If you are a plotter like me, meaning you plot your books rather than just sitting down and writing what comes to you, plotting is made easy with Plottr. 

They have a TON of visual outlines, story structure bibles, character arc templates, series planning, and cloud and device syncing. Even better, you can drag/drop your events and set it up however you want. For me, I built my award-winning book, The Curse of Beauty, off the timeline and the character arcs I created in Plottr. In the picture below, each dot expands to encompass the plot elements and you can drag and drop it, fully customizable. It's an amazing tool! And because I love Plottr so much, I signed up to be an affiliate. The link is a referral link, so if you sign-up through my link, I get a small commission at no cost to you. 

I draft everything in Scrivener. 

And why yes, you can export/import your Plottr plotting right into Scrivener. Scrivener has a bit of a learning curve, but I can track the progress, POVs, timeline, research links, character charts, etc. I can do pretty much everything in Scrivener. See an example of what it looks like with my Warrior King manuscript. Scrivener also connects with ProWritingAid, which I also recommend getting their lifetime option.

Formatting made easy with Vellum. It is software made for Mac. Though the price point is tad hefty; it does everything. They seem to release quarterly updates and an annual upgrade. And if you are curious, why yes, you can import your finalized, edited MS Word manuscript straight into Vellum. And if you ever need to export your book, Vellum exports to MS Word. Vellum creates all the files you need for Amazon exclusivity, wide distribution, and selling direct through BookFunnel delivery service. 

If you don't have a Mac or don't want to rent Mac space, I recommend using Atticus. Atticus is more responsive to author needs and updates more often with added features and its also cheaper than Vellum. You can import your finalized, edited MS Word manuscript straight into Atticus and export back. Atticus creates all the files you need for Amazon exclusivity, wide distribution, and selling direct through BookFunnel delivery service.

I use Canva for creating creative design work, developing book trailers, author stationery, author merchandise, email and marketing images, and ads. For what you can do in Canva, see about 90% of the design work on my website and author social media sites and everything in my landing pages and ads. Most of my book covers were created with Canva.

I use BookBrush for book cover mockups for my online book store and ads. You probably don't 100% need both, but I've found BookBrush valuable for product mockups that Canva just can't accomplish in the same way. i.e. the one-click book mockups and three-click series/boxset generation.  For my standalone book images that I import into Canva, I use BookBrush. I find they are unique book angles, reveals, product placements, and just done really well as in the cover isn't stretched and it allows you to add the spine or the back of a paperback.

You'll need mockups of your book covers for marketing purposes too. I use MockupShots. It is a lifetime license and they have thousands of mockups to choose from. The link is a referral link, so if you sign-up through my link, I get a small commission at no cost to you. 

I use the mockups in ads, holiday campaigns, emails, and all the lifestyle images in my book shop. But it is a very slow site and takes a while to load all the images. The new interface is much better but still slower than Canva and BookBrush.

However, MockupShots has much better (in my opinion) lifestyle images than either Canva or BookBrush and A LOT more to choose from.

Shutterstock, Adobe Stock, DesignPhotos, Pixabay, DepositPhotos Freesvg, and Unsplash are great resources for image licensing for book covers, trailers, and ads if you can't find exactly what you are looking for in Canva and BookBrush. If you use actual people on your covers, make sure where you get your photo has a model release (usually Pixabay, Unsplash, etc. don't have this).

BookFunnel is amazing for growing your newsletter list, distributing reader magnets and advanced reader copies, sharing in group promotions, swapping book recs in newsletters (pictured as Swaps), selling ebooks and audiobooks directly, sharing audio teasers, etc.

I will say, it is by and large (outside of Scrivener) the BEST value for the money for any author wanting to deliver digital books and build an audience.

If you are just starting out, I'd go with StoryOrigin. I used it for a long time, but eventually, I needed the features of BookFunnel. And yep, they both integrate with Mailerlite and all your major website providers.

OneStopForWriters.com is an amazing site that offers all of Angela Ackerman and Becca Puglisi's thesauruses online. They also have many storyboards, character arcs, and miscellaneous templates you can use. I am always looking stuff up and making notes. For me, it is much easier to do with the online version than flip through the books and post-it note it up.

Grammarly Pro and ProwritingAid are my go-to for self-editing. I'd get the lifetime license for Prowriting Aid. Grammarly Pro is a monthly or annual subscription. I find both pieces of software catch errors and rewrites that the other doesn't, so I do recommend both for a good self-edit before sending to an editor which will likely save you some money in the long run. You can also use Hemingway Editor which is free and has a lot of the same features as Prowriting Aid but it doesn't save anything for future reference.

Brain.fm is the brainwave magic to get my creative juices flowing. They use beats and sounds to increase brain activity for your desired activity and its all based on scientific studies! I use it for deep work and creative work, and I definitely feel its helps me get unstuck every time. It's Amazing!

And the link is a referral link so you can get your first 30 days for free.