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The right tools aren’t the secret to writing a great manuscript, but they do make the process a lot smoother. Keeping all of your ideas, plotlines, characters, goals, and other components of writing a book organized gives you more mental space to focus on the actual writing process.

The writing tools in this post cover the entire book writing process, from getting the first idea for a story to publishing and marketing it online.

While there are a lot of great resources out there, these are the ones I’ve personally used as an indie author self-publishing my own books.

If you’d like to see how I personally use all of these tools, check out my Substack post.

Other posts you may like:

Writing Tools for Every Stage of the Process

Getting inspired

The inspiration stage is the most fun, free-spirited part of the writing process. These are the tools I use to get inspired, organize my ideas, and get in the right mindset to prepare for writing a book.

Pinterest & YouTube
I gather inspiration for characters, settings, and vibes for my story on Pinterest. I’ve even gotten ideas for stories from photos, mood boards, and prompts I’ve found on there.

YouTube is also a great source of inspiration with curated music playlists for writers (just search “[genre or trope] playlist”), ambient videos for focus (search for things like “coffee shop ambience,” “dark academia ambience,” or “spaceship ambience”), and research for your projects. There are tons of real-time walking and driving videos, which you can watch to get a sense of a city you’ve never been to, vlogs of people with lifestyles that match your characters’, and how-to/explainer videos for skills you need to describe.

Spotify
Spotify is another great source of playlists for inspiration and focus. Search for “[genre] playlist” or “[vibe] playlist” to find hundreds of curated options. I also use Spotify to create playlists for my own projects that I listen to while brainstorming and writing.

Canva
Make mood boards for your project in Canva with their free templates. (Note: if you want to make mood boards you can use to promote your book for sale on social media and such, make sure you use royalty-free, commercial-use images from stock websites.)

Writing Planner
I like to start organizing my ideas right away so they’re easy to find and not just floating around in my head. If you like going analog, set up a physical writing planner with printable planner inserts to track your ideas and set goals for the project.e If you prefer digital, you can use an app like Reedsy Studio or Scrivener with built-in templates for story development, character development, and world-building.

Establishing a strong foundation

When you’re ready to start molding your ideas into a book, these tools will help you make sense of everything and prevent the “I don’t know where this is going” midpoint stall because you’ve built a solid structure from the start.

Save the Cat! Writes a Novel by Jessica Brody
The popular (and my personal go-to) story beat structure to build the skeleton of your story.

Story Genius by Lisa Cron
An excellent book on how to develop compelling characters, get inside their head, and outline a story around them.

Getting the words down

Everyone has their favorite word processor. The right one can make your process smoother and more efficient.

Scrivener
Scrivener has been around for years (I’ve personally been using it for at least a decade) and is a very robust app with different folders, templates, ways to label your documents, a split-screen function, composition mode (for no distractions and customizable, as seen in the photo above), a notes panel you can toggle to the side for easy access, automatic backups, and many other features to help streamline your process. It also has an app to easily sync projects between a laptop, phone, and tablet.

Reedsy Studio
Reedsy Studio offers a completely free option and a 30-day free trial for the upgraded features. It doesn’t have its own dedicated app, but it is optimized for a mobile browser. It offers additional features such as Challenges (where you can join the Reedsy community to participate in writing challenges throughout the year), a Goals and Insights panel for tracking your word count and goals, a Statistics panel to monitor word and phrase usage, and formatting capabilities for ebooks and print. There is also an entire Planning section with tons of templates for character development, world-building, and more.

When you get stuck or lose motivation

It happens to the best of us. Fatigue sets in, and you start to lose momentum. Whether you’re in the first draft stage or editing a final draft, try these tools when you get stuck.

Pomofocus
Use this timer for twenty-five-minute sprints and short breaks in between to help you stay focused without burning out.

Word Hippo & OneLook
When you get stuck looking for the right word, these are great thesauri to help you find it.

Emotion Thesaurus
This is exactly what the title says: a thesaurus for different ways to describe emotions characters experience (through body language, physical sensations, and mental cues) so you don’t get caught in a loop of using the same descriptions. The whole Writers Helping Writers thesaurus series is a gold mine.

Taking your writing to the next level

If you’re looking for structured guidance from experts to strengthen your craft, these books and classes are great places to start.

MasterClass
The MasterClass membership has over a dozen classes by bestselling, award-winning writers such as Margaret Atwood, James Patterson, Shonda Rhimes, and Aaron Sorkin, all of whom share valuable insight into how they approach the craft and how to make yours stronger.

Reedsy Learning
Reedsy Learning has hundreds of workshops covering every stage of the process, for writers just starting out to seasoned pros looking to uplevel their craft, such as How to Write Irresistible Romantasy and Layer by Layer: How to Edit Your Book. Their annual membership gives you access to their entire catalog of courses and events for writers.

On Writing by Stephen King
This book is a classic on how to be a strong storyteller, regardless of where you are in your journey.

Story by Robert McKee
While this is technically a book on screenwriting, it focuses on how to tell a gripping, memorable story, and the principles in it transcend any one medium.

Editing your book

Once your book is drafted, it’s time to go into revision mode and get feedback to help make your manuscript as strong as possible.

Google Docs
Google Docs is completely free to use so you can easily share your manuscript with critique partners and beta readers for feedback. They can leave comments and suggestions directly in the document, which makes everything easy to keep organized.

Reedsy Studio
Reedsy Studio also offers a function for sharing your manuscript with others to get feedback directly within the app, so you don’t have to copy your manuscript over to Google Docs.

Self-Editing for Fiction Writers by Renni Browne & Dave King
A great book on how to self-edit your work to make it as strong as possible, before you pass it off to a professional editor.

Publishing your book

When it’s time to publish your book and build your author platform online, these tools will help you get started.

Canva
Canva is great for everything you need to run your author business online: social media, book covers, email/website graphics, and story mood boards. The templates are amazing, the asset libraries (fonts, elements, photos, and videos) are huge and constantly updated, and it’s super easy to use. They have a free version that offers a lot, but you can also upgrade to a premium version for even more assets and capabilities.

Pexels, Unsplash, & Dupe
These are libraries full of amazing free stock images that come with a commercial license, meaning they can be used for book promo and marketing, so you can use them for your website, social media, and book covers.

SiteGround
This is the host I use for all of my websites. I love to use WordPress, which is free and hosted on SiteGround, because if I ever want to move to a different host, I can copy everything over; I’m not bound to the page builder on something like Squarespace or Wix, which would require me to rebuild my website from the ground up if I ever want to switch. It also offers a lot more room for customization and growth. I’ve been using WordPress and SiteGround for years with no issues. Their customer service is great, too.

Flodesk
Flodesk is an email marketing platform with absolutely gorgeous, easy-to-use templates that you can customize for your author brand and books. Having an author newsletter from the start (even if you only send out an email once a month or when you have an announcement) is super smart so you can stay in touch with readers who are interested in your books without having to worry about the social media algorithms showing them those updates on their feed. Use this link to get 25% off your first year of Flodesk.