The Nexus is a resource page creative people! From new generators to publishing tools, art sources to useful services, The Nexus is here to take your creativity to the next level!

• Free
• Pixabay - A source for art that is free as well as royalty-free. There's a lot here, and much of it is professional.
• Unsplash - A source for photos that are free as well as royalty-free. The quality is very high.
• Royalty Free
• Canstockphoto - A great source for royalty-free art, photos, and more. Has a subscription system and a pay-more-get-more credit system.
• Shutterstock - The classic source for royalty-free art, photos, and more. Has both monthly and specific purchases available.
• The Noun Project - A fee or membership-based site for downloading a huge selection of royalty free icons! Once you pay for it or download it, it's royalty-free! Useful for all sorts of projects

• Premade
• Go On Write - Premade covers for books - pick one that looks right and the artist will change the title and author appropriately. A great bargain, and even has series of covers at discount! Will do custom work to.
• Services
• Paper and Sage - A reliable source of both premade and custom book covers.
• Tools
• 3D Book Cover Design - Makes 3D Mockups of book covers.
• Canva - Book cover creator, though you will want to provide your own art if you don't want to pay for rights to their stock photo. Also has other services.

• Review Sources
• Midwest book review - Will review books for free, but it's a matter of choice.
• Self Publishing Review - A classic paid review service (where a pool of reviewers is available) for books. Not always a guarantee of the best reviews of course, so you take your risks . .
• The Indie Review - A large, constantly-updated list of indie book reviewers.

• Collections
• Color Tools - Plenty of useful online color tools.
• HTML Color Codes - Useful color tools, with a focus on web-focused colors.
• Material Palette - Useful tools for desginging palettes, finding icons, and locating specific colors
• Color Schemes
• Color At Adobe - A color theme creator that lets you create schemes, or even get one from a picture, and has a powerful interface.
• Color Calculator - A color scheme creator that also has useful advice and guides.
• Colormind - A color theme creator that creates schemes with simple clicking, or get one from a photo.
• Colors at Halfpixel - A simple palette creator (with a mobile option) with intuitive controls.
• Coolors - A useful and powerful color palette creator that's easy to use and powerful.
• Huesnap - A palette repository and creation tool

• Mailing Lists
• Mailchimp - Mailchimp may have some restrictions, but it's the go-to for easy mailing list management, which is perfect for authors and artists. It also integrates well with other tools.
• Professional
• LinkedIn - The classic business networking site, and pretty unavoidable for most professionals.

• General
• Game Maker Studio - A powerful game creation tool, with free and paid options
• Unity - A popular, well-supported game creation tool, not only popular, but one with many tutorials available.
• Interactive Fiction - Graphics
• Ren'py - A powerful game creation tool with an inclination to visual novels and life-sim, and capable of powerful customization.
• Interactive Fiction - Text
• Choicescript - A choice-based game system, both for fun and used commercially.
• Twine - A web-based Interactive Fiction development tool with multiple options.
• RPGs
• RPG Maker - Game creation tools - the original was RPG focused, but the company has also expanded into Visual Novels.

• Generator Sites
• Chaotic Shiniy - A diverse source of generators in a variety of styles.
• Darkest of Nights - Fantasy-oriented generators.
• Donjon - Generators for a variety of genres and game systems, some of which provide graphics as well!
• Dropping-the-form - Generators for various settings.
• DunGen - A powerful dungeon generation tool!
• Eposic - Generators - among other imaginative efforts.
• Fantasy Name Generators - And there are a LOT of them here. About anything you could want, and a few you didn't know you needed.
• Feath - Generators of various types, conveniently categorized.
• Generator Blog - Links out to many other generators.
• Generatorland - Lots of generators and generator tools.
• Mithril and mages - Generators for a variety of genres.
• Name Pistol - Band name generators.
• RanGen - Random generators, from fantasy to helpful writing tools.
• Serendipity - A generator site with some setting and name generators.
• Seventh Sanctum - A gigantic collection of generators founded in 1999, with a focus on writing and RPGs.
• Springhole.net - A site of generators and other creative tools.
• Squid.org - Home of a complex name generator with many, many options.
• The Force - A powerful name generator with multiple options.

