Get creative and enhance your productivity with these FREE resources

Guest Post from Virtual Assistant, Sarah Garnham 
​
Aren’t we lucky in this day and age to have such wonderful, creative apps at the tips of our fingers? As a Virtual Assistant specialising in supporting authors with their social media management, research and an array of other tasks, I’m so thankful for these resources.

So, where do you start? In a sea of apps and software designed to help you manage your workload and get creative, how do you even begin to decide which ones to use first?  Well, it just so happens that I have picked out my absolute favourites that have helped me to drive forward a successful business and podcast, ensuring that I provide the most professional service, while still juggling school runs, homework and maintaining the family home (just about!)

So without further ado, here they are:

Productivity apps
We all have so much to do and as writers, you all have your targets to meet, whether that means committing to a dedicated daily word count, a busy social media schedule, or perhaps you’re juggling a job alongside your writing journey. As a self-confessed post-it note Queen, I needed a better way of managing my time and organising my days. Enter free project management tools. I wouldn’t be without them and I highly recommend 2 specific tools that have single-handedly improved my clarity of mind and enabled me to sleep at night without the worry of forgetting something.

1. Trello – introduced to me by my wonderful client, Tracy Buchanan, I wouldn’t be without it. This is my go-to project management app. It has clear boards and lists that act as a visual aid to see in front of you on one page what you have coming up, over the course of a day, a week and even a month. Its user-friendly approach allows you to drag and drop tasks into different lists and you can add members to your Trello board. This means that you can communicate with others about your tasks. For example, if you have a VA, you can write a message to them on Trello by adding them as a member. There is a free version along with various paid plans, but I must confess, the free version is still working wonders for me to this day. Visit www.Trello.com to see how this can work for you.
2. Asana – this is a similar project management tool that works on the premise of lists, tasks and the ability to communicate with others via the app. You can allocate a date, time and task owner, as well as organising different tasks to pre-planned projects. It’s a rather pretty app and it even treats you to a flying unicorn to congratulate you on completing a task. It’s strangely exciting when this happens! To find out more, you can visit www.asana.com.

Visual Content
If you’re using social media as a promotional tool (which I highly recommend!) then there are plenty of apps available to you that can be used to create visual content. From beginners to those with an eye for graphic design, each of these apps will cater for your needs.

1. Canva – I’m sure many of you have heard of and have even used Canva as a tool to create eye-catching images to promote books, or even just to make your own pictures even prettier than they were in their original form. It is full of unique templates for all social media platforms. If you want to make things even more personalised, there are many free stock images, great fonts, filters, elements and the ability to animate your artwork as well. I wouldn’t be without it and once you get the hang of it, you’ll find that it is particularly user-friendly. There is a free version, which suited me very well for a long time, but if you do wish access to even more resources, then there are various paid plans. You can visit www.canva.com to sign up.
2. Book Brush - This is one that serves me very well when I’m creating visual content for authors. As the name would suggest, it is a content creator specifically for book promotions. I adore Book Brush because it has a variety of book templates including physical books, e-books and audio books. It has a bank of stock images, as well as quite a large selection of templates for all different genres. You have lots of elements, such as the logos for Amazon, BookBub, Goodreads and many more. Adding all of these features together creates professional looking visual content. There is a free version, but it doesn’t allow for lots of downloads. However, I found it to be a very reasonable investment considering the quality of images that it produces. To find out more, visit www.bookbrush.com
3. Fliptastic – If you like creating slideshows, this is such a cute and extremely user-friendly app. I have it on my iPhone and you can upload images and create lovely slideshows with it. There are various transitions and music available to layer over the top of your finished piece. I’ve created slideshows for different occasions and have always had positive feedback. To find out more, just search for Fliptastic on your app store.

Audio
With the number of podcasts in circulation recently topping 1 million, it is no wonder that authors and creatives are turning to podcasting as a way of communicating with their readers and fellow authors. I, myself have a podcast called Virtually Minded and it’s a really effective medium, as well as being extremely fun! So if you’ve been thinking of doing something like this, but you’re worried it will require quite a financial commitment, fear not. There are loads of free apps and software, which make it a very cheap pursuit!

• Anchor.fm – I’d like to introduce you to my favourite podcasting app. Not only can you record and edit the podcasts via this platform, but Anchor.fm will distribute your podcast to all of the major platforms, including Spotify, Google Podcasts and Apple Podcasts – all for free! For anybody reading this in the US, you can also make a small earning from your podcast by recording a short advert for Anchor on your show. You can upload artwork (enter Canva to create this) and write descriptions of each show. This is better suited to podcasting newbies and the recordings are limited to 30 minutes. You can split the recording if you want longer episodes and splice them together at the end! To sign up, you can visit https://anchor.fm.
• Zoom – If you want to interview guests on your podcast, or have a co-host, then Zoom is a great way to record this. I’m sure most people are now familiar with Zoom since its popularity and usage sky-rocketed during the lockdowns. Once you’ve recorded, edited and downloaded your episode, you can upload the MP3 file to Anchor.fm ready for it to be distributed on the publish date. If you haven’t already downloaded Zoom then you can do so here: https://zoom.us/.
• Audacity – This is a FREE piece of audio-editing software that you can download onto your computer. You can upload a number of different audio files simultaneously and edit different pieces of audio together to create a seamless end product. If you want to add music, you can add a royalty-free music file from somewhere like YouTube audio library and have it play over the top of your voice recording. There are various special effects on Audacity that will allow you to create a polished episode. You can download Audacity here: https://www.audacityteam.org/download/.

​
So, there we have it, my absolute favourite collection of apps and software that are fundamental assets to the running of my business. With regular use, you’ll become better and better at creating content and your confidence will grow! If you’d like to find out more about my Virtual Assistant business and how having an VA may help you with time management, then please visit www.vitruallyminded.co.uk – I’d be happy to have an informal chat to answer any questions you might have. You can also listen to my podcast here: https://anchor.fm/sarah-garnham. If you enjoy listening to inspirational stories about people who’ve risen to success (often after overcoming adversity) then this might be for you.