Copywriting is hard. (That’s why everyone says they want to write yet very few actually do.) Creative fear and distraction most often get in the way, which is why it takes inspiration, energy, and discipline to get something good on the page. Luckily, you’re not Thoreau, sequestered in the woods. There are blogs, books, plugins, apps, and a ton of other resources available to help you up your writing game—and we have them all here for you.
101 Helpful Copywriting Exercises
From style guides to grammar hacks, here are 101 tools to help you be a better writer.
Blogs/Books/Publications
1) Columbia Journalism Review: Language Corner: A site to find articles about the rules of language and writing.
2) Content Marketing Institute: A great resource that provides articles on content marketing, as well as a large selection of e-books and research on various topics.
3) Copy Hackers: A blog to learn all you need to know about writing that converts.
4) Copyblogger: A blog with great tools, including e-books, articles about content marketing, and podcasts about writing.
5) Copywriting.com: Insightful articles and writing tips for more compelling content.
6) Daily Writing Tips: Daily tips to help you stay focused on writing.
7) Everybody Writes: The go-to guide if you’re looking to create ridiculously good content.
8) NaNoWriMo: Even if you’re not planning to participate in National Novel Writing Month, this forum has plenty of inspiration to help you get started on whatever you’re working on.
9) On Writing Well: A book that is the perfect guide when you need advice writing non-fiction work.
10) Psycho Tactics: A site to learn about the aspects of psychological marketing tactics.
11) Seth Godin: A great blog where Godin shares his hard-won marketing knowledge.
12) The Writer’s Alley: Great forums to meet other like-minded writers to swap stories and tips.
13) The Write Practice: A great resource to help you master the art of writing and organize your time better.
14) Write to Done: A large collection of articles to help you become a better writer.
15) Writer Unboxed: A blog about the craft and business of writing fiction.
16) Writer’s Digest: The latest news, tips, and tricks to help you write, no matter what your style is.
Data/Research
17) CDC.gov: Information and sources related to public health concerns.
18) Data.gov: A great collection of U.S. government data about a variety of subjects.
19) Google Scholar: A tool to search through a large selection of academic research and papers from across the web.
20) Library of Congress: A massive archive of books, recordings, photographs, maps, and manuscripts that are perfect for use as primary sources.
21) Pew Research: A great selection of public opinion polls, demographic research, media studies, and more.
22) RefDesk: Helps you make sure your facts are straight.
23) Statistics Every Writer Should Know: This is a great resource to help you understand data if you’re planning on reporting hard numbers.
24) U.S. Census Bureau: A great resource when you need information about the population, demographics, and more.
Freelancing/Legal
25) Funds for Writers: A great site to find out what grants and funds are available to you.
26) Legal Guide for Bloggers: A guide to most of the legal questions you might have about blogging, plus other resources.
27) Side Hustle Nation: A podcast about freelancing and being your own boss.
Grammar
28) Common Errors in English Usage: A comprehensive list of all the common errors people make when writing.
29) Copyediting: Tackle common editing problems and get individual or group training to become a better writer.
30) Daily Grammar: An extensive archive of workbooks for you to work through at your own pace.
31) English Grammar Guide: Great explanations and examples of grammatical rules.
32) Grammar Girl: Useful grammar tips, explained in plain English.
33) Grammarist: A comprehensive guide that will answer all your questions about grammar and colloquialisms.
34) Grammarly: A tool to correct grammar and spelling mistakes. (It detects over 250 common mistakes.)
35) Guide to Grammar and Style: A comprehensive guide to various grammatical rules and suggestions for usage.
36) Hemingway: A tool that gives you tips and edits your writing for grammatical and punctuation errors.
37) Lousy Writer: A resource that will help you become a better writer and how to use words effectively.
38) Merriam-Webster: An online dictionary that also provides words of the day, games, and more.
39) Online Writing Lab: Over 130 handouts to help you understand the rules of writing.
40) Paradigm Online Writing Assistant: Information about everything that has to do with the writing process: writing, arranging, editing, and more.
41) Punctuation Made Simple: A perfect resource for explanations and examples on how to correctly use punctuations.
42) The Tongue Untied: A guide to help you better understand grammar and punctuation.
43) The Writer’s Handbook: A large library of instructional material for you to better understand grammar and improve your writing technique.
Ideas and Inspiration
44) 750 Words: A tool that will help you develop your daily writing habits while you learn a little more about yourself.
45) BrainPickings: A great selection of reflections on creativity and humanity from a variety of sources.
46) Daily Page: A site that delivers a daily prompt to help you develop a writing routine.
47) Flipboard: A personal magazine for you to collect and share ideas.
48) The Gap: An amazing video to watch if you’re feeling creatively discouraged.
