I jump around from project to project and I think that’s the same for any indie author in charge of their own destiny, so I wanted to start tracking all the things I work on and to capture the learnings I stumble across along the way.

I read blog posts and spend quite a lot of time online in search of information, inspiration, and motivation and I’m always coming across tips and trick to help me streamline my writing and build my brand, so I’m sharing these in regular updates because the things I discover may be new to you too and help you in your writing and author journey.

Writing Apps and Technology

Using Voice to Text to write

I’m in Los Angeles and you might have a vision of blue skies and sunshine, but It’s winter time here now and I’m actually bundled up against the cold and rain as I walk to the supermarket. One of the best discoveries this week is realizing how easy it is to dictate a blog post directly on my phone. I’ve been using my iPhone for voice to text recognition on my Scrivener writing app for about a year now.

I have Scrivener on my laptop and my documents are stored in Dropbox, and my iPhone app is also linked to my Dropbox, so no matter whether I use my laptop on my iPhone I’ve got one central document that I can update no matter where I am.

The beauty of Scrivener is that it automatically saves a backup when I’m working on my laptop so if something happens with Dropbox and I lose access to that content I’ll always have access to my backup version.

Voice to text isn’t 100% accurate. If you’ve used it to dictate text messages you’ll know that sometimes you end up sending amusing texts because of the autocorrect. But if you’re writing long-form text it’s much better to do voice to text recognition then try and type directly on your phone.

So that’s my number one learning this week.

Create content using voice to text rather than typing on a small phone keyboard.

This is going to save the repetitive strain injury that is currently plaguing my right hand. It’s all about changing habits, and you may struggle to master voice to text to begin with, but it will benefit your writing process in the long run.

Canva 2.0 web version and Canva phone App

I’ve been an avid user of Canva to create social media content for quite a while is revolutionized how easy it is to create images for social media and websites.

You may also have seen that Canva has launched an updated 2.0 version of their online program, and now you can send content to social media networks like Facebook, Pinterest, Tumble and Twitter (+ others), but you can’t upload directly to Instagram.

So this week I was excited to learn that I’d be missing out on using the Canva App on my phone. I played around with it and I’m not sure how easy it’s going to be to create new content directly through the App, but the true value of using the online app is the streamlining of content uploads to Instagram.

Prior to using this Canva App I would email the images download to myself, and then access them on my phone; save them to my photos, and then select them in Instagram. But, now I’m able to create the content on my laptop in Canva, and access them on my phone directly via the App, and download images directly to my photos and then upload them to Instagram.

So going forward I’m going to create my content on the website version of Canva, and access it via the phone App.

As you know, you can’t use the computer to upload images directly and Instagram it has to be done via your mobile device. Earlier this week I opened a Bird of a Feather Press Instagram account to share information about my books because I wanted to keep my personal posts on my book post separate.

I’ve started to create quote cards for my new business Instagram account, and also serializing my poems from my A Turbulent Mind poetry collection. I’ve never really been a huge Facebook fan, so have favored Twitter to share updates and connect with people, but I love the sharing in Instagram (and I’ve linked my Facebook profile to my pages, so I can kill two birds with one stone, and all of my Instagram posts get automatically shared to my Birds of a Feather Facebook page).

When you’re juggling multiple projects, it’s essential to find ways to streamline your content creation and content sharing. I’ve streamlined my working activities this week, and I hope some of my discoveries will help you with your own writing and author journey.

If you’ve discovered a new App this week, or technology is helping you to streamline your writing, selfpubishing, or content marketing … leave a comment below.