My official recommendations for pros in the book industry

UPDATED FOR 2024

Looking for professional services to bring your next book project to publication?

Here's a list of the people I've found who do excellent work:

Author Analytics, General Tools, and Data Collection:

• ReaderLinks aka Author Helper Suite

• I’ve been using ReaderLinks for at least 7 or 8 years now (as of 2024) and cannot recommend it enough! Get all your data in one place, track detailed sales breakdowns, and finally know what promotions work and what is a waste of money. Insanely helpful.

Formatting:

• Bodie from BDediting does great formatting.

Editing:

• Bodie from BDediting is a fantastic editor. 

• The editing from Nef House Publishing is expensive but also the highest quality in the industry that I’ve ever found. If you want the top shelf, go there.

Proofreading:

• The editors I mentioned above can proofread just fine, and I have one recommendation for a proofreading grammar specialist. Email A. J. Maruna (ajmaruna@gmail.com) and tell him I sent you. His prices are exceptionally good, and he does excellent work.

Covers:

• Jake from JCaleb Design is the absolute best in fantasy and sci-fi. 

• Brad Lark (blark@blark.com) makes some awesome illustrations. If you’re looking for drawn work (as opposed to photoshop / stock image manipulation), he’s your guy. You can see some of his portfolio here.

• Need a cheap cover? GermanCreative on Fiverr is excellent.

• Olivia Pro Design on Fiverr is also fantastic.

• Go On Write is good for premades.

• Deranged Doctor does some great work, especially with series.

• The Book Cover Designer is a great source of premades for every genre.

Logos, Designs, Book Trailers, and Author Merch (like t-shirts, stickers, things to sell or giveaway at convention booths, etc.):

• Brad Lark (blark@blark.com) is the only person I’ve found so far with reasonable rates for shirts and general graphics work. Shoot him an email. You can see some of his portfolio here. And you can check out his full website here: Flying Pork Apparel.

ARC Services:

• Hidden Gems does the best ARC promotion I’ve seen. They have some other services too, but I can’t personally speak to those.

• Book Sprout does good ARC promotion, for free, but they’re a small platform.

Email List Management / Sending:

• I’ve used a couple different services, and MailerLite is the only one I currently recommend.

Looking for a publisher?

• Check out Nef House Publishing.

My own services are back!

• After a couple years of focusing elsewhere, I’m back and offering some writer services once more.

Want your service to be featured?

• Too bad. I only feature services that I’ve personally used and found to be exemplary. You can’t pay to be on the list. (Alright, well… at a certain number I won’t say no, but you’ll need to at least be paying a few of my mortgage payments before you catch my attention)

What a cheesy picture…