Support for Indie Authors discussion

I've always used Word - I tried WriteItNow for a couple of novels but I couldn't cope with the layout and the double spaces and the sheer 'faff' of putting things onto it. I tend to keep all my notes etc handwritten on index cards and in notebooks.

I've thought about Scrivener, but Word suits me fine. I've used it for the last ten years of writing and it works for me. But, having read through some comments, I am tempted to have a look at other options now.

To add, I've used Scrivener and recently upgraded to Vellum. Oh my bananas. Night and day. Scrivener is amazing for plotting, and you'll have to pry it from my cold, dead hands, but Vellum makes formatting a breeze. I suffered through Open Office before when compiling from Scrivener and dealt with quotation marks randomly changing to webdings-type characters, formatting problems, and more. To the point I'd be in tears with a manuscript. It helps me actually see in real-time what the words look like on the page and if my paragraphs are too long/choppy/etc. To me, they're both invaluable and I'll never suffer through Open Office/Word again.

Leona, you do need to try Scrivner. There is a learning curve to it, but, once you get into it, you can keep all your notes and research there. No more lost things (I lose papers...a lot!) You can drag and drp whole sections. I outline using the note cards then use the cork board to add or delete as I write when new things pop up. When revising, you can take snapshots and never worry about rewriting if a revsion doesn't work. I hated it at first, preferting Word, but after taking Joseph Michael's class on Scrivener, it is my program of choice. You can use as many of the functions you want but i love the snapshots for revisions, the way i can use it for my long character profiles, make templates for things I do all the time. I have even color coded sections so I can see POV or scenes, mofits, etc. This from a person who has uesd MSWord ftom the first public version.

I've used Write It Now for all of my fiction. It does almost everything Scrivener does (and some things it doesn't) without as high a learning curve. It keeps all your notes and ideas and research. It has separate places to file notes about characters, locations, props, and references. It has a Story Board ("cork board") feature for graphically moving chapters, or a "tree" structure, a thesaurus, a storyline editor, a host of charts (for relationships, conflicts, and events), a timeline, an archive of historical information (by period), and lots more -- including clever prompts for developing characters by type, and by naming them with a host of ethnic backgrounds.

You can set up your text field to type the way you want, draft your work, then export it formatted the way you want.

You can download and check it out for free on the Ravenshead Services site, or buy a CD version from Amazon. I highly recommend you give it a look.

I use Open Office because it's good and it's free.

For my own needs it's perfect but there can be compatibility problems when sharing with others.

When I published my book using KDP it would have been a lot easier if I could have used their template but that only works with Word.

Be careful with open office. I had a nightmare of a time with curly va straight quotations and occasionally bouts of it changing all my punctuation to Chinese lettering or webdings type stuff. Left me in tears! I would compile my Scrivener files to it, and it happened almost every time.

I have never had your Chinese issue but I did have a problem with quotation marks. The thing is I have only published one book (of poems and short stories) recently and never thought about curly v. straight till then. Some friends checked my book sent to them in batches, but before launch I decided to use a professional copywriter. She had the whole manuscript and picked up on various discrepancies, like using curly in some stories and straight in others. I just hadn't noticed because I had never thought about this difference, and in fact can't understand why Open Office used one type in some places and the other type in other places. Not something I asked it to do.

I tried fixing the curly vs straight problem in mine and messed it up a hundred times worse. Just watch for the Chinese character issue. It's so so so frustrating. Usually it popped up after the application crash, so save often!!!

I used Google Docs. I felt it was easiest in terms of version control and collaboration with my copy editor. After Word corrupted a file I made the switch.

If you're into text editors, rather than word processors, I cannot recommend Editorial for iOS enough. The ability to install workflows to customize and create new tools, as well as its clean interface, make it a great tool. I doubt there are many of us doing the bulk of our writing on iPads, but if you do happen to be such a writer, definitely look at Editorial.

B.A. wrote: "Leona, you do need to try Scrivner. There is a learning curve to it, but, once you get into it, you can keep all your notes and research there. No more lost things (I lose papers...a lot!) You can ..."
Do you have any issues getting it to format the way you want when you compile? I really struggle with that part. I've seen lots of comments from people who recommend using something else for the format - like InDesign.....

