Free Tools Every Author Should Be Using

Writers have to do besides just writing these days, like make great graphics for social media, have an email newsletter, make ebooks, and post professional images on their websites.

But where to start? How can all of this be done without spending a lot of money?

Today, I'm going to show you some of my favorite free business tools. 

​Images

It should not be hard or expensive to make images for social media and your website. You can use two of my favorite tools for making images for social media for free.

Canva: It gives you access to thousands of templates. 

Canva probably has everything you need, whether it's graphics for Pinterest or Instagram, a new cover for your Facebook page, or anything else you can think of. 

Even if you aren't a designer, you can still give the pre-designed templates a professional look by making changes to them.

Adobe Spark: Adobe Spark is kind of like Canva in that you can use templates to make images for social media. I also really like that you can make and edit videos with Adobe Spark. I've begun experiment with short videos in Spark myself. FYI:  t The free version of the software does add watermarks to the videos, FYI (which is not a dealbreaker for me)

Free Stock Photos

It's important that you don't break any copyright laws when you start making graphics for social media and adding photos to your blog posts (unless you book is making enough revenue to post bail).

It's actually not okay to take a picture from a Google search, but don't worry—there are lots of great free stock photos you can use.

Unsplash, Pixabay, and KaboomPics are three of my favorite sites for free images.

Each have millions of photos for just about anything you can think of. just type in a word or two and see what comes up. 

ust type in a word or two and see what comes up.  You can even make an account and put together groups of images that you can easily find when you need them.

KaboomPics also let you search by color and by photoshoots. Many of the images are from photoshoots, so you can choose from a range of sizes, orientations, and levels of detail.

E-Mail Newsletter

Keeping in touch with your audience is easier if you have an email newsletter. MailChimp is a good place to start if you want something easy.

I also recommend trying out Aweber for your email list because it has all of the features you would need. It's a good option if you have, or plan on growing, a big list and you need to make sequences, segmentation, and other things.

Social Media Posting

Scheduling posts on social media is a simple way to keep up with your marketing and brand. I post across my social with Later, but they only provide a 14-day free trial, but a better, forever-free option would be Buffer. They allow you to schedule 10 posts in advance on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter.  It's incredibly easy to set up too!

This way you can just take one day a week and set-up all your posts in advance and save time for writing or anything else you may want to do!

Anything Else? 

Which tools do you like to use the most?

Did I forget something great and free?

​I'm always looking for great new tools and resources for myself and for other authors. Tell me in the comments section below!