Below is a list for writers of the services I use. I don’t receive any commission or affiliate income at all from these, and I never will. I will only ever post links here to services and professionals I use or have used in the past.
Editing
C.S. Lakin – Susanne Lakin is a published author who provides a range of editing services to writers. She critiqued my scene outline for my first novel, and I would really recommend her to anyone outlining their first novel. Susanne is really constructive and won’t try to rewrite your vision, she’ll help you work out how to best realise it.
Jade Hemming – Jade is my copy editor. She works at amazing rates and can fit you in quickly, but she does a very good job.
Cover Design
MidnightCoffee – Midnight has designed all my covers. She delivers really quickly but puts a ton of effort into the covers and is great to communicate and collaborate with. I mean, just take a look at my covers. Highly recommended.
Website & Mailing List
My website is hosted by Bluehost, and designed using WordPress (you don’t need separate accounts, Bluehost links straight through to WordPress when you buy a domain). For my mailing list I use MailerLite, which is free up to 1000 subscribers.
Photography
For author photos it’s best to find someone local to you – my photographer is going to be useless to you if you live in Idaho or New Zealand. But if you’re based in London (UK), my photographs were taken by Andrew Mason, who is creative, friendly, and super easy to work with.
Books on Writing
For craft books, I developed my understanding of structure from the craft books by K.M. Weiland and C.S. Lakin. I’d also really recommend K.M. Weiland’s podcast, Helping Writers Become Authors.
For the business side of being an indie writer, you can’t be steered wrong by David Gaughran or Joanna Penn, or preferably both. I’d especially recommend Let’s Get Digital (Gaughran) and Successful Self-Publishing (Penn) for newbie indies. Joanna Penn also does a podcast (The Creative Penn) which generally applicable to slightly more advanced authors, but is always interesting nonetheless. David Gaughran also has a free marketing course called Starting From Zero, which as it’s name suggests is aimed at beginners – I’ve done this course and can vouch for it’s excellence. You’ll come out with a marketing strategy for your first three releases that builds up each time you publish.