Image from Inspired Stock Shop.
This blog post originally appeared on Holly’s website. We’ve removed it from there as it’s no longer relevant, and updated it to include tech tools that authors need.
Please note that some of these links are affiliate links. We don’t recommend things that we don’t actually use and love, but to clarify: all the things on this list are things that we constantly recommend, and would recommend even if they didn’t have an affiliate program.
1Password
We’ve been using 1Password to manage our passwords. It’s got apps for Mac, Windows, iOS & Android and it’s just $2.99 USD per month for an individual account, billed annually.
Acuity Scheduling
Are you an author who also provides one-to-one services? Acuity Scheduling makes it easy for clients to book into your calendar. You can send them an intake form to fill out prior to the call and you can even charge them for the session.
It’s easy to set up, and it syncs beautifully with your personal calendar, your accounting software, and your email list manager. You can offer unlimited services and appointment types, and clients can book in themselves, and get email reminders of the appointment. You can edit and customize everything with your colors and logo.
Amazon S3
This is short for Amazon Simple Storage Service. It’s where we store the files for online courses, podcast transcripts, and all other downloadable stuff. It’s very cheap, and really easy to use.
AppSumo
This is a great website to get amazing deals on all kinds of tech. This is where we got 100 Photo/Vector Downloads from Depositphotos for $39 USD. It’s worth checking them out every once in a while to see what they’ve got on offer, as their offers are excellent value.
Audacity
This is what we use to record solo podcast episodes and audiobooks. You can also use it to edit your audio files. And it’s free!
Bestseller Ranking Pro
If you want to write to market and find out what are the best Amazon categories to write for, then you’ll need this online course. It will teach you which Amazon categories are the most profitable. It’s a one-off payment.
Get Bestseller Ranking Pro here.
Boomerang for Gmail
We’ve been using this for a few years now, and it’s completely revolutionized how we approach email. It helps you out in three main ways: you can write an email now, and schedule it to go out at a later time or date; it can remind you about an email in case you don’t hear back from the recipient; and if you’ve got a busy day and you know you won’t have time to get to all the emails in your inbox, you can select the least important ones that you know you won’t have time for, and then boomerang them out of your inbox to return at later time or date. It’s fabulous.
You can try out a limited version, a Free Basic plan with 10 message credits (essentially, ten email actions) for as long as you like. But trust me, you’ll soon get hooked once you realize the immense value of this tool.
Camtasia
This is screen capture software + video recording/editing/sharing software for your PC or Mac. We’ve been using it since Holly created her first online course in 2012, and WE LOVE IT. It’s super intuitive and easy to use, and we also use it to edit videos.
DocHub
We used to pay someone on Fiverr to create PDFs with fillable fields for us. And it was always a problem, because if we wanted to update anything on the document, we would have to pay the person to alter the document. Then we discovered DocHub, which is free within Google Drive. Learn how to make fillable PDFs for free here.
Dropbox
I’ve been using Dropbox for cloud storage, backups, and file sharing since 2012. It’s just $99 USD per year for the Dropbox Plus plan, which gives you 1TB of storage. You can get Dropbox Basic for free to try it out, with just 2GB of storage.
Fiverr
We love Fiverr for easily searchable access to professionals all over the world. I’ve been using it since 2013, and I’ve had mostly great experiences with the 70+ gigs that I’ve ordered there. My best tip is that you need to read the reviews, look at their portfolio of work, and be super clear on exactly what you want. If you’re getting graphic design done, provide very clear examples of the style/colors/etc.
Here are some of the people I’ve hired and can recommend:
- YouTube intro video
- Change a color of an item in a photo
- Crop an image and put it on a transparent background
- Crop an image and put it on a transparent background (this is a second person)
- British voice-over artist (she can do both a Scottish and an English accent, and if you listen to the early episodes of Holly’s podcast, she’s the one who does the intro and outro)
- Logo design (she did Holly’s logo)
- Custom daily planner
- Put your screen/image on an iPhone/iPad/Mac (We use this whenever we release a new book)
- Change the color of your logo
- Logo design
GIMP
This is a kind of free, open-source Photoshop, for those of you who are not graphic designers, yet want more functionality that you get from Canva or PicMonkey. I’ve been using it for over ten years now.
Libsyn
This is where Holly has hosted her podcast since it began back in 2013. It’s easy to set up and easy to upload episodes, then syndicate your show out to other networks and social media profiles. They also have a gorgeous media player for your show that you can embed into your website.
