Welcome
I am excited to share my carefully curated list of recommended resources. These are resources I use to build an grow my own business.
I encourage you to check out these tools and see if they will work for you. Hopefully they can save you some time and effort. Enjoy!
Prefer a PDF file you can download to read later? Click here.
Business and Publishing Tools
These are tools that I use for marketing, converting clients, improving my publishing success rates and so on. You’ll find that they will improve how well you can target and connect with clients, so they’re worth trying to get more money from your online business.
There are many email marketing tools and automation programs out there, but few fit the bill as well as ConvertKit. It’s billed as a program made by creators for creators, and that really shows. It gives you a ton of features and makes the processing of making forms, emails and tags easier than any other program I’ve worked with. ConvertKit is my current email provide and they are excellent.
Whether you’re new to email marketing or use it every day and want a better tool, ConvertKit is an amazing tool for generating messages and automating the whole process. Check them out and you’ll see how easy this system is and how it improves all aspects of your email marketing.
Here’s another email marketing tool that has some powerful design tools and also helps with creating popups, forms and even landing pages. Nearly all of the developing and designing aspects are drag-and-drop, ensuring that you can make new forms and pages within a few minutes regardless of skill level.
This is a good service if you want email marketing with some extra design help.
This is a lot like ConvertKit, but it focuses a little more on design work. Both are amazing and can even be used in conjunction if you’d like. Compare the two and see which one works best for you.
This is a tool that every author needs. Reviews and social proof drive ebook and digital product sales. You could be selling the best book ever, but with no reviews or social media buzz you won’t get anywhere with it.
All you have to do is search for a book, click to send reviewers a message and wait until they get back to you. It makes it easy to find relevant reviewers who are happy to get your book for free and will leave you a review in exchange. It gives you the foot traffic that you need and will certainly improve your sales.
Reviews show that people have read your book and they like it. Nothing is worse than having a book sit without any reviews. This will help you get some legitimate reviews and you won’t have to worry about Amazon kicking you off for doing something wrong or shady.
This is like a powerful keyword tool, but instead of targeting Google this tool targets Kindle. In seconds, you can find the best keywords, categories, genres, titles and so on. It gives you an advantage in listing your book and ensures that you are picking the keywords that people are searching for.
If you want to get a little leg up on properly listing your ebook, then no tool is better than KDP Rocket. It’s easy to use and gives you so really useful information.
Time management is essential in life and becomes even more important as you strive towards higher goals. Too many people get bogged down in distracting themselves, inefficiently working on their tasks and both life and work suffer because nothing is getting done.
RescueTime seeks to correct this. It helps you gain some perspective as you can track goals, activities and see where you are and aren’t flourishing. This gives you an unbiased look at how much you are getting done throughout the day. The premium features allow you to block distracting websites, log offline activities and make custom notifications. If you want to improve your productivity, then you’ll love this program.
Social media marketing can be tough because it’s hard to know when a post will go viral or flop and get one or two likes. If you’re looking to take the guesswork out of Pinterest and Instagram marketing, and to help schedule your posts as well for improved productivity, then you’ll want to give Tailwind a try.
This will help you create winning posts, find the right hashtags and keywords and it can also assist you manage current followers along with growing your list.
This is a photo and design program made to get results. While it comes with many of the common tools you get in other design programs, like Photoshop, the main difference is that the fonts, effects and templates have a more business and marketing leaning.
This ensures that you can easily create designs that will attract the eye.
If you want to build an impressive online learning website with various payment gateways, an amazing design and all the features you need to make customers happy, then Everlesson is worth checking out. This is what I personally use for most of my courses and training. See what it can do and start selling your courses.
Teachable is service that helps you build and manage your own online learning website. You can quickly build your own website, add videos and other media and have your lesson ready for sale in no time flat. The two services are very simple to use and will give you all the tools you need to sell your own courses and be viewed as a master in your niche.
Amy’s Products
Need help with publishing, content, online income streams, and more? Here are a few of my own products to help you achieve your goals.
Discover how to find and use data online to create viral and profitable content fast. Easy Content System reveals how to create high-quality content with 99% free data sources…all included!
Do you want to learn how to make ebooks and low-content books 20X faster? Content Profit Hacks so you some simple techniques that will rapidly increase your development time and reduce overall effort. I promise there are few hacks you’ll learn and incorporate into your daily routine.
When most people think about publishing and printing a book, they think about a novel or large educational book. Those are good methods, but what about making a low-content book that will take just five minutes to make? That’s right.
Learn how to make printable books in no time flat and sell them for as much as a 40K+ word novel or book.
Educational products are incredibly popular, and better yet, have relatively little competition since they aren’t as well known as other digital products. And even better yet, you are taught how to make educational products with very little work or writing on your own.
Whether you want to help educate kids or just make low-content products that are quick and profitable, this will show you everything you need to do to make money in this popular niche.
