The Best Writer Resources - Books, Sites, Social Medias, Hashtags

We've been gathering information on writer resources and wanted to share with our fellow authors. It's important to improve our writing to produce polished books and develop new marketing strategies by keeping up on the trends.

Below you'll find books on writing or grammar every author should have on their bookshelf, newsletter to join for writing tips and sites providing services to help you promote you books.

Marketing tips, promotional sites and social medias pertinent to getting your brand in front of the public.

Then there's the famous hashtags which are a must to use when you are tweeting new releases, author interviews, purchase links and posts from your blog/web site.

 This post is long because we wanted to provide the best resources we have found. So grab your favorite beverage and settle in to read. Be sure to bookmark this post to use as a reference.

Must have books on an author's bookshelf

On Writing by Stephen King

The Only Grammar Book You'll Ever Need by Susan Thurman (We use this one - alot!)

I'd Rather Be Writing by Marcia Golub

A Writer's Reference by Diana Hacker

The Writer's Handbook by John B. Karls and Ronald Szymanski
Now Write! Edited by Sherry Ellis
Hodges' Harbrace Handbook by Cheryl Genn and Loretta Gray
The Writer's Guide to Crafting Stories for Children by Nancy Lamb
The Art And Craft Of Storytelling by Nancy Lamb
The Elements of Style by William Strunk
If You Want to Write by Brenda Ueland


Smashwords and Amazon Kindle both offers a list of free eBooks - search for books on writing; download them to your eReader.


And of course a Dictionary and Thesaurus. Merriam Webster, Dictionary.com
and Thesaurus.com. Save the hyper-link on your desktop for a quick reference.

Writer Newsletters to join

Daily Writing Tips
Writer's Digest 
Writer's Relief
FundsforWriters
Writers in the Sky 
Right-Writing.com 
Winning Writers
The Writer Magazine


Search your local or state writing groups - most have a newsletter to join. 

Writer Web sites and Blogs

Links for Writers
Resources for Romance Writers (any genre would appreciate these resources)
Write and Publish Fiction
Writers Resources - flash 500
The Bookshelf Muse
The Write Practice
Jane Friedman
The Artist's Road
The Creative Pen
The Writer's [Inner] Journey 
Marketing Tips for Authors
Fiction Addiction 
Coffeehouse for Writers 
Writers Cafe  
A. Victoria Mixon
Write to Done

Happily Ever After - A Writer'sResource. A Reader's Haven

EroticaAuthors Resources

Writing-World.com 

The Writer's Alley

She Writes 

Authors who have blogged a good writing post to read:

Christina Dodd's WritingTips

DeannaJewel: Writing Techniques - Character POV

Teresa Medeiros: Teresa's Top 20 WRITE RIGHT Tips Just For You

Three Wicked Writers, A Few Words on Professionalism
Writing POV as a Team on the Male and Female Perspective

Promoting Services for Authors

An Avid Reader's Haven - Book Reviews, Author Interview, Advertising Packages
A Naughty Reader's Boudoir - Book Reviews, Author Interview, Advertising Packages
Virtual Book Tour Cafe - Bk Walker
Assisting Authors Online - Janis Friesler

Organizations to Join

Mystery Writers of America includes Suspense, Murder and Crime genres
Romance Writers of America RWA provides a Paranormal Romance Writers chapter too
Erotica Readers & Writers Association
Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America
Horror Writers Association
Coffee Time Romance 

Search for a local writing group in your city or state to join. 

Marketing Tips, Create your own Blog and Web site,  Social Medias to Utilize and Sites to Create an Author Profile

Contact fellow authors and ask if they'll feature you with an interview, release party or guest post on their blog to help promo.
Author-Promotion - Marketing Tips
Book Marketing Tips for Authors Who Self-Publish
Get your book reviewed - Top 50 Books blogs - blogrank
Book Review Blogs
Sign your books digitally on Kindlegraph

Free sites to create your presence on the web (for a yearly fee there are more benefits): 
Blogger
Wordpress

Webs

Yola  

Social Medias:
Facebook and create a Facebook Fan page
Twitter
Pinterest
Google+

More sites to create a page on you and your books:
About.Me
Smashwords - sell your indie books, get a free ISBN and create a profile
Manic Readers - free Author page
Amazon Author Central - if your books are on Amazon - you need an author page! 
Authors Den - free Author page
fReado and Bookbuzzr
Goodreads - create an author profile (Goodreads reaches 7,000,000 readers)
The Romance Reviews

Create an online paper at paper.li
Create your books into print - Createspace and Lulu

Then there's the traditional hand-outs - Business cards, Postcards, Bookmarks and Book Flats (Browse An Avid Reader's Haven and A Naughty Reader's Boudoir advertising pages - we'll create these items for you at a cost to meet your budget. Once created you can upload to Vistaprint, iPrint or NextDayFlyer to purchase.) 

The important #hashtags to use on Twitter and Tag Your Blog Post

Writers:
#amediting  #amwriting  #author #authors #editing #novels #novel #novelists #wip #wordcount #writegoal #writequote #writer #writers #writing #wrotetoday #authorinterview #books #book #ebook #ebooks #Novelines #storycraft #shortstories
#vss (very short story) #writetip

Genres:
#romance #historicalromance #contemporaryromance #womensfiction
#horror #suspense #thriller #vampires #YA #fiction #paranormal #fantasy #mystery
#childrenbooks #mystery #crime #science #futuristic #scifi #steampunk #GLBT

Erotic - #bdsm #erotica #bondage #sexy #menage #adult #sexstories #swingers #fantasysex #roleplay #eroticstory #eroticstories #mature #sex #erotic #milf

Publishing:
#publishing #selfpublishing #epublishing #epublishers #selfpub #indiepublishing
#indiepub #pubtip #Epub

Books:
#greatread #paperbacks #whattoread #storytelling #nonfiction #fiction #short #story
#bookmarketing #review #bookreview #bookreviewer #bookreviewservice
#independentbookreview #mustread #reading

Daily Hashtags:
#MF Monday Follow
#TF Tuesday Follow
#WF Wednesday Follow
#TF Thursday Follow
#FF Friday Follow
#SF Saturday Follow
#SF Sunday Follow

#fictionfriday
#fridayflash
#sixsentencesunday

eReaders and web sites:
#kindle #sony #nook #kobo #ipad #ereaders #goodreads #bookbuzzr #fReadO #smashwords  #manicreaders #blog #post

Countries & Cities (use these to reach a broader audience):
#australia #uk #germany #france #usa #London #Sydney #melbourne #Brisbane #Canada #Denmark #ireland #italy #greece #spain #berlin #tokyo

 MISC:
#WW Word Wizards
#follow
#nanowrimo  national novel writing month
#Blogtaxi (reaches a lot of tweeters!)
#poem
#poet
#poets
#poetry
#webfic  web fiction
#weblit   web literature
#freelancewriter

Some hashtags are specifically “chats” – which means they work in the same way as all tags, but are mainly used at certain agreed times : 
#epubchat
#journchat
#kidlitchat
#kindlechat
#litchat
#scifichat
#scribechat
#romancechat
#writechat
#yalitchat

There are so many tags available to use when posting a tweet or tagging your blog post (be sure to put your name (no # though) in the Labels box in blogger too!) .

hashtags.org is a site to search tags. The search box is right under the navigation bar; type in a word or make up a tag to see if it's being used as a tag. 


http://hashtags.org/




Our own advise to aspiring authors:

Always keep a pen and note pad on you.

And Read, Read, Read

If you don’t have time to read, you don’t have the time (or the tools) to write. Simple as that. ~Stephen King