This is a funny page for me to be writing. I never thought I’d sell anything to anyone!

But as I’ve gained experience as a freelance writer and blogger, I’ve encountered some great tools that can really help writers earn more in today’s new-media world.

Since that’s what this blog is all about, I’m proud to recommend the products below. (Click here to see the books I recommend.)

I never recommend a product unless I have personally used it. The books and tools below are all created by thought leaders I really trust. I’ve used them, loved them, and they helped me build my business.

With everything it takes to be a successful writer online today, you need really useful, affordable tools that make you look professional. I’m frequently asked how I manage my busy freelance-writing career — so now you know what’s behind the curtain.

If you click on the product links below, I will get a commission. Want to be up-front about that. If you are considering using these tools and products, I’d appreciate your using my referral links. Won’t cost you a dime extra, and it helps keep this blog cranking out the practical tips that help you earn more.

A-List Blogger Club

My experience: I initially joined A-List Blogger Club…well, basically because it’s really affordable, and I’d learned a lot from co-founder Leo Babauta’s free eBook on how he got 150,000 subscribers on his Zen Habits blog (you can get it free if you join). I thought I’d quickly read all their content and go on my way.

But what I found in A-List, both in quantity and quality of information, totally blew me away. If you want gritty details about real-life changes I made to this blog as a direct result of being in A-List, I’ve blogged in detail about why I joined and what I learned about blog design, and most recently about how A-List helps me with technology.

Besides the club materials, the A-List Bootcamps are great for people who like intensive learning. After they do one, the material goes into the Club afterwards, so I’ve gotten to work through several past bootcamps — and they are packed with information from Leo, his partner Mary Jaksch of Write to Done and Goodlife Zen, and guest teachers including ProBlogger’s Darren Rowse. It’s an all-star lineup delivering really useful tips to make you earn from your blog faster. If you’ve been wondering how the whole blog-monetizing thing works, they will lay it out for you.

Plus the community forum inside A-list is the best group I have been in online, bar none. I’ve met terrific new writers and grown my network of support in ways I never imagined. Fringe benefits include a chance to have your own blog posts retweeted by the A-List team, and guest shots at writing for the leaders’ blogs.

KnownHost

My experience: The story of my website hosting is not a pretty one. That’s because in the beginning, I was on DreamHost. Which was fine as long as my site was tiny and had no followers. Once it started to grow, I had problems, problems, problems. My site kept crashing out, no matter how much memory I paid for on their virtual private server. Posts weren’t going out. In a word, it sucked. Recently, they had an outage so bad even their OWN home page was down. Obviously, this was not helping me run a web-based business.

Which is why I’m glad one of my webmasters recommended KnownHost. It is super-easy to navigate, their support people are great, and they actually get WordPress-based websites that get traffic, unlike some folks I could name. Have I mentioned they’re cheaper, too? Yep.

Mailchimp

My experience: Another confession: When I started my blog, I didn’t know you wanted people to subscribe. Yep. I really started from zero.

Once I learned how important it is to stay in touch with readers through an email list, I quickly discovered you can’t email a big list from inside your regular email program — it gets blocked. It also looks like crap.

You need a pro email provider so that you look pro to your blog readers. The premium provider, Aweber, was way too intimidating for me — and you have to pay from the start. Mailchimp is free for the first 2,000 subscribers, so as far as I’m concerned, every beginning blogger should be on it! You just have nothing to lose by giving it a try.

Now, email marketing is one of the easiest parts of my life as a blogger. Mailchimp gives you super-easy tools for creating and replicating campaigns and autoresponders (they’ll teach you what those are if you don’t know). It’s a snap to create an RSS campaign that sends out your blog posts. There’s tons of helpful support on email and in their forums and other materials. You can make your campaigns look just the way you want and change them in a minute flat.

National Association of Independent Writers & Editors (NAIWE)

My experience: I am stoked to finally be an official NAIWE member. I’ve been getting their newsletter for ages, so I knew they had great teleclasses and other member resources. Don’t really know what I was waiting for — but I saw their ad on Facebook and learned about a reduced-dues offer that sealed the deal. Currently, it’s just $99 to join NAIWE, down from $149.

What makes this the best bargain in writer services? For your dues money, you get a free WordPress blog site with your own name URL. Your site is also part of NAIWE’s busy network of sites, so your writing business gets found by more people.

For any writer who needs to get a writer site together, this is a fantastic, cheap solution. You’d pay this much for hosting or more at any decent place…but here you also get NAIWE’s professional support, resource library, and much more.