Moving on with low-content books, here’s something else that’s easy to make and extremely profitable as well: planners. You discover how to create popular planners that sell.
What if you could wave a magic wand and make the most attractive worksheets, cheat sheets, journals and so much more? This is the closest to a magic wand you’ll get. InstaContent Generator is a simple software that helps you immediately create the design and sections needed for super popular products and content.
If you want to make more products, give readers content they love and re-purpose blog posts and articles that you’ve already made, then this product will show you how to do all this and within a few minutes.
Determine exactly what people are looking for in any niche, then leverage it with quality one-page content. There is ZERO guesswork involved.
Tap into free apps or cheap online tools that makes the entire process super-simple. You’ll create slick, professional one-page content fast.
One of the hardest parts of making a product or book is thinking about something to say. What can you write about that no one has already said? This takes a massive amount of mental energy, and worst of all, no one might read your product.
This product will show you how to find popular products and make workbooks, planners, journals and other low-content products that ride the wave of sales and popularity. Companion pieces are often very easy and quick to make, plus you tap into a massive market without putting months of work into your product.
This training program and software teaches you about a goldmine that many are sitting on but don’t even know about: public domain content. You can legally take, repurpose and sell public domain content if you know where to find the content and how to manipulate it to make a good product.
Here you’ll learn all about public domain content and how to use it for your own products with very little time and effort.
Have you ever thought of making cards? If not, then you’ll want to check this training program, because you’re missing out on a big business opportunity. Cards are incredibly popular on Amazon and best of all, you can use PLR or re-purposed content to make these cards in no time.
You’ll learn how to make affirmation, educational, spiritual and other cards that hungry buyers will absolutely love.
Not many people use PowerPoint to make books, and even fewer know how to harness the true power of this common software. In this training program you’ll learn how to turn PowerPoint into a book making machine that will pump out books in a fraction of the time it would take with Word. If you want to make popular books in just minutes and all by using PowerPoint, then you’ll want to check out this program.
Recommended Memberships
Here are some membership sites that I recommend. Memberships are great for getting ongoing content and tools to really scale up your business.
Knowing how and when to market your products and services can make the difference between failing and succeeding. It’s from Cindy Bidar, who I work with personally, and highly recommend.
This membership gives you templates, checklists, video training and so much more to teach you all about marketing. The system is literally given to you so that you can easily implement and customize it for your own products and services. For those new to marketing or who need some extra training and help with it, this is an amazing service.
The Book-A-Day System shows you how to make low-content Kindle books (journals, workbooks, planners, etc.) in literally an hour. In one hour, you can have a new book to put on Amazon that people will flock to.
Not only do you get all the training that you need to make these books, but you get new templates and designs every month, ensuring that you have professionally designed pages that will give your book the extra edge it needs to succeed. If you want to make products faster than ever and to get some great assets you can use over and over, you should consider signing up here.
Going in a slightly different direction, this membership system is here to help with fiction publishing. It goes without saying that fiction is a huge market, but these books take time, effort and creativity to make.
Fiction Plots Monthly takes a lot of guesswork out of it by giving you pre-made plots that you can easily use for inspiration to make incredibly popular books. There is still a lot of wiggle room to make this book your own, but the plot is handed to you so that you easily know where to go, how to connect the dots and how to make a book you can be proud of. If you want to make fiction and just need some help, this system can give you the assistance you need.
This membership service gives you tons of products, personal coaching and all the help you would ever need to succeed in making your own products and building your business. Run by Daniel Hall, one of the best in the business, you will consistently receive products worth $90 or more along with help from Daniel himself and the community at large.
If you want coaching and amazing products every month, then this is a membership service worth checking out. These products are premium and will show you some high-level information to help take your publishing to the next level.
This unique system is a combination of templates, drag-and-drop designing and planner inspiration that allows you to make and sell customized planners. The system here gives you access to a drop shop, print on demand solution that you can easily sell to customers.
We’ve already said that planners are huge. This gives you access to a unique way of making and selling those planners and carving out your own segment in this massive market. It’s great for making extra money and gives you a business that people will love.
PLR Providers
PLR, or Private Label Rights, are articles, ebooks, reports, graphics, and so on that you can customize, sell or use for your own blog or marketing. You can re-purpose them into your own products, use them for templates and research or give them away to build your list.
Here I’ll go through some of my favorite PLR providers. I’ll also include if they have any training because this information is always helpful. PLR is essential for content creators and marketers. You can use the content as a giveaway or make your own products from it, so this investment quickly pays for itself.
This unique provider has been around since 2008 and primary sells articles, sales pages and other content within the self-help, anxiety and financial niches, which are some of the most popular categories around. Every product here is sold for credits, which is the website’s proprietary currency.
You can buy credits without making an account, but those with an account get a huge discount on credits. You can find free training here with over 12,000 brandable coaching resources to choose from. Check here to see everything they offer.
