3 Apps to Help Writers






Gravatar

What: 

Gravatar, a WordPress Platform feature, is a globally recognized Avatar.  Just upload your image and create your profile. When a blog user leaves a comment, his/her Gravatar is exhibited with the comment. (The blog's software scans for the gravatar that matches the e-mail the blogger has entered.)


Benefits:
Your online presence will be facilitated by your  unique Gravatar. Don't waste time typing your name and contact info every time you comment on a blog. Just use your professional Gravatar with your blog comments.

Timenye

What:
An ideal time-tracking App for freelancers who need to monitor the time spent on client projects and bill accordingly.

Benefits: 
You can monitor your daily, weekly and monthly writing tasks in real time using the pie chart. You can also retrieve your daily activities. Timeneye learns your habits and tracks time for you.

Note: Timenye helped me to identify the extra time I spent to satisfy a client's growing expectations for a blog. This made it easy for me to estimate additional fees and to streamline tasks.

EVERNOTE

What:
EVERNOTE is a cloud-based App that lets you store and organize your research notes, urls, images, etc,

Benefits:
This app is a fantastic catch all for all your writing tasks:
- Take screen shots to capture ideas for inspiration, and add tags and notes.
- Find your notes, photos, etc., with the handy indexed, searchable, tagging feature.
- Use your phone to take screen shots of off-line research, receipts, etc., and upload to EVERNOTE.

Note: I have created notebooks for each of my writing projects, related marketing tasks, and monthly income reports. Before EVERNOTE, I wasted a lot of time bookmarking sites and creating files with urls and research notes in google docs. It was hard to keep track of all my research. EVERNOTE has made this process efficient and viable for me. But there is a lot more to EVERNOTE. I am looking forward to learning how to use it to its full potential.

More resources to help writers maximize their output

5 Steps to Preventing Scope Creep (and Still Keeping Your Clients Happy):
Advice for freelancers: What to do when client projects become bigger than what was agreed upon.

How to create an accurate estimate for your projects: Tools and strategies to reduce stress and efficiently manage your workload.

How to manage your time: Apply time management skills for a successful writing career.

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Deb Toor is a nonfiction writer and freelance blogger. She is the author of Survival Secrets of Turkey Vultures, a suspense-adventure story for grades 4 to 6 that is based on peer-reviewed science. She is also a ghostwriter for a health blog.

7 comments:

Linda Wilson said...

Deb, this information is invaluable to me since I haven't begun an online presence yet. It's a big help in my planning. Thank you.

Carolyn Howard-Johnson said...

I love timesavers like this. Now if I can just find the time to explore them! Thank you, Deb!
Best,
Carolyn Howard-Johnson
Multi Award-Winning Author of the HowToDoItFrugally series for writers including the second editions of the Frugal Book Promoter (http://bit.ly/FrugalBookPromo and The Frugal Editor (http://bit.ly/FrugalEditorKind )The latter is e-book only.for the time being.

Karen Cioffi said...

Deb, great tips. I never heard of Timenye - sounds like it would be a big help. Thanks for sharing.

Unknown said...

Your welcome, Lynda. You'll notice that my Gravatar is missing from my comment. That's because it takes a day or so to upload once you register. Good luck with your planning.

Unknown said...

Carolyn, you are so busy accomplishing accolades. I am in awe of you. I recommend strategies, tools, and platforms that serve the 80/20 principle. The learning curve is worth it.

Unknown said...

Karen, I love Timeneye. It's so easy to lose track of the time a project takes. The App lets you budget time and set a billable amount to each task or project.

Shirley Corder said...

Thanks Deb. Funny, I read another post on Evernote yesterday and downloaded it. I've heard about it in the past but have never got around to trying it out. Now to learn . . . .

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