side.
Word Processing
Word processor for writers
Scrivener makes it easy to map, outline, research, compose, and edit your long-form book projects. Because not all writing takes place linearly, traditional word processing programs like Word make it difficult for longer writing projects.
The cost is $40.
Accounting & Legal
Nobody likes to think about the boring number side of business — at least almost nobody but it needs to get done. Personal budget & finance software for individuals, couples & small businesses. Track your income, expenses, debt, and more in an attractive & intuitive interface.
The software is $60 after a 34-day trial.
Calendar Management
Free, integrated, online appointment scheduling tool.
Syncs with Google Calendar & you can block off certain times each week as available for meetings.
Premium features start at $5 per month & include multiple calendar options & meeting reminder emails.
Communication & Meetings
Free voice & video calls.
Now owned by Microsoft, Skype is the leader in VOIP calling. It’s a tool I use a lot to communicate with team members, contractors, podcast guests, and other entrepreneurs who live halfway across the world.
Premium features include calling landlines & cell phones — along with screen sharing.
Customer Relationship Management
Robust CRM software.
Infusionsoft helps businesses automate their marketing processes, manage emails, organize their efforts, and sell online. It’s the next level up from Mailchimp and can integrate your marketing and admin for you. AGain it’s not the cheapest tool out there but if you have a robust business than it might be worth it.
Infusionsoft starts at $199 per month.
Ecommerce & Payments
Shopping cart software for digital products.
Gumroad is checkout software that easily installs on any website. Its look & feel promotes high-converting checkout processes, and the software can automate delivery of digital goods & support pay-what-you-want pricing.
Gumroad is free to set up & charges 5% of each transaction.
Email Marketing
MailChimp is the number one email marketing tool and for good reason. It’s easy to use, free up to 2,000 subscribers, making it extremely popular for a lot of small businesses.
MailChimp lets you send emails, manage subscribers and offers great ways to track your audience which is valuable to ensure that you are sending them the right message. You can slit test campaigns, send emails out on birthday, anniversaries and other special occasions.
Shows contact details & social connections in your inbox.
Rapportive is a free Gmail plug-in that replaces your sidebar with relevant details of who you’re emailing with. You’ll see a picture, their location, their social media links, and even your past email conversations with them.
It’s a handy tool that can even be used to guess email addresses for strangers using common email structures (like firstname@companyname.com). If Rapportive shows a name & picture, you know you’ve got a match.
File Sharing & Storage
Web-based office software & file sharing.
Google Drive is Google’s cloud-based file storage system, and it integrates seamlessly with the file sharing & collaboration tools inside Google Docs. I relied on Google Docs extensively while compiling this book project because it meant my virtual assistant helpers & I could all work on the same file at once.
Drive is free for up to 15 GB of storage.
Search Engine Optimization Marketing
Suite of online marketing tools & content.
Moz offers an array of products, services, and content for the online marketing professional. Find out how to rank your site better in the search results & beat your competition.
A Moz Pro subscription is not cheap at $99 per month but can be worth it to get a leg up on your competition.
Networking
Local events matching your interests.
Use Meetup.com to find local gatherings & networking events in your niche.
Meetup is always free for attendees, and if you want to host a group it’s just $5 per month.
Outsourcing
Marketplace for goods & services starting at around $10 to $20.
Upwork is a tremendous resource for small business owners – no it’s not just for prank calls & silly dances. You’ll be surprised at the variety & depth of truly useful $5 services.
I’ve gotten WordPress help, articles written, graphics created, ebook covers made, and more.
Productivity
Powerful, free cross-device note-taking app.
Create an “external brain” with Evernote & share & sync notes & files in the cloud.
Any flash of inspiration can be saved in Evernote. Just create a notebook & save the notes in there. The tool has numerous features, including sharing, file attachments, reminders, and voice memos.
Evernote Premium is $5 per month or $45 per year.
Social Media
Despite all the cries that Facebook is dead, it’s still the number one social media platform out there and the best, depending on your demographic, to build an audience on. Almost everyone is on it and you can connect with people from all across the world. While you might have some success with other platforms like Instagram, Facebook advertising and the Facebook marketplace are powerful tools to get you in front of your customers.
You should use Facebook to highlight your accomplishments, share your content, and connect with your audience.
You can also use Facebook groups to make connections with like-minded people & to share content.
Team & Project Management
Asana is a web-based project management system. Asana has become an integral part of life for many entrepreneurs.
Users can create & assign tasks to themselves or other team members, and all members can have access to the tasks & comment & update their progress.
Asana is free for teams of up to 15 people. After that, premium plans start at $50 per month.
Websites or Blog sites
There really isn’t any other option when it comes to building a website. WordPress takes some getting used to but it’s easy to build your own website after watching a few tutorials.
Themes can cost anywhere between $40 – $100 depending on the complexity.
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