49) Google Trends: A site to help you easily see what is trending on the web when you need some fresh ideas.
50) Hubspot’s Blog Topic Generator: An idea generator that lets you input three keywords on a topic to generate several ideas.
51) Imagination Prompt Generator: A site that gives writer’s prompts if you’re looking for writing ideas.
52) Scoop.It!: A site to help you find great content that you can put a spin on to publish at a later date.
53) The Story Starter: An idea generator that can be used to start novels, plays, scripts, and more.
Organization
54) Edit Flow: An editorial calendar that gives you the option to create multi-user projects and will synchronize with your iCal and Google Calendar so you can keep track of everything you and your team are working on.
55) Evernote: A tool to keep track of ideas and inspiration while nurturing and developing them all in one place.
56) Feedly: Content aggregator to keep Internet inspiration in one place and save precious writing time.
57) GatherContent: Lets you finish an entire project on one platform without the clutter and have access to it anywhere you’ve got an internet connection.
58) Men With Pens: A full-service website that provides everything to satisfy your online marketing needs from website design to copywriting and content.
59) Pocket: An app that lets you save articles or videos for later reference.
60) Scrivner: An app that lets you organize your thoughts and writing on the go.
61) Storybook: Organize everything you need in one place with this helpful tool.
Procrastination/Writer’s Block
62) AdviceToWriters: A blog to help get your brain moving again if you’re facing writer’s block.
63) Coffitivity: A site that plays ambient sounds of a coffee shop to help you focus and work better.
64) E.ggTimer: A tool to stay on track with deadlines.
65) The Pomodoro Technique: A technique that will alleviate anxiety while helping you be more productive
66) The ProcrastiWriter: A great site featuring numerous articles and podcasts.
67) SelfControl: A plugin that limits your internet browsing to ensure you don’t get distracted for too long.
68) Time To Write: Great tips on writing and inspiration if you’re having a little writer’s block.
69) TWords: An app that will encourage you to finish whatever writing project you are working on.
70) Unstuck: A free app to get you through any creative block you might have.
71) WordPress Distraction Free Writing: A WordPress mode that lets you focus on writing without worrying about all the distractions.
72) The Write Practice Story Game: A game to help cure you of your writer’s block.
73) WriteRoom: A minimalistic word processor to help you stay focused while you write.
Style Guides
74) APA Style: Notes on style and sourcing from the American Psychological Association.
75) Associated Press Style: A resource/style guide to get an overview of journalistic writing and the most often used elements of journalism.
76) The Chicago Manual of Style: Tips for writing, guidelines for proper style, and a FAQ section to answer any questions you might have.
77) Citation Machine: A site to automatically generate proper MLA or APA citations.
78) English Usage, Style & Composition: A searchable archive that gives you access to books, such as The Elements of Style by William Strunk Jr. and The Columbia Guide to Standard American English.
Writing Games
79) Character Prompts: A helpful site for developing your characters.
80) Electronic Poetry: The online version of the magnet poetry you have on your fridge.
81) Elegy for a Dead World: A fun interactive video game that gives you prompts to fill in to continue the narrative.
82) Evil Editor: Learn from the mistakes of past writers with this site that rounds up all of the worst pitches ever made.
83) Free Rice: A game that tests your knowledge or words while feeding the hungry.
84) Grammar Gorilla: A game to help you brush up on your grammar.
85) Written? Kitten!: A fun writing tool that will reward you with kittens as you write.
Misc. Tools
86) Acronym Finder: A tool to help you figure out what any acronym, abbreviation, and initialism stands for.
87) BrainyQuote: A comprehensive collection of quotes that is easily searchable.
88) Cliche Finder: A tool to help determine if your writing isn’t having an impact on your readers.
89) Copyscape: A website to check writing for any signs of plagiarism.
90) CoSchedule Headline Analyzer: A tool to write SEO-friendly headlines with emotional impact.
91) Idioms and Phrases Dictionary: A dictionary to help you understand common phrases in the English language.
92) oTranscribe: An app that will transcribe recorded interviews for you.
93) Readable: A tool that will quickly determine how readable your writing is.
94) Reverse Dictionary: A genius tool that lets you describe an idea and returns a list of possible words matching your definition.
95) Rhyme Zone: Helps you find words that rhyme.
96) Rhymer: A great site that will help you find rhyming words based on your specifications.
97) Thesaurus.com: A perfect resource to find replacements for your overused words.
98) Unsuck-It: A site to help you find a better word to use.
99) Visuwords: A dictionary that visualizes words to help you better understand their meaning and concept.
100) Words to Use: A tool that groups words together based on subject-relation rather than definition.
101) WordCounter: A tool that counts the number of words in your content and shows you which words you’re overusing.