Woothemes

My experience: I started out on a free theme…but when it came time to build Freelance Writers Den, I knew I wanted something more pro. I’m really happy with WooThemes — there are a lot of themes to choose from, and they’re plug-and-play. Once you’re using one Wootheme, it’s easy to change it out to another. I like using a theme provider that has a lot of options. Also the WooThemes are clean and simple (I’m currently using Canvas, but I know others looking great on Crisp). I  have yet to find any sort of bug or problem, unlike my free theme, which I discovered couldn’t support a tag cloud, for instance.

iDev Affiliate

My experience: When I first wanted to start letting affiliates sell my products, I was thinking I’d use e-junkie’s program (see below). But while I love e-junkie for shopping-cart flexibility, I found their affiliate program wouldn’t work for me, since I sell products from more than one page of my site.

I first came in contact with iDev because it’s the product A-List Bloggers Club uses. So I was familiar with it from the other side of the fence, as an affiliate, and knew it was a great, flexible platform for paying affiliates that automates all the drudge work for you. It also only costs $99 once — no monthly fees or additional charges. I liked that. If you don’t have the bandwidth on your server to host the program, iDev also offers low-priced hosting.

When it came time to start my membership site and open up my Webinars and other products for affiliate sales, I knew I wanted to use the same system. Now that I’m using it from the other side of the fence, as an admin, I can tell you the support is great — and you know I need lots. There are also dozens of training videos that really walk you through every step of the process.

Freshbooks

My experience: OK, this is embarrassing. But until this year, I had no real bookkeeping system for my freelance writing business. I wrote my assignments down in a Word document, and I threw them into another part of the document when they got paid. I know.

Thankfully, a writer-friend recently introduced me to Freshbooks. They let you get started free, so you have a chance to try it out and see if it’s for you, which I really liked.

If you decide to use it, Freshbooks is low-cost, and pretty much a no-training ramp. It’s intuitive and easy to use. And man, does it make my invoices look a heck of a lot more professional! I was just sending lame Word document attachments before.

Clincher: They have a deal with PayPal now where if you invoice through Freshbooks, you only pay 50 cents in fees to PayPal, regardless of invoice size. This feature has saved me more than my annual fee from Freshbooks, easy.

Even better, Freshbooks isn’t just invoicing for me, it’s going to help me keep track of outstanding invoices and track my income. All in one handy spot. I feel kind of dumb that I didn’t take the plunge and get Freshbooks several years back. Now, at tax time, I won’t be sitting up nights with a calculator trying to figure it all out.

E-Junkie

My experience: When I went looking for a shopping-cart service for selling my eBooks and Webinars, I asked around for recommendations on what to use. The verdict was unanimous: E-Junkie. I tried it, and I love it!

Now that I’m working with other writers to create products, I’ve gotten some exposure to other cart providers, and they don’t seem to be as flexible and easy to use as e-junkie. I’m able to easily create discounts, make them expire, change prices, offer affiliate deals, send free copies out, and more. They also taught me how to code carts to change their look or turn them into a text link — and given my level of technical ability that is saying something!

PayPal

My experience: So here’s what I learned about e-junkie — while I like its discount-code flexibility, it doesn’t work with some blogging programs you might use as your blog grows, such as WishList Member and iDev Affiliate. You need PayPal for these.

You should have a PayPal account anyway as a writer, because more and more clients want to pay on PayPal. Hook it up to your bank account and have it ready to go in case folks want to pay you on here. It’s a great payment method for overseas clients, as then you know the money is in your account and you won’t end up trying to sue somebody in Azerbaijan for an overdue payment.

You also need a PayPal account even if you use e-junkie, and you need PayPal if you’re going to sell your own products. Competitors are lame, to sum up a lot.

Scribe SEO

My experience: When people start talking to me about SEO, I just want to curl up in a ball. I don’t want to learn more about how robots read my blog posts. I just want to write!

Which is why Scribe is so great. It works right inside your blog dashboard in WordPress, Drupal and other platforms. It gives you easy, fill-in-the blank areas for tags and descriptions. A couple features I really love — it helps you choose key words by showing you related key words to see if you’re picking the word that gets the most traffic. Then, it makes suggestions of links you could add to improve your visibility, both from your site and other high-traffic sites. Finally, it suggests high-powered Twitter users you could ding about your post to help it go viral in social media. They also make it easy to learn how to use the tool with this handy Scribe video demo.

Toolbox photo: Flickr — thiagofest