I use pages and am happy with it.

Robb Neumann wrote: "If you're into text editors, rather than word processors, I cannot recommend Editorial for iOS enough. The ability to install workflows to customize and create new tools, as well as its clean inter..."

I read that it helps to have some programming background. Do you think it's user-friendly for someone who doesn't. Also, did you add an external keyboard?

You don't need programming for Scrivener but you do for InDesign. Like I said there is a learning curve on the program. With the last update they did make it easier to set up the compile to come out better. If you format the program right from the get go it helps. I use the font I want it to compile in along with justified margins. You can set the size, how your titles come out, etc. I'd advise typing up maybe something with three chapters using all the things you would normally use and then change the compile setting one or two at a time and write them down. That way you know what to do the get it to come out how you want it. That is what I did. It took me a day to get it down, but now it only takes a few minutes to set up the compile to put out my books. Just don't get too fancy.

If you want artwork at the top of each chapter you can do it in scrivener. again, it takes some playing around to get it right. As I use it more for more things, I'm liking it a lot more.

InDesign is something you would outsource unless you know the program well. I've used Draft to Digital to do a couple of my books which worked well. It is sort of generic suspense/thriller style but it works. They have romance, lit and other styles.

M.L. wrote: "I read that it helps to have some programming background. Do you think it's user-friendly for someone who doesn't. Also, did you add an external keyboard?"

Like a lot of the text editors you can use, both in iOS and on Windows of Mac OS X, Editorial supports Markdown which is essentially “HTML Lite.” It (Markdown) was developed by John Gruber at Daring Fireball for blogging, but works really well for any kind of writing, as its intent is to be able to provide minimal formatting without needing to lift your hands from the keyboard and to your mouse.

I’m getting in the nerdy weeds here, but if you wanted to make something italic in HTML you would use code tags to surround a word to make “word” italic. In Markdown you just surround it with asterisks, so it would read *word* instead (can’t figure out how to display code on here without it actually working... sorry for being vague). Bold is two asterisks, so it would be **word** and so on. So, in some ways it is coding, but simplified to a pretty good degree. It’s not really programming, exactly, but maybe a little bit. It is pretty simple, though. And, Markdown can be imported into most programs, including Scrivener, so whatever you do in Markdown is also pretty “portable.”

You can download a number of good, one-page “cheat sheets” that can show you the basics of Markdown, but they’re all pretty simple and will become second nature.

One of the really nice things about Editorial is that it will also let you fold sections of text. It’s a little hard to explain, but if you use Markdown title codes, say to designate a chapter, you can then click a little icon on the screen and that chapter can be collapsed into a single line (then expanded again, when you need it). It makes navigating a really large document really easy, since you can just collapse your finished chapters, rather than have to scroll and scroll.

I don’t want to derail this thread, but I really like writing in plain text and Markdown. As I said, Markdown is HTML with training wheels. Given that Mobi and ePub formats are based on modified HTML, it makes moving your writing into those formats pretty easy. Plus, plain text isn’t very demanding, so you can write it on almost any computer, new or old, and just move it to something with more horsepower later if you need to.

Like I said, I don’t want to derail the thread, so if you want to message me with more Markdown questions, I’m happy to help. That actually goes for anyone here. I’m not an expert, but I’m happy to share what I know and how I used it.

I’m currently using a previous generation 12.9” iPad Pro and its actually much, much more powerful than my “real” computer. A keyboard is highly recommended, though. :)

Robb Neumann wrote: "M.L. wrote: "I read that it helps to have some programming background. Do you think it's user-friendly for someone who doesn't. Also, did you add an external keyboard?"

Like a lot of the text edit..."

Appreciate the info, this is helpful. Thanks!

B.A. wrote: "You don't need programming for Scrivener but you do for InDesign. Like I said there is a learning curve on the program. With the last update they did make it easier to set up the compile to come ou..."

I watched a Scrivener tutorial recently and maybe I'll try it sometime. Not yet, but maybe! :)

I was an avid Word user, but it’s such a pain for long projects. Especially if you have a habit of doing a lot of rewrites and revamping.

That’s why I went to Scrivener. It was easy to break down my novels into chapters and scenes. But, even that started to feel like it was lacking.

