These free online tools for authors are creative problem solvers that can rev up your author marketing and publicity, help you raise funds, measure results, find cool images and more!

Where we’ve done a past article explaining more about the tool, we’ve given you a link to that as well. All the sites listed are FREE to authors. Have a tool you’d like to share? lease include it with your comment below!

Calculate Your Royalties

• Royalty Calculator: This nifty calculator is on the apethebook.com site, home of APE: Author, Publisher, Entrepreneur from one of our favorite authors, Guy Kawasaki. Read more HERE.

Crowdfunding/Platform Building

• Pubslush: Author/book funding; read more HERE.
• WWW also has a Pubslush Partner Page – List your book here and we’ll promote it to our tribe, too!

Free Facebook Apps for Authors

• Networked Blogs: Connect your blog to your Facebook page. Read more HERE.
• Author Marketing App: Installs as a tab on your Author Page and allows you to add details about your books and upcoming events.
• Authorgraph: Makes e-books more personal by enabling authors to sign them for readers. Read more HERE.

Free Images

• Getty Images Embedded Viewer Tool: Access to 35 Million free images via Getty. Read more HERE.
• Flickr.com Creative Commons: Do check for rights usage. Read more HERE.
• FreeDigitalPhotos: Free and easy to find; must provide link back to them.
• Wikimedia Commons: Many have uploaded their photos  and released their work into the public domain without conditions. Read more HERE.

Get Press

• Help A Reporter: Get their daily email alerts to know who’s looking for articles on what. Read more HERE.
• Pitchrate: You can search the site for topics being sourced, or keep up via their newsletter alerts. Read more HERE.

Monitoring and Measuring

• Google Analytics: Everything you’d ever want to know about who’s visiting your website, where they come from, how many and how often!
• Marketing Grader: From Hubspot, grade your website and how well it’s reaching out; read more HERE.
• Tynt: Content intelligence about your website, PLUS attaches your website and URL to anything folks copy from your site; read more HERE.
• Twitter Grader: From Hubspot, grade your Twitter influence; read more HERE.
• Hootsuite: We love Hootsuite because it allows us to connect with Twitter, Facebook, Linked In, Google+ and all our groups on one crazy busy dashboard! Read more HERE.

Reaching More Readers

• QR Code Generator: Several sites listed for bar codes you can use in your printed materials (i.e. bookmarks, biz cards); read more HERE.
• FB Share the Love: An author “exchange” program where you go like other authors’ FB pages and they like yours. Having more fans helps you earn more fans and attention.
• Blogger Linkup: Free and useful useful whether you are looking to give or get guest blogs. Read more HERE.