• Graphic Tools
• Art Rage - A painting-oriented digital art program supporting many operating systems, tools, and formats.
• Clip Studio - A comics, painting, and illustration tool with many options and features
• Mediabang - A comic and painting application that's free and multiplatform!
• Paintstorm - A low-cost digital painting program with many advanced features.
• Graphic Tools - Free
• Gimp - Aka The GNU Image Manipulation Program. A free, open source graphic tool that will take care of almost all of your graphic needs (barring a few limits like CYMK conversion and the like).
• Krita - A free graphic tool focused on professional workflows.
• Made With Mischief - A quick, free sketching and brainstorming tool.
• Sketchbook - A free sketching program.
• Graphic Tools - Painting
• BlackInk - A painting program, focusing on stylistic work as opposed to realistic
• Mac
• Pixemlator - A low-cost alternative to Photoshop for Mac, with lots of compatibility options

• Relaxing Backgrounds
• 4 Ever Transit Authority - Ride the bus through randomly generated art deco cities. A great program to run in the background or on your TV or monitor to relax you while you create.
• Anomolies - A relaxing background display/artgame that creates surreal spacescapes, often with strange nebulas and sites that resembe anything from devices to lights to disturbing lifeforms.
• Becalm - A relaxing journey via sailboat through surreal worlds with a relaxing soundtrack and audio. Can be run for a few minutes or in a loop and you can switch between multiple settings.
• Panoramical - Available on Itch.io And Steam. Panoramical is an audio/visual remixer where you can tweak settings in multiple environments, turning them into audio/visual displays. Find your favorite setting, leave it on, and relax.
• Station To Station - A simulated train ride through imaginary environments. Run it in the background or through your television while you create to help relax you

• Services
• Adobe Portfolio - The popular porftolio site - that comes with many Adobe subscriptions.
• Artstation - Multimedia-focused portfolio and blog platform
• Format - A portfolio site with store services as well.

• Random Charts
• Chartopia - A site with a huge and expanding amount of charts for RPGs, easily sortable and classified.

• Audiobooks
• ACX - Amazon's self-publishing audio platform
• Audible - Another amazon audiobook publishing platform
• Findaway - A wide-ranging audiobook distribution service.
• Cards
• Drive Thru Cards - Self-publishing for card games, both physical and downloads.
• eBook
• Itch.io - Itch.io doesn't just do games - it also allows for people to publish books, and is very open-minded.
• Kobo Writing Life - Distribute your eBook via Kobo
• Nook Press - Distribute your eBook via Nook
• eBook-Multiple
• Draft2Digital - A service that distributes to multiple eBook platforms.
• Smashwords - A wide-ranging ebook distribution service.
• Physical And Ebook
• Ingram Spark - Ingram's eBook and physical book publishing platform. Wide reach, but may require some setup fees and has some limitations.
• KDP - Amazon's full-service print and Kindle publishing service. Warning, the eBook distribution is only through Amazon.
• Lulu.com - A print and eBook creation and distribution service.
• RPGs
• Drive Thru RPG - Self-publishing for RPGs, both downloadable and in print. Also supports related merch like calendars.
• Video Games
• Itch.io - Itch.io is a supportive, indie-oriented game store site. It also has a lot of self-published resources for game development, as well as supporting books of all kind.

• Services
• Squarespace - The popular website creator with many options.
• Weebly - Easy and simple to use website, blogs, and stores.
• Wix - A simple And effective website source, though paid options are reccomended.
• Wordpress.com - The classic site, with free and paid options. Obviously blog-focused.

• Maps
• Old Maps Online - A way to find and view old maps of the world. Great for research and imagining.

• Ebook Creation
• Calibre - A free ebook creation tool.
• Jutoh - Not only converts your book to various ebook formats, it's a powerful enough tool that you could even write books in it.
• Word Processing
• LibreOffice - A full, free, open source office suite. Beyond the free price, it's fantastic ad using ODT format and creating PDFs.
• Word Tools
• Describing Words - Ideas for how to describe a given word.
• Dictionary.com - The classic online dictionary.
• Related Words - Helps find words similar to or related to one you're using.
• Rhyme Zone - A tool to help you find rhyming words.
• Thesaurus.Com - The classic online thesaurus, with plenty of useful options and displays
• Wordsworth - A tool to see if words you're using fit the time period you're writing
• Writing
• Scriviner - A writing tool that combines note taking, tracking, and writing into one application.
• Writing Checking
• Grammarly - A pricey but powerful service and software for checking grammar, spelling, and even plagarism if you need. There are free, limited options.
• Hemmingway - A grammar checking tool with both web and desktop versions.
• Pro Writing Aid - A subscription-based writing checker service/tool.