I discovered I *need* to spend the time plotting and planning, or I end up all over the place - and it shows in the flow I have no idea where the story is going.

So... then I was on the hunt for something I could use to plot. I found The Novel Factory, which has a great roadmap. But it still wasn’t just right.

Then, there it was. Wavemaker. It has a template based on Better Novel Project’s master outline and let me tell you - it’s changed my life. The outline more than the program, though it has a lot of great features.

I think if it had better word count capabilities and word goals, it may just be my one and only true love lol.

So, I had wanted to do my planning there and then put it into Scrivener, but you can’t export the planning board. That stinks. But, if you are happy with the writer and just having an overall word count, DEFINITELY check it out, as there are a lot of cool features.

Recently, StoryShop got a major overhaul. I still hadn’t been impressed, but then a few new updated and bug fixes happened recently which really improved things. You can do a daily or an overall word goal. I wish you could do both, but you can input both and alternate your view to be able to see the two stats.

Now, let me tell you about the newest amazing program I found. It’s called Fictionary. It only runs on a Chrome browser, but it’s awesome. Right now it can only do one MS that you have to upload. But in a few weeks there will be a 3 MS max update along with the capability to start your book from scratch within the program.

Well, then why am I mentioning it, then? Because it’s awesome. Everyone should use this before sending it off to an editor or self-publishing. It will give you feedback on pacing, show you how much each of your MCs are the POV focus, plus SO SO much more.

I can’t wait to see what it’ll be like to write in Fictionary. When it starts though, it’ll be very basic until they get feedback from us writers as to what is missing or doesn’t work good for us, and also to let them know what we love!

I've used Scrivener, Final Draft ( I know its mostly scripts but it works), Reedsy and Edit ebook 64 bit is what I'm using now though just to copy edit. Since the ebook sites have their own program to get your book ready I normally switch for final release.

As many people have noted, Scrivener was a game-changer for me. I used to write in Word, and I'm *good* with MS products. Once I acclimated to scriv, I love it and would not go back to MS Word.

I use LibreOffice to write in. Then when I'm ready to format for publishing, I export it as a text file and import it into InDesign. From there, I create a PDF for the printed book and send them the InDesign for the eBook. Keep in mind eBooks always need table of contents, even if the printed book does not have one.

I use Scrivener, too. It has a lot of bells and whistles, many of which I do not use or know how to properly take advantage of even after many years of having it.

I do copy and paste into ProWritingAid for editing purposes. There are different purchasing options for this tool. I paid for the complete software. I've also used Grammarly, which they do offer it for free but you're limited to how detailed it checks your work. If you just want a basic editing program, it's pretty good, although, it did miss a few things ProWritingAid found. Grammarly offers different price points for different lengths of time, but the max you can purchase was annually (at the time I was in the market). I preferred to purchase something and have it for life, and that's why I went with ProWritingAid. Some website had a coupon code, so I got a discount on it.

But thank you for this thread. Now I want to check out these other platforms to see what they offer, too.

As a matter of principle, I never use Word, except when it's demanded (uploads, for instance). I use WordPerfect.

Megan wrote: "I LOVE Google Docs. All of my files are synced between all of my devices so I can access them anytime, anywhere. It’s never done me wrong!"

I use Dropbox, which means my files are always synced between my PCs regardless of what software I'm using (mostly LibreOffice in my case). But I do like Google Docs, and found it absolutely magic for one job - an anthology that I co-edited with two others last year. One of the other editors was in London, the second in the North of England and I was in New York. But Google Docs let us work together in real time, see each other's comments, proposed edits and queries and discuss decisions as we went along.

I've used about all of them. I like to develop my characters in Character Writer. There is also another program newer called Novel Factory which is probably cheaper and it is newer. I think Novel Factory is newer and has several facets only a newer version can incorporate.

Open office.org is a free program similar to Microsoft Word. It has some features better than Word as far as file opening and saving. Scrivener is a great program but has a learning curve to deal with; it is kind of difficult to just boot it up and start writing.

Richard, that all sounds like a ton of work. Once you learn Scrivener, the newer one has the novel setup so you can format and put all your files into whatever mode you want right from there. I'm going to try it and see what happens with one of my shorter novels. I've gotten so I love working in Scrivener where I can save all my changes and never loose the original files. Like you, though, I still have other windows open as I research as I go on some books, especially when editing.