Perhaps one of the most famous PLR writers, this is headed by Tiffany Lambert. She got her start as a ghostwriter and soon figured out that she could make more money as a PLR provider, and thus she started PLR Mini Mart in 2006. She does shorter packs in general with five or seven articles, but you can also find larger packs and ebook as well.
She is a high-volume publisher and makes new packs constantly. Her writing is focused on popular categories, ensuring that you’ll find something for you.
This PLR provider takes things in a slightly different direction. While they never really say they are PLR providers on their website (unlike many other providers), their “done-for-you” content packs are huge and are just what you need for getting more readers and clients. The packs often come with articles, social media posts and other add-ons to help you cover all your bases. Started in 2013, this business has been running strong for several years and shows no signs of slowing down.
If you need to build your business or want content that can make traction, then Coach Glue is ideal. They also have their “10K per month recurring income” coaching that will help anyone who wants to supercharge their marketing efforts.
If you’re looking to make printables, planners, journals or other similar products, then you’ll love Publish for Prosperity. You’ll also find content on productivity, self-improvement and similar niches and the formats here all look professional and are great for making your own products.
There are plenty of free samples to use and training for list building and publishing. To check out some of their great printables, click here.
You might remember me mentioning Createful Journals before. Here you’ll see their free planner samples along with getting training on how to make, publish and sell your own planners with their templates. This is great for making your own planners if you need some help with templates and designs.
Click here for their free Daily Planner Pack.
From the same people who brought you the Book-A-Day membership program, PLR Planners is exactly what it sounds like: a website where you can find pre-made planners, coloring book pages, book covers, journals and so much more than you can customize and sell as a printable for your customers.
One of the hardest parts of making a planner is having a good cover and template, but with PLR Planners you won’t have to worry about that. All the hard work is already done for you. There’s also a ton of free training on graphic design and other interesting subjects.
Here’s another resource for you if you’re looking for some great journal, planner and coloring book assets. You’ll find journals in popular categories like holidays, tarot and yoga, along with upgrade kits to give you even more templates. Both children and adult coloring book templates are available, and they look truly professional and splendid.
Made by Maureen Oliver, she has been in the graphic design business since 1995 and it shows with how good her templates look. If you want to see why this website has stuck around for so long, then check out the page here.
This service provider often releases about two or more products a month and focuses on personal growth, online marketing, business and self-help. They sell packs that include several large articles, images, social media posts and some other possible add-ons. They also have templates and images for coloring books and doodling. The packs are large, thorough and give you a ton of content to use as you please.
They have a monthly access pass that gives you both monthly products for the price of just one of them, and there’s even some Photoshop and graphic design training.
This PLR provider has a number of products in terms of articles, planners, printables, designs and much more. Not only that, but they have deals that pop up every now and then so that you can save money or find some hot product that will only be sold for a limited amount of time. It’s an interesting website with some truly beautiful assets you can easily for profitable planners and journals.
Their designs look amazing and the content will definitely make your readers happy.
Freebies
Here are some great freebies that you are sure to love. They cover some very important information for new or seasoned publishers, and best of all, they’re free. Check them out and you won’t be disappointed.
Low Content Publishing Explorer
Looking for low-content resources? I’ve compiled all of my favorites in one place, and even categorized them so you can find exactly what you’re looking for. Be sure to bookmark and check back often, because we are always adding new resources!
Join my monthly free training, and get exclusive subscriber training for me each and every month. I cover publishing, content creation, content marketing and much more. If you can’t make the live trainings, you will have the monthly replay available to you here.
Publishing on KDP is easy, but doing it right can be difficult and tedious. My exclusive training reveals how to easily do print publishing on Amazon’s KDP platform. Give it a read to learn more about this massive publishing platform.
Tips for Creating Content Using Word
Everyone knows Word, right? Here you’ll learn tips and tricks that you never thought of using. From creating your own templates to advanced shortcut keys that will help you rapidly develop content, this will speed up your productivity and give you a deeper appreciation of just how powerful Word is.
Tips for Creating Content with PowerPoint
PowerPoint isn’t used as much as Word, but you probably know some things about it. Much like with the Word freebie, this PDF shows you a few advanced tips for creating content faster than ever and doing amazing things with PowerPoint like animating objects, using the slide master for template creation and even recording your presentation.
About Amy:
I’m excited to share my passion for publishing with you! I love helping authors and online marketers find and leverage their audience with the most effective content and publishing strategies available.
In a crowded marketplace, I am committed to helping you grow your audience and deliver your message in the most effective way possible. I specialize in guiding authors, publishers, product creators and ecommerce sellers through the mazes of online opportunities so they can become successful in building their business. I am a former English teacher, and love teaching and helping others become successful.
I currently live in North Idaho with my husband and pet family, a beautiful part of the world where there are four seasons. I hold a B.A. in film production from San Francisco State University.
Please keep in touch, I would love to hear from you!
You can find me on Facebook, and if you’d like to talk content creation and publishing, be sure to join my private group here.