One Stop for Writers

 

One Stop for Writers is full of resources for authors of every genre. Inside the site are tools such as timelines, character generators, story, and scene maps, world-building resources, and more. They designed the site as a library with information writers can pick up and use immediately.

Did I mention it has a great thesaurus? A handy tool for any writer, but perhaps you’ve heard of the Emotional Thesaurus series? This site is brought to you by one author of these books. There are sixteen different thesauruses available, including positive and negative traits, character motivation, and conflicts. (Basically, you have access to the eight books in the series plus more!)

You can do more than just grab info and head back to the writer’s cave. Each item in the Stacks section is available for working on a project. You can save the work in your personal workspace. You can organize documents by project to keep your workspace clean and organized. Timelines, character arcs, story arcs, and more can be sorted by series or story, all in one spot.

There are also downloadable, detailed worksheets for characters, emotions, and settings. Work offline and add details back in once you have the information.

Users can export data into TXT and CSV. It also can be exported as a Scrivener file.

One Stop for Writers is a website and is not available as an app. It can be used on a laptop and desktop on both PC and Mac.

Users can start with a two-week free trial. There is a one-month option for $11. Need more time? Six months is $60. And for a one-year subscription, the cost is $105.

Next week, we will look at the tools available on One Stop for Writers.

 

SmarterQueue for Authors

 

Here are my thoughts on how to use the app to help your author platform easier to manage.

First of all, social media, right? Some authors are champions—mastering those apps and making the rest of us look like amateurs. Other writers do a minimal amount of social media and have amazing profits. I don’t know what the balance is. I’m not a marketer. And from my sales, I need to take more classes on the subject. Anyway…

SmarterQueue can make social media tasks more organized. It will probably still take you the same amount of time to create, manage, and refine your materials. With SmarterQueue, the posting and analytics will solidify your time on the task and show results ease.

With the app, you can sit down for an allotted time and plan out a week’s worth of social media. You can create, tweak, and schedule, then move on. The app will not only post for you but keep track of your likes/shares/retweets/etc., freeing you to complete other tasks. Many organizing gurus suggest this method for your social media. Create in one go, and schedule posts, giving you time for other things. With this app, you’ll only need to check in one spot to see how things are working. And you can edit on the fly, if, say, a war starts, and you want to remove a post that might be insensitive.

The scheduler can show authors what kind of material they are posting and how the audience is responding. I can see in an instant if I’m spamming readers with “Buy Me” posts. Diversifying content helps to engage our audience. We can also see if we are neglecting one of our titles or we’re over-sharing cat videos. Seeing all the content in one spot with data to back up your posts quantifies your social media platform’s performance. With this information, we can stop doing things that steal time from writing.

Enough of that soapbox…

SmarterQueue also has great help in two areas. One, they have a Find Content option. If you’re stuck or are unsure of what to post, this is the option for you! You can search hashtags, mentions of your handle from Twitter, reshare your best posts, find others’ blogs and content to share. Using this option will diversify your posts and add great new content.

Two, the app has fantastic help. Not only do they have a starter guide to get your orientated, but they also email every day for the trial period. Each message contains great tips to assist you in maximizing the impact of the app. Speaking of email, they also send a weekly stat update to your analytics, with gentle reminders to post.

Essentially, SmarterQueue will help you save time on social media tasks with bulk prep and automatic posting. It will analyze your posts, likes, etc., and help you increase your presence and impact. With a two-week free trial and tons of emails and blog posts to help, SmarterQueue will make social media easy.

Thank you to Angela James for suggesting this app.

 

 

How to Use SmarterQueue

 

 

SmarterQueue has many features to offer authors. I’ll cover a few, but we may need a second post for this one.

Getting Started

• First, you need to create an account with the app. Yes, it asks for a Twitter handle. It’s fine. I used an email.
• Next, you will need to connect your social media profiles to the app. It might sound a little dangerous, but it’s okay. The company seems reliable, and it’s one of many apps that works well with social media. You can connect Twitter, Bitly, Instagram, a Facebook page, LinkedIn, and Pinterest. Please note, you must connect your SmarterQueue to a Facebook page, not a profile. Also, you need to connect your Instagram to your Facebook page. There are how-videos available to assist you.
• Now that you are connected, let’s organize our content. Click on the top menu and choose Categories. Here we choose the type of content to post and set up our filing system before we begin. Categories are on the left. Click on any one to edit the entry. In the middle of the screen, you have form spaces to change the name, color, profiles, activity level (seasonal/regular). At the bottom of the list are analytics to show how many of each post, with the added information of One-Time, Evergreen, and Published. Use the trashcan on the right to delete the entire category. You can add categories on the left menu. I suggest making categories using the posts you already have on your media. I have Cat, Funny Memes, Fangirl, Promo, Promo Sales, Personal.

Planning Posts

(If you are a planner, read this next. If you aren’t, come back to this paragraph later, after you’ve posted on social media for a week or two)

• The Posting Plan is an easy way to see everything you post all at once. Find it at the top menu. Here you will see a calendar with a suggested schedule for posts with your various categories. Move around entries to fit your time, personal preference, and best engagement times for your content. These are just suggestions. You can add, delete, and move anything on the Planning board.
• Once you have a schedule you can live with, add posts to the planned slots. Click on the three dots in the corner and select Add Post. You will move to the post page. Select a category (if you want to change it) and choose a profile. Will you do Instagram? Twitter? Both? Then write your copy in the box provided. Click on Media to add video or pictures. Choose when to post (now or scheduled), and if you wish to recycle this post, meaning post it again in the future. Hit save and you are set.
• If you’re not a planner, you can go back and add the posts after you’ve completed them, just to get a visual of your social media postings and your schedule.
• The Queue feature will show scheduled posts that are ready to go. If you do not know what to post, SmarterQueue gives some suggestions. You can filter by profile, category, content, and type. Perhaps you are focusing on Instagram this week. You can select just the Instagram queue. Also, with Instagram, there’s a grid feature on the top right.
• The app will log into your Instagram account and you can select photos to feature in a story. It’s great for people who don’t want to pose for the camera but need a good story.

The other categories on the top menu include Analytics—great once you get going. This feature will show how well your content engaged the audience. It generates a three-month report of your content and its impact. You can do it monthly or weekly. Next is Engage. This menu prompts you to find social media queues that are trending or hot or to see how well your hashtags are faring. It’s a great way to see what people are viewing.

Last on the top menu is Find Content. Here you can search/discover other social media accounts to share with others. Let’s say there’s a great Apps for Writers blog you’d like to share. You can connect with that blog and share the media on your socials. You can also share things from your own YouTube account and blogs.

The triple line menu on the left has more detailed choices for the top menu buttons.

In a nutshell, SmarterQueue will help you organize and track your social media all in one spot. No more juggling different logins, apps, and content. Not only can it keep you organized, but also it’s a time saver. Planning social media ahead of time in one sitting gives us more hours for writing!