I personally compile to word, do some minimal formatting before using Draft2Digital to get my e-pub, mobi and pdf files. Although I may have someone format the book in adobe this time and send it off to Ingram first since I don't make anything exclusive with Amazon.

I use page on Mac and it has worked well for me, word seems awkward

GOD I love Scrivener.... I couldn't go back to word.

I'd like to try something other than Word, but I'm torn between moving on to Scrivener or Vellum, so I'm stuck here in Word-purgatory until I decide. Leaning towards Vellum because it's good for print book formatting, but I'm not prepared to pony up $200 for it just yet.

Karen,
You write in Scrivener then format in Vellum which is the top of the line for formatting but it is for MAC computers only . Scrivener is for PC and MACs and is inexpensive and has so much you can do with it. There is a learning curve, but if you take your time and learn how to use it, you won't go back to Word. Scrivener will format, but I haven't tried it yet as I just got the latest update.

Maria wrote: "Scrivener is pretty good software for writers. Personally, I use sometimes Word and mostly Reedsy. If you Google your question, I'm sure you'll find a lot. Good luck :)"

Maria, where does Scrivener store your documents?

It stores it wherever you tell it to in a Scrivener folder I back mine up to Dropbox and One Drive after having a computer crash on me even though I have a working folder in my computer, when I save, I also save to to the cloud. Remember, that the Scrivener documents will not work with any other program.

I played with the free version of Bibisco, which has some nice features for organization and idea generation. It's just another means to the same end. I might play with it more later, but I find that making multiple Word documents and folders seems to work as well, for the most part.

Does any use Scrivener and grammarly?

Lyvita wrote: "Does any use Scrivener and grammarly?"

I think the whole conversation has been about Scrivener. I'm probably the only one who doesn't use it.

I went looking for something better than Word and tried Scrivener. I know that a lot of people love it "If you will invest the time to learn how to use it" but I eventually dropped it. The learning curve is pretty intense and I felt like I was spending all of my time trying to figure out how to use Scrivener when I desperately wanted to be writing. I went back to Word because I found that it was easier FOR ME to simply go find online help to tweak little formatting issues here and there in Word than it was to learn the entire Scrivener system. Yes, figuring out those little tweaks can be frustrating but they only show up at certain points in my writing process as opposed to recreating my entire writing process around a new program. Sorry if that DOESN'T help you but I have discovered that Word can actually do a lot more than most people think it can (plus, it is an almost universally accepted format).

Dwayne wrote: "Lyvita wrote: "Does any use Scrivener and grammarly?"

I think the whole conversation has been about Scrivener. I'm probably the only one who doesn't use it."

Nope. I don't use it either. I don't want to do the whooping crane mating dance to learn how to use it. Word works for me.

Hello all,

as a Linux user, I mainly use LibreOffice for writing. In rare exceptions, Focuswriter.

For outlining scenes I sometimes used an old desktop-version of celtx that I kept on my machine - but I've used that less and less because I didn't want to go through the hassle of what felt like writing the same chapter twice, one time as script and another time as story.
However, celtx has its advantages: You can outline your characters, locations, and so on.

I tried out yWriter the other day, it seems to be interesting, too.

Dwayne wrote: "Lyvita wrote: "Does any use Scrivener and grammarly?"

I think the whole conversation has been about Scrivener. I'm probably the only one who doesn't use it."

Nope, you are not the only one. I use Mellel and Pages from Mac.

David wrote: "I went looking for something better than Word and tried Scrivener. I know that a lot of people love it "If you will invest the time to learn how to use it" but I eventually dropped it. The learning..."

Yezzzz! Well stated! That learning curve. I wrote a whole book on word, while trying to learn the software. NEXT!

Robert wrote: "I've used Write It Now for all of my fiction. It does almost everything Scrivener does (and some things it doesn't) without as high a learning curve. It keeps all your notes and ideas and research...."

Dear Robert,

Hi my name is Rajesh. I am a newbie. I have self published only one book until now. I used Microsoft Word. My genre is paranormal romance. I was looking for a different software to write. Robert you mentioned about Write It. Is Write It free or paid version?

