iPhone Apps All Authors Must Have

iPhone apps can be useful to authors. Check out these six apps that enable you to do anything from tracking your Amazon sales to brainstorming your next book.

Amazon Sales Tracking App is the official iPhone app for NovelRank.com users! NovelRank enables authors and marketers to track and compare the Amazon sales rank statistics for printed books and Kindle Edition ebooks across several Amazon country sites. Some of the features of this app are incredibly useful for an author. With the app, you’ll be able to track Amazon sales rank statistics on both printed books and Kindle ebooks. The app supports multiple books in NovelRank user accounts. You will be able to sort your books list by title, latest sale, or sales rank. The app allows you to view historical data for each book with 7 days of daily sales estimates history and 24 hours of hourly sales rank history, specifically. Plus, you’ll be able to track stats across various Amazon country sites, including America, United Kingdom, Canada, Japan, France, and Germany.

Story Tracker Lite Keeps track of up to five story submissions. The app allows you to store details and guidelines for any market, details for each submission, income made from submissions, and submission history for each story. The full-priced app (at $6.99) allows you to track an indefinite number of submissions.

Dragon Dictation is an easy-to-use voice recognition application powered by Dragon® NaturallySpeaking® that allows you to easily speak and instantly see your text or email messages. In fact, it’s up to five (5) times faster than typing on the keyboard. Dragon Dictation can also take your dictated status updates and link them directly to your social networking apps. When you’re on the go and an idea or line of dialogue strikes you, simply speak to the Dragon Dictation app. You’ll save time and maintain all of your creativity as it comes to you.

FastPencil for iPhone is an easy-to-use book authoring and collaboration application that allows you to read, write and work on books — when you’re on the go! With FastPencil you can quickly create and edit chapters, write notes and see comments from your collaborators. Your book is safely and securely stored in your FastPencil.com account where you can publish and distribute when you’re done.

Writing Prompts is an app with generators that use current events, scene elements, words, sketches, colors, genres and writing types, unleashing endless random bits of fantasy to fuel your muse. Plus, we've included our database of 600 creative writing prompts so you've got them right at your fingertips, online or off! Shake your device or swipe across the screen to change prompts. Add the prompts you like best to your favorites and revisit them at any time. With this app, there are five prompt generators: news, scenes, sketches, texts, and words. You can choose your favorites and store them in the “Fav’s” tab. The app boasts over 250 scene elements, 400 words, 60 sketches, 10 colors, and over 80 genres. Once you hit one of those annoying writer’s blocks, try this app and see if it helps get you past the block and back to writing.

SimpleMind+ is a mind mapping tool that turns your iPad, iPhone or iPod touch into a brainstorming, idea collection and thought structuring device. The free app is easy to use. You can drag, arrange, cut, paste, add, and edit topics on the Mind Map page.  Should you make a complete error, you can always click the Undo button, which makes editing and experimenting simple and stress-free.

Authors will also want to check out a new eBook by Karen Robertson about how more than two dozen authors created a book app. The title: "What is a Book App and Could YOU Create One? How 27 Writers Did!" The eBook features the personal stories of 27 people who have transformed their books into book apps. It’s a must read for all authors.

The Bottom Line: iPhone apps are quick to download, easy to use, and can be very useful in both writing and marketing your work. Download some today!

About Book Publicist Scott Lorenz

Book publicist Scott Lorenz is President of Westwind Communications, a public relations and marketing firm that has a special knack for working with authors to help them get all the publicity they deserve and more. Lorenz works with bestselling authors and self-published authors promoting all types of books, whether it's their first book or their 15th book. He's handled publicity for books by CEOs, CIA Officers, Navy SEALS, Homemakers, Fitness Gurus, Doctors, Lawyers and Adventurers. His clients have been featured by Good Morning America, FOX & Friends, CNN, ABC News, New York Times, Nightline, TIME, PBS, LA Times, USA Today, Washington Post, Woman's World, & Howard Stern to name a few. Learn more about Westwind Communications’ book marketing approach at http://www.book-marketing-expert.com  or contact Lorenz at scottlorenz@westwindcos.com or by phone at 734-667-2090. Follow Lorenz on Twitter @aBookPublicist  Learn more about Westwind iPhone App Publicity at http://www.iPhoneAppPublicity.com