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Rachel Larkin

Keeping Life and Faith Simple

Writer’s Resources

Note: This page is still under construction so please come back regularly to view the updated information. Thanks!

DISCLOSURE: Some of the links are affiliate links which means I make a small amount of money if you click through. I use all these services myself and only recommend those I trust, so I hope they are useful and you can always google them if you don’t want to use my link. Thanks!

Welcome Writer!

I have been asked a number of times to go through my process of how I became a writer and the tools and training that has been helpful. So I thought I would put together this helpful handy list to point people who ask for more information. Enjoy!

Useful Training Courses

Here are my 10 action steps for anyone wanting to become a writer – in order!

1. Pray and Receive Vision

Ask for God’s creative ideas and vision for your writing.

2. Take up Journaling

This is how I started. I wrote down revelations that I have had about my life. Lessons that God has brought me through. Scriptures that spoke to me.  Illustrations from life that revealed a life lesson.  Journaling sharpens your thinking and writing. It provides me with content to write about. It reveals themes that could be the direction my writing should go.

Resources:

3. Create your Author Website

I strongly suggest that every serious writer creates their own author website before they do anything else. For authors, their website should be their personal name or the name that they will be writing under. This website will showcase your articles and books that you will write and publish. It’s a place where people can discover who are you and what you write. Later, it could be a place where people purchase your courses, books and other creative content.

Resources:

  • Bluehost: this is the company that I use to register my domain name and host my website. You could use free options like https://wordpress.com/  but if you are serious about becoming an author you really need to put money down and create your own website. There is more flexibility and you will be able to sell your own content.
  • Joanna Penn’s website has a very good series on setting up your website along with tutorial videos! FREE
  • Jeff Goin also has a great post with videos on setting up a website. FREE
  • Restored 316 Theme – I use the Splendor Theme from Restored 316 for my website. It is perfect for authors as it has a great facility to display your books! The help area is awesome and very easy to install.

4. Write and publish a lead magnet ebook and capture emails

Writing is all about having readers to read what you write! As a writer your number one goal should be to connect with your readers and deliver them content that they need and want. In order to connect with our readers we need to capture their email addresses and to do this we can invite them to subscribe to our newsletter list and receive a free ebook (lead magnet).

In order to do this you will need to:

  • write the ebook – it doesn’t have to be long. Mine is only 1,300 words but it gives the reader a flavour of my writing. Click here to check out my free lead magnet. 
  • set up an account with an email provider.
    • Flodesk – this is what I use to deliver emails to my treasured readers – click here to get 50% off   What I LOVE about Flodesk: ONE monthly price for UNLIMITED subscribers. Yes that’s right, not huge jump in price once your reach the magical 1,000 readers. I also LOVE the custom fonts and templates.
    • Mailchimp -FREE Basic https://mailchimp.com/
    • MailerLite – FREE 1 to 1,000 subscribers https://www.mailerlite.com
  • Funnel – use this to deliver your free lead magnet to your subscribers so you don’t take up all your website bandwidth. FREE option available.

5. Set up an Automated Autoresponders

Once your reader becomes a subscriber it is advisable to set up automated emails to welcome them, to deliver their free ebook, to send them interesting evergreen articles that you have written in the past and basically get to know you as the author.

6. Write articles and post to your site and send to your email list regularly

I recommend writing and sending a weekly email to your readers sharing content that will be helpful to them in your genre. I then post the same content as a article on my website and then again as a post on social media. I recommend writing at least 10 evergreen articles (content that doesn’t go out of date and related to your theme) and posting them onto your website.

  • Canva – I use this to create website post and Facebook graphics to match my articles

7. Choose a Social Media platform and regularly repost your articles

In WordPress you can set up your blog posts to be published onto Facebook. This saves you from having to repost the article onto Facebook. Join Facebook Groups in your genre and contribute to the discussions.

8. Guest Post

Guestposting has resulted in new readers joining my weekly email newsletter.

  • Find where your readers go for content online and research any guest posting opportunities.
  • Develop connections and friendships with other authors in your genre and share articles on website or with email list.
  • In the Christian Non Fiction genre I have been introduced to new readers with: ibelieve.com

9. Write your first book

  • You can use Microsoft Word or Scrivener to write your manuscript.
  • Pay an editor to check structure, flow and grammar
  • Pay a cover designer to design your cover pages. I use fiverr. Here are some of the designers that I have worked with:
  • Pay a formatter for the interior for print and eBook or do it yourself, if you are tech savvy. Or you could use the following tools
    • Draft2digital has a free formatting tool
    • Calibre – is also free (you have to download software onto your desktop)
    • Scrivener – I haven’t been able to learn how to do formatting inside Scrivener but it is on my list to do so. At the moment I use it as a writing tool.

Click here to buy Scrivener for Windows  
Click here to buy Scrivener 3 for macOS

10. Either submit a proposal to an agent OR publish it yourself on Amazon

Happy Writing!

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