Rajesh wrote: "Robert wrote: "I've used Write It Now for all of my fiction. It does almost everything Scrivener does (and some things it doesn't) without as high a learning curve. It keeps all your notes and idea..."

Write It Now is payware: it costs $69.95 as CD Version (containing both, Windows and MacOS version).
Scrivener is payware, too: it costs $49 for the Windows version, $53 for the MacOS version.

There are demo versions of both programs available though.

And because I can't afford to buy payware, I use only free software (although I do donate to their devs every once in a while)

For those who are looking for free stuff...Google docs does work and it is free. Libre office is free,

I've discovered that most of the programs are by subscriptiont. MS Word is $100 a year, Adobe photoshop is $240 a year now. You can't even buy the basic program other than an older version. From what I understand, Vellum is expensive. Most of the programs have a cost associated with them. At least Scrivener is a one time fee.

All programs come with some sort of learning curve. I've tried multiple programs. When Novel Factory raised their prices, I felt it wasn't worth the extra cost. I could do the same thing in Scrivener once I learned how to use it. I quit looking for the 'prefect' program, learned to format Word and am still working on the Scrivener formatting. I love writing and editing in Scrivener as it's much easier to find and move things around. I love the snapshots so you can always go back to a revision you have done before if the new revision doesn't work. It took me two weeks to learn what I needed to know to make Scrivener functional. Look on Youtube...they have a bunch of stuff there.

Adobe Photoshop is only $9.95 a month. I think it's helpful if you design your own covers or plan to do any advertising.
(don't know where you got the $240 price tag...unless you're subscribing to more Adobe programs in the creative cloud)

B.A. quoted a price that is double what Adobe actually charges for photoshop.

B.A. wrote: "I've discovered that most of the programs are by subscriptiont. MS Word is $100 a year"

Yet you don't need to use the most recent version if you don't necessarily require some of the newest functions. Writing in any 'hard copy' of office since the format change (when they introduced DOCX to replace DOC) will work fine.

Marko wrote: "Adobe Photoshop is only $9.95 a month. I think it's essential."

Essential for who? I don't think it's essential for writing. For people who also know how to do some image manipulation or even drawing (and thus can do their own covers), maybe. For people like me, who can't even edit a photo from the holiday, nope.

Personally I don't think Adobe Photoshop is essential when you have free software like Inkscape and GIMP. For someone who needs professional software like Adobe InDesign, Photoshop or Illustrator I can see where it would benefit someone in a professional environment but for people who cannot spend that kind of money or simply wish to conserve their money then free software does the same thing.

For writing there is software like LibreOffice — or you could just use a text editor — that is free to use and pretty much just like MS Word. If you need to do vector art or a logo then Inkscape is good. GIMP can also work for editing pictures and drawing. When you need to typeset books or any other types of projects there is Scribus — which I use to typeset all my light novels — which is pretty much the free version of InDesign. And if you do e-Books you can use a software like Sigil — which I used to create my e-Books — or Calibre to create epub files (of course, if you want to create an epub file with nothing more then HTML, CSS, and a text editor like Sublime Text you can do that too, which I tend to do 99% of the time).

That isn't to count software like Manuskript or yWriter — both of which I have used — that helps writers structure and organize their projects — usually novels but can also be used for non-fiction and other such woks — however they wish. So, in truth none of the professional, paid software is essential or needed when there is plenty of free software out there that works just as good for most self-published authors and the like.

Of course, as I have said before, in a work environment they will generally want you to use a professional software to conform to the standard which is usually fine seeing as how it is a part of the job but for those starting out or simply self-publishing, it is possible to do all the things listed above with the software noted and all it takes is just a good hour or two to learn.

I am a Scrivener fan. I complete all of my research and drafts with Scrivener then import the draft to either Pages or Word depending upon where it will be going. I am also a big fan of Vellum. Vellum makes formatting a breeze, and the results are excellent.

Brenda wrote: "Scrivener for me."

Comment deleted due to the link and picture of your book cover.

… Fear the learning curve.

Ywriter all the way for me. Free, simple and does everything that you need. I am not sure what the other programs offer over and above without making it too complicated?