Adventures at the intersection of Writer, Geek, and Frugal

Tech Help for Indie Writers

Decades of software engineering experience put to work for indie writers. Websites, publishing tools, tricks, and more — without breaking the bank.

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Robert J. McCarter — writer and software engineer
About

A Software Engineer Who Writes Fiction

My name is Robert J. McCarter and I am the Frugal Writer Geek:

  • Geek: I wrote my first piece of sotware in 1980 and have never stopped. I have a degree in Computer Science, have taught at both the college and community college level, and had a 40+ year career in software engineering.
  • Writer: I have been writing fiction seriously since 2009, and have published a dozen novels and written over 200 short stories.
  • Frugal: I recently stepped away from my day-job to focus on writing and publishing. I am retooling my systems, applying my deep knowledge of technology with an eye towards keeping costs down
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A frugal philosophy. I'll certinaly put a tip jar out, and I'd need to charge for advanced trainings, but most of what I produce will be free for all. The indie writing community is a generous one and I want to do my part.

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Topics

What I Cover

This is an evolving idea. If enough people are interested and excited, I'll start creating specific guides, tutorials, and resources — based on your input. Pratical. No-nonsene. Always keeping costs down.

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Surviving AI

There's a lot of fear around AI right now and some ways AI can get you into trouble, but plenty of ways AI can help you. For free.

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Own Your Links

What happens when the links in your many books no longer work? I've got a simple way to keep you in control of your links using your own domain.

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Ditch Adobe for the free Affinity

I ditched the expensive Adobe product line for Affinity (it's free), but there are some tricks to doing this right and I can show you how to do it.

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Custom Software

I'm building custom software to improve my workflow — I currently have an application that can create book cover mockups and Kickstarter assets in bulk. If there's a enough interest, I can share it.

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The Data-Driven Author

My revamped website is driven by a database, so if I add a book to my database it gets added to my website at the touch of a button. This is advanced, but an area I will be putting more energy into. Here's a searchable/filterable list of all my books.

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The Frugal Tech Stacks

  • How to start with Shopify for $5/month (which I'll be doing soon)
  • Doing the most with the free tier of Canva and Affinity
  • How to manage AI use on the free tiers
  • The power of Goolge Fonts
  • Wordpress essentials
  • ...and lots more