Writing a written book is hard. I’ve written seven books and at some point during every one I had the idea, “There has got to be an instrument, a piece of book writing software, that would get this to easier.”
Bad news/good news: writing a novel will always be hard, and also the piece that is best of writing software on earth won’t write your book for you. But the news that is good there is book writing software that will make the process a little easier.
In this article, we are going to cover the ten best pieces of software for writing a written book and look during the pros and cons of each and every.
Worst items of Software for Writing a novel
First, though, let’s cover software you should avoid, at the least while you’re writing a novel:
- Game Titles. Especially World of Warcraft (always always always!) but also Solitaire, Sudoku, Angry Birds, and, for me at this time, Star Wars Galaxy of Heroes.
- Facebook, Twitter, along with other Social Media Marketing Software. Do I really need certainly to say more? Fortunately there’s a bit of book writing software for avoiding this very software that is distractingsee Freedom below).
- Other Productive Software Not Directly Connected With Your Writing. Yes, it’s good to reconcile your money on Quickbooks or make sure you’re up to date on the calendar app, but responsible, well-meaning work can easily be an excuse for a fast distraction that can become a significant distraction from writing your book.
Set aside time for the writing every day and then stay focused!
If you need a game title, make writing your daily word count your game.
If you like more “likes” on social media marketing, imagine how great getting reviews that are five-star your book is likely to be.
If you need to look at your bank balance several times per day, consider what your bank balance would be whenever you stop checking it constantly, finish your book, and become an effective author.
No piece of writing software shall write your book for you, however these ten may help. Let’s look in the benefits and drawbacks of every.
Google Sheets (Spreadsheet)
Me when I was first trying to become a writer that one of my most-used tools in my book writing software toolkit would be a spreadsheet, I would have told you I didn’t major in English to have to use a spreadsheet if you’d told.
However now, as I’m finishing my book that is seventh realize that I’m using spreadsheets almost daily.
Spreadsheets permit you to get a feeling of the current weather of the book at a glance, as soon as you’re working on a 300-page document, distilling it down to useable information becomes very necessary.
You might use spreadsheets for:
Google Sheets is ideal for this because it’s free and you may quickly share your write-ups together with your writing partners, editors, or beta readers to have feedback. Microsoft Excel is yet another option that is great but also for writers, i recommend Google Sheets.
Cost: Free!
Scrivener (Word Processor)
Scrivener could be the premier book writing software. It is produced by writers for writers. Scrivener’s “binder” view allows you to break up your book into chapters and sections and easily reorganize it. Project targets allow you to create word count goals and then track your progress daily. Its composition mode can help you stay focused by eliminating all of the clutter. Plus, it permits you to format for publishing (e.g. on Amazon or Barnes & Noble).
There are nagging problems with Scrivener. Formatting is more complex than it requires to be and collaborating isn’t easy, meaning it loses its effectiveness when you bring on an editor. Nonetheless it more than write my paper accocunts for for that by being so useful in the early stages regarding the writing process.
In fact, we have confidence in Scrivener so much, we published a book about how writers that are creative write more, faster deploying it. It’s called Scrivener Superpowers. For your creative writing, you can get Scrivener Superpowers here if you’re using Scrivener or want to save yourself time as you learn how to use it. The edition that is next out on Tuesday!
Cost: $45 for Mac, $40 for Windows
Where to find it: Get started with Scrivener for Mac here or with Scrivener for Windows here
You can get a copy of Scrivener here, or learn more about simple tips to make use of the software with your resources:
Freedom (Productivity App)
One question writers always ask me is,“How can I enough stay focused to complete what I write?”
I have too many ideas on this because of this article, but so far as writing software to encourage focus, I recommend Freedom.
Freedom allows you to block your biggest distractions online, including both websites and mobile apps, for a set period of time. So when you mindlessly escape your book to scroll through Facebook, you’ll find the site won’t load.
You could schedule recurring sessions, in order for at a time that is schedulede.g. Mondays from 6 am to 10 am), you won’t manage to access the websites in your blocklist, even though you try.
There are some other apps similar to this that we’ve written about before, notably Self-Control for Mac and StayFocused for Windows. But Freedom goes further, letting you block sites on both your computer or laptop and your phone, and enabling sessions that are recurring.
Cost: $29 / for Pro version, which I use and recommend (Free trial available year)
Google Docs (Word Processor)
While Scrivener may be the best book writing software, once you get to editing and having feedback, it begins to fall short.
That’s why Google Docs is becoming my second go-to little bit of book writing software. It’s free, quite simple to use, and requires no backups since all things are when you look at the cloud.
On top of that are its collaboration abilities, which allow you to invite your editor to the document and then watch while he or she makes changes, tracked in suggestion mode, and leave comments in your story (see screenshot below).
Cost: Free!
Vellum (Book Formatting/Word Processor)
It’s not that hard if you want to turn your book into an eBook. Scrivener, Word, Pages, each of them can make eBooks. But that doesn’t mean they’ll look good. In reality, it requires a complete lot of skill and effort to make an eBook look good on any of those word processors. That’s why I favor Vellum a great deal.
Vellum makes beautiful eBooks.
Vellum picks up where Scrivener, Word, and Pages leave off, giving you a tool to make great looking eBooks each and every time.
The most important element of this is basically the previewer (start to see the image below), which allows you to see how each change that is formatting book edit you create will show up on Kindle, Fire, iPhone, Nook, as well as other eReaders.
Moreover it has stripped-down, option-based formatting, that is ideal for designing eBooks.
I really love this app!
UPDATE: Vellum recently expanded into formatting for paperback books! We haven’t tried it yet but it looks awesome!