25: How to Choose Book Writing Software

You want to be an author or maybe you already

are an author. But for some reason you are dissatisfied

with the book writing software you're currently using today, I

am going to concentrate on software you might use on

a PC or Mac. Not a standalone writing machine like

the traveler by free. Right, so which software should you

look at? Which one should you choose answers to these

questions. In episode 25 of writing pursuits, Welcome to the

writing pursuits podcast where authors like you discuss writing, craft,

author life and book marketing strategies. I'm your host, Katherine

Mckee. I own writing pursuits and write and produce the

weekly newsletter. Writing pursuits tips for authors. In addition, I

am a speculative fiction author. Writing pursuits is for authors

who drink too much coffee endure judgmental looks from their

furry writing companions and struggle for words. If you are

a writer seeking encouragement, information and inspiration. This podcast is

for you. Let's get to it. Hey, writing proceeds authors

Welcome back to the podcast. To those of you who

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name is Patrice Mckee and I'm glad you're here. Please

leave a comment, a star rating and follow the show

to help others find writing pursuits. If you're watching this

on Youtube, make sure to like and subscribe and tap

that notification bell. When you start writing your first book.

It is probably easiest to start with what you know

for many people, maybe most people that happens to be

Microsoft word. Word is everywhere literally in every office and

every business that you care to name. Most students have

a working knowledge of Microsoft word. If they've been in

school in the last 15 years, maybe 15-20 years. It

has a rich feature set limited only by your skills

and knowledge truly. It's probably more than most people need.

It can be so much more than you actually need

when writing a book. The functionality always seems to be

expanding and the interface keeps changing. Microsoft word is unparalleled

because of macros in being able to use wild cards

for find and replace really that's a skill set beyond

what most people acquire but it can really unlock amazing

functionality within the software. Every other software is compared to

Microsoft word. It has a built in editor that is

very decent. In fact as an editor it is the

standard mostly because of the track changes functionality. Um and

they accept changes functionality and also that it interfaces with

add in editing software like perfect it pro writing aid

and Graham early. However there are some cons so one

of the cons is that it is not free for

most people you have to have a subscription to office

to use Word and um like I pay $99 I

think maybe more for office 3 65. I feel like

it's part of my operating expenses. So I just accept

it. I do use it every day multiple times a

day and I generally I generally wear it out Also

for research notes and background work. It can't go straight

into your manuscript because that would be just a big

jumble of stuff. This is one of the ways words

suffers in comparison to the next application will discuss. You

will never reach the end of learning word. There is

always something more that you don't know. There's 10 ways

to do almost everything. Still some of the things that

you used to know in older versions you might not

be able to still do because you can't figure out

where they've hidden it. So there's that that's a con

uh tips for using Microsoft word for writing novels from

the beginning. Used styles on the home tab inward to

format your chapter headings. Make every chapter heading the very

same The same style when it is time to upload

your file for formatting. Everything is so much easier if

you'll do this one thing, learn about styles and word

to unlock its capabilities and make your life easier for

every scene break. Use three asterisks centered without an indented.

Do not use the tab key, not ever Use the

margin controls instead my second tip is for every major

revision, create a new copy of your manuscript. The way

I do that is I always include the date that

I start the new manuscript on or the new copy

on. As long as you are using word you may

as well take advantage of Microsoft one drive which constantly

saves your document as you go. So you don't have

to worry about power fluctuations or anything like that. You're

going to have the latest revisions that you've made to

the document. That's one reason to create new copies of

your manuscript because it's kind of a destructive process. The

next application is scribner. It's very well known in the

author community. It's probably the best known alternative to word.

It works on Mac and Windows. Actually there are two

different versions and the mac version is so much better

than the Windows version. Even now, I would say that

even the new scribner three, this is a con even

the new scribner three interface looks dated and the compile

feature is something out of clothes. I think that that's

very outdated and needs to be fixed. It is a

typewriter, a three ring binder and a scrapbook in one

place. So that shortcoming inward goes away. You can keep

all sorts of notes and pictures and information that you've

gathered from various places in your binder under various headings

that you get to decide. Fantastic. If you want to

describe your characters, you can have a character folder and

have a little file for each character and you can

even put in pictures and it's all in one place.

It's not going to interfere with what you pull out

of scribner at the end. Favorite features that I love

about governor, our note cards, the cork board where you

can rearrange the note cards writing targets seen in chapter

orientation that happens in the binder that I have always

displayed on the left side With multiple ways to view

the organization of your book. Um it has a focus

mode that you can personalize. Um it has templates for

manuscripts and screenplays and more for all that. It is

inexpensive. It's a $45 1 time purchase. Honestly you may

want to pay for a tutorial after you've let yourself

stumble around for awhile. For sure work through the tutorial.

It is not an intuitive interface. So I would not

recommend scrivener for formatting a book to upload to amazon.

