Tech That's Supposed to Make Your Life Easier
Essentially, for any function you can think of, there's an app for it, sometimes free, sometimes a free trial, more likely subscription-based. Do folks really carry a bunch of subscriptions? You're spending your retirement money, people!
There've been times when I've had to go back and downgrade one of my previous app recommendations; case in point, Publuu. While I knew I had a free trial, the copy led me to believe I'd get my one free flipbook, then be required to subscribe if I wanted additionals, which is entirely fair. What I didn't know was that when my free trial expired, Publuu would simply nullify my embed code, leaving me with a big "404 Page Not Found" notice on my website where the flipbook once resided (which I only found out by accident). The proper business practice would have been to email me to let me know my free trial was about to expire, and did I want to subscribe? And to inform me of the consequences if I chose not to. Bad or no customer service rates a company an automatic F from me.
I've had the best luck with open-source apps, such as calibre, which every indie author should download if they intend to send out ARCs. Calibre will convert a docx to either an epub or a PDF, and an author can even add their book cover for a professional presentation. LibreOffice is also open-source, and it's a free alternative to Microsoft Word, which many writers don't have a subscription for. I find it more intuitive than Google Docs. When my Word app couldn't seem to handle my 114,000-word manuscript without randomly deleting complete blocks of text or tucking them into some forbidden cavern (I could see the tops of the letters, but only the tops), I downloaded LibreOffice and had no problems at all.
Today I had an idea to post a poll on one of my sites. Blogger used to have a gadget for that, but no more. I knew I could paste an embed code into Blogger's text gadget, then place it wherever I wanted it on my site, so I looked for a free embeddable poll. Lots of sites have the capability, whether they're free-to-try or a very limited introductory offer. Well, they all suck. One of them, Typeform, wanted me to grant permissions to it to connect to either Google Docs or Excel or another choice, where it would download my poll results. I'm thinking, no. I use Jotform for my contact widget, but this time its embed code simply didn't work. I finally gave up. It was an impulse to begin with and unimportant.
Right now there are very few apps I feel comfortable recommending:
calibre for epub and PDF creation
LibreOffice for word processing
Whisk AI for character art, some animations (very limited animations with the free version)
Kindle Create for KDP ebook formatting
Canva for book covers (if you want to go there), banners, logos, social media posts, book cover mockups, and pretty much anything else you can think of
Online-Convert for favicons for your website (a bit obscure, I know)
All of these are either free or have free plans. Right now Whisk AI is still in beta mode, so image creation is free. This won't last forever.
Feel free to add your own in the comments.
My problem is, I need to stop coming up with ideas that'll drive me app-crazy.
There is a Kindle Previewer that is also free. You can upload your unpublished book to it and see how it will look on a Kindle.
ReplyDeleteThat is a good one. I actually have the Kindle Previewer, but I keep forgetting to use it.
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