I try and test a lot of things. Here are some of my favorite vendors, products and tools. Disclosure – some of these are affiliate links.
INVOICING
You worked for it, didn’t you? You better get your money! Freshbooks gives you easy, painless billing. Love it!
WEB
WooThemes – Premium WordPress Templates
Love Woo Themes; great selection, good prices for your WordPress blog or business website. (Found the theme for this blog on Woo).
Studio Art 101-Great Web Design Studio and Joomla Experts. Fast turnaround, affordable web fixes, woman-owned. All around awesome.
Bluehost-Affordable Web Hosting with AWESOME technical support. I have called them a million times and the support people are friendly and , um, I can understand what they’re saying 
PRESS RELEASE DISTRIBUTION
PRWeb Very affordable press release distributor with added SEO capability. (Use this link for a discount on your next release!)
Also 24-7PressRelease and E- Releases are quite good.
GREAT BOOKS ABOUT PR AND SOCIAL MEDIA
The New Rules of Marketing and PR
PR 2.0: New Media, New Tools, New Audiences. I love Deirdre Breakenridge, and this isn’t her latest book, but it is by far my favorite.
Groundswell It’s Charlene Li of Altimeter-just get everything she puts out.
Social Media ROI : Managing and Measuring Social Media Efforts in Your Organization-Everyone’s talking social ROI; this is pretty much the bible.
The Networked Nonprofit: Connecting with Social Media to Drive Change
Beth Kanter’s ground-breaking work. A must for nonprofits.
Marketing With Social Media: An Hour a Day Great roadmap!
MAGAZINES I READ FAITHFULLY
Inc Magazine Inspiring stories of real entrepreneurs.
Black Enterprise I actually have a column on their web site. Check it out here.
PRWEEK The industry must-read if you want to know what’s what, who’s who in the PR industry. This comes out monthly, by the way.
PR AND SOCIAL MEDIA SERVICES
Sprout Social -A cool social media management tool with a beautiful interface. You can even pull social media reports-I send these to my clients!
E-MAIL MARKETING
Mad Mimi The easiest way to send newsletters, eblasts, and advertise events. It’s so friggin’ easy to use.
EVENT REGISTRATION MANAGEMENT
Eventbrite The BEST event registration tool on the market-I use it for all of my social media workshops, media panels and even webinars.