Some people do. Oh more power to you. But to

me there's a step in between I usually compiled to

word document and then go from there. Scribner's biggest contribution

to writers is during the development phase, your first draft,

your first revision After that. In my experience, it's best

to compile your document into a word document. Make that

word document in your new master file and then use

the word for future revisions. You just get to a

point where you don't need all the notes. You just

need to polish and perfect the document that you're going

to use as with word for every major revision. Save

a copy of your entire project to a new name.

Save the old copy for reference. Ok. And that brings

me to the last thing that I I like about

scrivener, you can set automatic backups. So every time you

get out it saves backup to dropbox never try this

with google drive, that does not work. And that brings

us to the next favorite and that would be google

docs. This episode of writing pursuits is brought to you

to take their writing to a new level of excellence

featuring story analysis and diagnostics, guthrie's mckee a three story

methods. Certified editor can help you prepare your story for

the journey ahead for more information, go to word marker

edits dot com And now back to writing pursuits. I

know a lot of authors that start their work in

google docs. I have written full chapters on my phone

using google docs when I'm out of the house. One

of the great things about that is your work is

sync across devices, it's free, Oh, I love that and

it is versatile. Your work is instantly saved and it

does have version control. So all that makes for a

great package. It also has a decent feature set, It

is not Microsoft word, but you don't need more than

google docs provides to write a book. This includes find

replace and spell checking, plus some grammar checks. Its superlative

for collaborating on a project. So if you have a

co writer, this is the thing for you, you can

both work on it, you can even work on it

at the same time and you will see what is

going on. So collaboration is the big thing with google

docs. If your editor is willing to edit and google

docs, they can leave comments and suggested edits. It's not

the same as having track changes but it might be

good enough. You can work offline, that's kind of nice

and it's not something you can do with every package.

Alright? Um it is easy to download your files to

various formats including word, rich text, open document format pdf

and pub Akane for some people is the fact that

you must use the chrome browser to use google docs.

So that might be a con for some people for

me it's not a problem. I use chrome all day

long tips as inward make use of the styles within

google docs. No tabs do seem breaks the same way

as you do in word when it's time to format

your document. Use file, download to produce a file to

upload wherever you're going to format it. Now, the next

one I want to talk about is Atticus Writing and

formatting. They are the new kid on the block. There

is a blog post, a review for the Atticus software

on my blog. I would appreciate it if you'd stop

by and leave a comment. The link for that will

be in the show notes, It says that it's a

writing and formatting software. However right now the word processing

portion of the program. It's kind of basic. There are

plans for improvement. I want to see that before I

use it to develop a novel in. I could see

writing a short story or flash fiction there without a

problem. Not great for editing either. And um again there

are plans. So one of the best things about Atticus

is that it's cross platform compatible. So if you're a

Linux person, this may be the app for you really

shines for formatting a completed manuscript ready for print or

digital After you finished formatting your manuscript. This is an

ideal interface for proof reading because you're literally looking at

the proof copy. Atticus has templates suitable for any genre

and you can create your own book format templates. You

can use atticus offline. This is important. Also you can

use it on your phone or tablet and best of

all it is easy to use so easy. It's a

little bit expensive since it's not doing the writing portion

of the program, it is $147 to purchase. But that's

like a lifetime thing. You'll get all the updates, much

less expensive than vellum which is $249 us dollars and

it's less expensive than paying someone to format more than

one book for you. So if you bought it you

have it, you can continue to use it. So it's

great for making every book in a series. Have the

same look and feel the last one I'm going to

talk about in any detail is read the book editor

now full disclosure. I have not tried this tool, I

have just seen it demonstrated pretty much everything I just

said for atticus supplies to read the book editor except

it does not work offline, it is not cross platform

compatible that I know about. You download and upload your

files if you want to work offline. So that's a

drawback. Pretty much gives you a choice between classic and

romance themes. If free is the name of the game

and your book doesn't require like interior artwork like maybe

a cookbook or Children's book would then read the book

editor maybe what you're looking for. I could really see

pairing reads a book editor with google docks where the

bulk of development and revisions happen in google docs prior

to uploading it to read Z to format your book's

interior the pluses, you can track changes in reads a

book editor, it does offer version control collaboration is possible

and it's free. Can't beat free. There are many other

applications for writing books including fast pencil focus, writer freedom

and others. Indeed, any software that allows you to manipulate

text is fair game, but eventually you need to edit

revise in format. Keep the entire production cycle in mind

when you're selecting your tool and there's nothing wrong with

starting in one and ending up in another. You can

play around with the software that you choose. The main

thing is to write. That's all I have for today.

Until next time. Thank you for joining us today. If

you enjoyed this episode, please leave a comment and follow

the podcast. If you're new around here, I hope you

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for authors. That link and all the links mentioned in

today's episode are in the show notes at writing pursuits

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