Business Tools

***

File Storage & Remote Access

***

Dropbox is an excellent tool for sharing large files or entire projects with your team. You can share your manuscript with your editor, illustrations with your illustrator, spreadsheets and course materials with your team, and more!

S3 (Simple Storage Service)

Amazon S3 is an extremely affordable storage service for large files such as videos, audios and PDF course materials. Amazon S3 lets you embed these files on your website or inside your membership software and use their servers to stream the content, leaving your webservers clear of possible overloads.

I travel – a lot! And many times I need to access a file located on my office computer when I’m nowhere near home base. GoToMyPC has literally saved my butt on time-sensitive client issues more than once. Grab it for a very inexpensive monthly fee and it will save you frustration and headache, and your clients will thank you!

***

Website Membership Software

***

Digital Access Pass

Digital Access Pass is a powerful membership software plugin for WordPress that syncs with Authorize.net, PayPal, ClickBank, 1Shopping Cart and Aweber. This is the plugin I personally use for my digital programs like Market My Book and Self Publish On Demand that require a login to access course materials. DAP also includes a built-in affiliate tracking system and the ability to “drip” content to your subscribers. It may require the help of a computer programmer to set up and maintain, but it’s powerful all-in-one capability is worth that additional investment, especially if you want to track affiliates for a large digital course.

 

WishList is a WordPress plugin that’s excellent for basic membership sites. Several of my clients use WishList to create a “members area” to their websites that’s protected with a login name and password. This plugin can be used for a simple free membership site or can be linked to PayPal for a paid membership site.

***

Email & Social Media Management

***

If you’re serious about email marketing and using autoresponders, AWeber is the best email delivery service, hands down. I’ve used other email services such as MailChimp or Constant Contact, but if you’re running multiple lists and several series of autoresponders, want to integrate lists together and link your email system to membership software like Digital Access Pass, then you want AWeber.

Social media can suck up all your time. HootSuite is how I schedule out posts for my Facebook pages and profile, Twitter and LinkedIn. For only an hour or two each month, I can “appear” to be everywhere. It’s also easy enough that one of my VAs can schedule tips and articles, freeing me up to build the relationships that sustain my business. Best of all, it’s free!

***

Domain Names & Website Hosting

***

Namecheap is by far the easiest to use and most inexpensive long-term domain name provider. All my domains are listed with Namecheap and I recommend all my clients to use them as well.

HostGator is by far the most reliable and affordable web hosting service. Every one of my clients uses HostGator and all of my sites are hosted for a low monthly fee. Since 2004, my site has only gone down once. That’s some good hosting!

***

WordPress Themes

***

Most of my websites use the powerful, fully customizable Socrates theme. This keeps a uniform “look” throughout my entire brand and gives me some pretty powerful back office tools to customize my sites, handle e-commerce, and more. Besides this website, you can see this theme in use at IamPublished.com and 21WaysBooks.com. I highly recommend this theme!

Optimize Press

I use Optimize Press for all my squeeze and sales pages, including squeeze pages like ArtOfPublishing.com, which features my 60-minute publishing webinar, and sales pages like those for my Market My Book! and Self Publish On Demand programs. The built-in templates included in the Optimize Press theme make it easy to create a high-converting web page fast.

***

Contracts, Legal Documents & Forms

***

 

Every business needs contracts, and this system makes contracts super easy. Not only can you easily send contracts to be signed, but you can embed them on your website like this. Save time and money by having everything in writing with your clients. And the system even comes stocked with basic documents like Nondisclosure Agreements you can begin using right away!

I always get questions from my clients about trademarks vs. copyright vs. patents or LLC vs. C-Corps. Since I’m not an attorney, I always recommend LegalZoom, the most inexpensive option for trademarking book series titles and setting up businesses.

InstantForm Pro

InstantForm Pro is a powerful, inexpensive script that creates super easy forms for gathering information from your potential customers, stopping spammers in their tracks. I use it to get information I need for eBook formatting, for surveys, program sign-ups and more. It can even be linked to your email marketing system or MySQL database! Any type of form you can think of can be created with InstantForm Pro!

***

Conference Calling

***

Get a free conference calling line that can handle up to 99 people for teleseminars and telesummits, or client coaching calls that you can record. This system also lets you download or email an MP3 or Wave file of your recorded session to anyone you choose.

***