C. M. Skiera's Blog

This week I'll present some free online utilities that can help you analyze, count, data crunch, and convert your text.  Although the tools I'll discuss don't address grammar, spelling, etc., these handy utilities are still useful to a self-publisher. Character and Word Counter  with Frequency Statistics Calculator This webpage offers a clever tool for calculating the number individual words in your writing (not just total words--a total for each word). It allowed me to paste my entire first draft of Mirrors & Mist into it (73,000 words), and found I used the word "was" 589 times! Ouch! It also has sort functions and some other data-crunching tools that let you analyze your writing based on the words you've written. EPUB Validator If you're self-publishing through a service like Smashwords, et al, you may not need EPUB Validator; however, it's a good quality control tool to have at your disposal, especially if you create your own EPUB

Last week I posted about FastPencil , a self-publishing platform. Thanks to  +Shah Wharton , I learned about Draft 2 Digital , yet another platform for self-publishing authors. Whereas FastPencil appeared somewhat overwhelming with all its options, Draft 2 Digital is nearly the opposite. A clean, uncluttered interface with just five tabs, the  Draft 2 Digital website is simple and easy to navigate. Draft 2 Digital doesn't have its own ebook storefront (like Smashwords) and it currently doesn't distribute to quite as many retailers, however, it current sales channels include: Amazon iBookstore Barnes & Noble Kobo and CreateSpace Speaking of CreateSpace , which is a rather unique option for an ebook publishing platform,  Draft 2 Digital  states:  "We can create paperbacks for any books generated through our conversion service (that is, everything except pre-formatted epub uploads). Simply choose CreateSpace as one of your sales channels at the publishing st