Black Friday Deals for Romance Authors
If only being a romance writer meant spending the day telling tales of love and loss and love again. Alas, to be a published romance author requires wearing many hats or hiring help. While many authors are financially successful, most others don’t have the money to hire help. That’s where tools come in. Tools can save you time and money on doing the things that need to be done to publish and sell your book.
With Black Friday only days away, here are a few tools I use and that you can get at a discount to help you take care of all the things in your romance writing business.
ProWritingAid
ProWritingAid will not only help you find grammar and spelling errors, but also it can help you improve the quality of your writing. It finds passive voice, highlights when you start too many sentences in a row with the same word, offers suggestions for better word choices, and more.
If you want to get an agent and traditional publisher, using this software will help your manuscript stand out by sending the tightest, cleanest submission possible, short of hiring an editor. If you’re an indie author, this software can clean up the manuscript, which makes it easier for the editor you hire (and could save you money on editing).
Right now, you can get 50% off on yearly and lifetime plans.
Learn more about ProWritingAid
Deposit Photos
My book designer uses Deposit Photos for covers and while the graphic comes from her account, because I have an account as well, I can have the same graphic to use for marketing. Not only do I use Deposit Photos for my covers, but also for social media, blog posts, and more. I signed up for the regular monthly subscription because this special deal wasn’t available when I needed graphics. Lucky you, Appsumo is running the special offer where you can get 100 stock photo and vector images of any size, that are royalty-free and come with a standard license (you can use them for book covers, social media, etc).
Learn more about Deposit Photos
Social Bee
Social Bee doesn’t seem to be as well-known as other social media tools such as Hootsuite, but I love this tool and recommend it whenever I can. Social Bee does more than just allow you to schedule social media posts. With the Canva integration, you can create your sharable graphic from within Social Bee. Plus it works with all the major platforms (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, Pinterest), including the ability to schedule Reels and TikToks!
My favorite feature is the reschedule option that will automatically repost a post. This is ideal for your evergreen content, such as sharing your newsletter sign up. You can organize post types by categories (e.g. promotion, blog post, etc) and set up a posting schedule, which again, used in conjunction with the reposting feature, means content is sent out regularly even if you forget or don’t have time to create a new post.
I bought my access through a deal at Appsumo, and unfortunately, that deal is gone. BUT…right now you can get 70% off for 3 months.
Learn more about Social Bee
Ocoya
I tend to go on buying sprees when I visit Appsumo and Ocoya is a purchase I made on a whim during a visit last year. Ocoya is similar to Social Bee in that it helps with Social Media. It has its own graphic/template library (like Canva) as well as integrates with Canva. Plus you can schedule social media post within the system.
The real benefit to Ocoya is the help it gives you in deciding what to post. It has AI support in creating copy for social media posts and more. It has hashtag help, plus a quote generator if you’re really stuck and want a simple, quick way to post something.
Right now, you can get an affordable lifetime deal.
KingSumo
I like Kingsumo for running contests designed to build my email list. There is a free option, but this deal through Appsumo gets you a few extra things that can make your giveaways better for you and your entrants. You can set up the giveaway in a few minutes and share with your followers. Entrants can earn more entries by sharing the contest through social media. You can allow them to earn more entries by following you or subscribing to your email as well.
Learn more about Kingsumo.
Other Tools For Black Friday
Once again, I’m coveting some really cool tools offered on Appsumo. I don’t own these (yet), but am seriously looking at them:
SleekBio
SleekBio is like LinkTree for link-in-bio social media (Instagram, TikTok) but without the monthly fee. It’s only $19 for lifetime use for one page, or $29 lifetime for 5 pages. I’m trying to decide if this would be easier than simply creating a page on my site with all the links for link-in-bio.
VoiceTapp (Voice to Text)
I own Dragon Naturally Speaking, which has a transcription option, but I want to transcribe video/audio to text that doesn’t have the punctuation commands. I see myself using Voicetap to create blog posts, scripts, and course materials. I can speak my ideas (without dictating punctuation), and then use this to transcribe, and then edit to posts, video scripts, etc.
Other options for writers include dictating your ideas or even your stories, and then using this to transcribe. VoiceTapp would be a more affordable option to Dragon’s version with transcription.
There are time limits per month on transcription use, but with 12 welcome hours and 5 hours of recording/transcription thereafter for a lifetime, it’s a good deal.
One Transcriber (Voice from PC to Text)
I nearly ignored One Transcriber until I realized I have a TON of online courses I’ve signed up for. While some courses offer transcriptions, most don’t. With this software (if I’m reading the information correctly) I can create real-time transcription of webinars, online courses, meetings, etc! I’d have a second note-taker and a readable transcript to review once I finish the course! I’m definitely taking a closer look at this one!
Like VoiceTabb, there are monthly limits, in this case 120 minutes (2 hours).
You’ll notice that many of these tools are through Appsumo. I love this resource for finding helpful tools at affordable (usually one-low-lifetime) prices. While most are geared toward online businesses, there are a ton that could help authors (such as those above).
Want More Savings?
By the way, if you’re into savings, make sure you sign up for Swagbucks and/or Rakuten. So many online retailers earn you points through these programs that you can use for cash back or giftcards. I let my points ride until this time of year, when I use them to buy gifts or get giftcards for gifts.
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