The Essential Tools I Need to Create My Novels and Run My Business

Hello. My name is Fiona and I suffer from shiny object syndrome. Sigh. I’m well aware that in my case, it’s just procrastination. And it’s usually more prominent when I’m sitting down to write.

If I could just find the perfect planning system…

If I could just find the perfect writing software…

If I could just find the perfect social media planner…

It’s a flaw, I know, I’m trying to work on it. On the plus side, if I do find something I love and I actually manage to stick with it, then you can pretty much guarantee it’s fantastic.

Today, I wanted to tell you about a few things that I’ve managed to stick to, mainly because they make my writing life so much easier and so much more enjoyable. Yes, there will be some affiliate links in this post, but I promise, I’m not going to promote anything I don’t use myself.

Fern CRM

Okay. I love this site. I can do damn near everything on it. My website, vampiresandthevapors.com is on there and I was able to set the whole thing up myself. Well, with the help of office hours with Mollie, the founder. Setting up the site was easy enough, it’s a simple drag and drop process. If I did get stuck, all I had to do was attend an office hour session and Mollie would walk me through it.

I do all my social media planning and scheduling with Fern CRM. I set up all my funnels, my newsletter and I run email campaigns from there. And now, I can see all the comments on my posts there too which means I spend less time doomscrolling as I can answer those comments without having to go into the apps.

My next novel is coming out in August and my book after that will be published in serial form, each week. And yes, you guessed it, I’ll be doing that in Fern CRM as well. I can run the entire membership, a community group and publish the novel as well.

By now, you’re probably getting the idea that I’m quite impressed with Fern CRM. It really is a one-stop-shop for my entire novel writing business and they’re always bringing out new features. The support is amazing and they have a free trial. Go on, check it out.

Story Origin

This is a new thing for me. I started with bookfunnel and I was reasonably pleased with the results I had in building my newsletter subscriber list, but to be honest, the free plan was quite limited and the paid plan was simply out of my league right now, so I switched to Story Origin.

If you haven’t come across it before, it’s a site where you can participate in group promos and newsletters with a focus on building your subscriber list. It costs me around $20NZ per month and so far, it’s been worth it. You need a freebie to offer, and then you sign up for group promos or you can create them yourself. You can also find people to do newsletter swaps with you. For new authors, it’s a fantastic way to get started. Great tutorials and support as well.

Plotter

I have completely lost count of how many plotting tools I’ve used but Plottr is the only one I’ve used to plot an entire book. It’s simple to use, and believe me it has to be simple for me to not get confused, it’s reasonably priced and it does its job well.

Ellipsis

I’m relatively new to Ellipsus and so far, I’m loving it. This is where I actually do my writing. It has templates, a whole lot of color theme choices, and just enough fancy features for me to enjoy without overwhelming me. I strongly encourage you to check it out. Oh! And did I mention it’s free?

Scrivener

Okay, I had to mention Scrivener, even though I’m not using it right now. I like a lot of the features of Scrivener, like the split screen and the way the binder is set out but honestly, there’s a lot of features on there that I don’t use. I think if you’re willing to spend some time getting to know the program and all that it can do then Scrivener is a really efficient tool for writing a novel.

So, there you have it. These are the tools I work with every day. It’s a small list but that’s because Fern CRM looks after my entire business, Ellipsis takes care of the creative side of my business and Story Origin takes care of my marketing, for now. I’m sure as my readership grows, I’ll take on new services but right now I have all I need.

I’d love to hear what tools work for you in your work so drop me a comment below.