Lighting Kit
We get a lot of questions about the lighting kit that we use for my indoor videos. We bought the kit on Amazon, and it’s the Excelvan Studio Umbrella Continuous Lighting Backdrop Kit, which contains: 3 muslin Backdrops (White, Green, Black) + 2 Umbrellas + 2X 125W Light Set + Background Support Stand System + Lighting Stand + Portable Bag. It’s currently £65.99 on Amazon, though as you probably know Amazon shows different prices to different people, so it may be different when you click through.
We don’t use the backdrop, and if you know you won’t be using it, either, you can get a similar kit without the backdrop.
Get the smaller kit on Amazon.
Meeting Planner
We use Acuity Scheduling for all meetings, particularly because we don’t want to make a mistake with the time zone differences. But every once in a while we need to meet with someone outside my normal working hours, and they’re in a different time zone. That’s when we use TimeandDate.com’s Meeting Planner. You enter your time zone, and the other person’s, and it generates a color-coded 24-hour chart with the best hours marked in green, the worst in red, and the so-so ones in yellow.
Microphone
We have a couple of different microphones.
For interviews and audiobooks, we use a Blue Yeti, which many podcasters seem to use. This is the mic that we use for all office videos, webinars, and podcast episodes…basically, everything we record in my office. It’s got a USB connection, making it easy to plug into your computer and go. The setup of the mic is also really simple, unlike the Zoom H2N, which had so many options. I’m currently thinking about upgrading my microphone, but I’m still undecided. So if you’re looking for a quick microphone purchase, I’d say to go with the Blue Yeti. It’s £119.99 on Amazon (note that it comes in a variety of colors).
Get the Blue Yeti microphone on Amazon.
For recording videos out of my office, we use a lavalier mic that plugs into my iPhone, and then we record videos on a phone. I’ve got the Rode Smartlav+ Lavalier Microphone for Smartphone, and it plugs right into the iPhone and clips onto your clothing, providing great sound quality for mobile audio. It’s £42.99 on Amazon.
Get the Rode Smartlav+ on Amazon.
It does, however, have a very short cable, so I’ve purchased a very inexpensive (under £4) six-foot cable, which makes recording videos much easier. I’ve got the StarTech.com 2 m 3.5 mm 4 Position TRRS Headset Extension Cable M/F and Audio Extension Cable for iPhone. Note that it comes in a variety of sizes: 3 ft, 6ft, 30 ft, and 50 ft.
Music
The music Holly uses in the background of all her guided meditations is channeled music from the Orin DaBen website (music by Thaddeus), and it pairs beautifully with guided meditations. Each track is just $6 USD.
Review their licensing policy here
Purchase music singles by Thaddeus here.
We got the intro/outro music for Holly’s podcast on Soundrangers.com back in 2013, and she hasn’t even thought about changing it. If you’re looking for royalty-free music and sound effects, this is the place to go. You can search by genre and easily find the perfect music for your audio or video needs.
Publisher Rocket
We use this super simple tool to select the best keywords and Amazon categories for our clients’ books. It’s easy to use and it helps your book be seen on Amazon.
Scrivener
This is the software we use to write our books. It makes book writing so much easier because it allows you to split the book into chapters, making it easy to navigate between all the different parts of your book. It also has a cork board, and places to save notes and links. You can get it for Mac, for iOS, and for Windows.
The desktop versions are $45 USD, and the iOS version is $19.99 (you can get this on the app store). You can also get a 30-day free trial to see if you like it.
SiteGround
We made the move from BlueHost to SiteGround a few years ago.
ThriveCart
If you’ve signed up for any of our online courses, you’ll find they’re hosted on ThriveCart. It’s a great way to set up online courses using ThriveCart Learn and charge for them using ThriveCart’s platform. You can also allow purchasers to set up an affiliate account, so you can pay them to promote your courses.
Vellum
This is what we use to create clean, attractive ebooks and print for our own books and for our author clients. It’s affordable and easy to use.
Website Design
Alice Jennings did Holly’s website back in 2020 and she did a complete redesign of this website earlier this year. She’s very easy to work with and can help you create a beautiful, affordable website for your books or your business.
Get in Touch
If you have any questions about anything here, or if you need a recommendation for some other kind of tech that we haven’t mentioned, get in touch. Holly has been in business since 1999, and while a lot of the tech that she used to use back then is obsolete (looking at you, Overture and FrontPage!) we can hopefully help with the more modern stuff.
If you found this list useful, we’d love for you to share it online! You may also want to bookmark this page for future reference.
