Writing a book requires something major. It requires the right attitude, some solid, and the best writing software out there. And we know which writing software is best for you – and more importantly, why it matters. With the best writing tools, you can write faster and more effectively.
You’ll be more focused, with fewer distractions, and you can actually learn a thing or two from some of them –. And just as importantly, you’ll have an easier time keeping your outline, notes, and even those organized. But even if you have and an imagination that won’t quit, you can’t do either without the right book writing software. You’ll have to make some choices.
In advance of National Novel Writing Month, Jason Snell shows you various Mac tools for. We've also reviewed most of the Mac writing software out there. Looking for the best apps for writers or word processors for novel, blogging, screenplay writing? Here are 10 best writing apps for Mac (free and paid).
Nowadays, authors have so many options when looking for the best book writing software. In order to view your navigation pane in outline-format click: View Navigation Pane (it’s a box to check) select the bullet/outline tab within the navigation pane (seen above). You can also create your own. And if you start writing your book in Word and don’t begin with the correct formatting, it’s pretty easy to to make it “book ready” with a few simple steps. If you’re a Word user and you’ve got your own system in place for writing books, then perhaps you need to look no further. But as a writing tool, Word does have some downsides.
For starters, it doesn’t always play well with Macs. If you use a Mac, then Word might cause you a lot of frustration with crashes and formatting. Thankfully, Apple offers a comparable program called Pages, for you. Word is also pretty vanilla. That’s part of its appeal, sure, but it also means Word lacks some of the more advanced features you get with other programs like Scrivener and Google Docs. For example, Scrivener offers more functionality. And Google Docs makes it easier to share and collaborate on your files.
All in all, Word is a solid contender for best book writing software. But there are many other choices out there. Book Writing Software Cost: $79.99 if purchased separately.
#2 – Scrivener You just learned that Microsoft Word is the most widely used word processor in the world. But does that mean it’s the best book writing software? Think about it this way. The fact that Word is so prevalent means that it has to cater to all sorts of users—students, businesspeople, writers, teachers, marketers, lawyers, the list goes on and on and on. But Scrivener was created for one type of person only: Writers. And if you’re a writer, chances are you’ve heard of Scrivener.
A lot of writers absolutely love this program, with its advanced features and distraction-free writing experience. In short, Scrivener gives you an insane amount of flexibility for writing, formatting, and organizing your book. Blogger and author, Jeff Goins, swears by Scrivener after giving up word.
He says, “I wasted years of my life doing all my writing on Microsoft Word. But that’s all over now. I have finally seen the light.” Entrepreneur also praises Scrivener: “I now begin every piece of content—no matter what it is—with this tool. It has simplified my life and enabled me to focus on the most important aspect of my job—creating new content.
I am more productive than ever.” Here are some of the top takeaways of this book writing software:. Helps with.
Easily export your data to other digital platforms such as Kobo, ibooks, etc. (this is one of the best features). Provides outlining functionality that keeps your content organized. Powerful composition mode with distraction-free writing environment. Easily drag and drop to move sections around. Provides a collection of robust templates. Supports for bullets and numbers Because Scrivener was designed for writers, it’s super easy to lay out scenes, move content around, and your story, article, or manuscript.
Instead of keeping all your content in one big file, Scrivener allows you to create multiple sub-files to make it easier to organize and outline your project. But as awesome as Scrivener is, it’s not perfect.
And the biggest downside to using Scrivener is the steep learning curve involved. You aren’t going to master this program overnight. But if you’re serious about your writing career, then investing the time to learn this specific writing tool will be worth it. You’ll save time and energy in the long run. And if you want to learn how to use Scrivener as quickly & easily as possible, we can help! Here’s a full Scrivener tutorial so you can easily maneuver this program. If you want to dig even deeper, you can also download the, or watch the tutorials they’ve put together at Literature & Latte.
Long story short: Scrivener is an investment, but one that’s worth it. It will take some time to master. But once you get the hang of it, you’ll never go back—it’s the single most powerful book writing software out there. I f you like what you see from Scrivener, you can buy it here: Book Writing Software Cost: $45 #3 – Google Docs We’ve looked at the appealing simplicity of Word and the in-depth power of Scrivener, but there’s another book writing software that more and more people are starting to use for various reasons: Google Docs. Essentially, is a stripped-down version of Word that you can only use online. It’s a simple, yet effective writing tool. The beauty of this program (and in general) comes in the ability to share content, files, and documents among your team.
You can easily communicate via comments, for example: This program keeps a complete history of all changes made to a document, so if you accidentally delete something you wanted to keep, simply click the link at the top of the screen that says, “All changes saved in drive.” That will bring up the version history, where you can review all the changes that have been made to your book file and revert to a previous version if you so choose. Google Docs doesn’t require any installation and can be accessed anywhere via your browser, or an app on your phone. (Anyone who has ever lost a draft of a book understands how valuable this feature is!).
Plus you can access your work when you move from one location or another—no carrying a laptop or thumb drive around with you. When you share a book draft with others, like test readers or your, they can comment directly on the draft using the built-in comment functionality. Out of the “big 3” book writing software tools, Google Docs is probably the least sophisticated when it comes to formatting and outlining tools. But it makes up for that with easy collaboration, sharing, and online access. Book Writing Software Cost: Free Book Writing Software You Might Not Know About Let’s get to know some of the best book writing tools you can use to up your author game and make some progress. Just because you may not be familiar with a specific writing software doesn’t mean it’s not beneficial or even better than what you’re using now.
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#1 – Pages Think of as the Mac alternative to Microsoft Word. It has a variety of beautiful templates to choose from, has a simple design, and syncs with all devices from within iCloud so you can access it in a number of different places. Personally, I love the ease of Pages. It works great for creating ebooks or manuscripts with a variety of you can get creative with. Book Writing Software Cost: $28 #2 – Freedom isn’t technically a writing tool, but it sure can help improve your writing. It’s a productivity app designed to help eliminate distractions by blocking certain websites – something more than beneficial for those of us who get sidetracked easily.
For example: let’s say you have a tendency to get distracted by social media sites. All you have to do us start a Freedom session that blocks all your social media sites—and then you won’t be able to visit them even if you wanted to. Here’s what it looks like when you schedule a session. This is a really liberating tool.
Once you know you don’t have the option of visiting those distracting sites, you’ll find it easier to keep focused on your writing and you’ll be able to get a lot more done. Book Writing Software Cost: $2.42/month and up, or $129 for lifetime access. #3 – Ulysses If you’re a Mac owner, this might be the best book writing software for you.
While you do have to pay $39.99 per year to use it, the cost to use is completely justified. One of the best features has to be the distraction-free capabilities. As a writer who gets distracted easily, this is definitely a feature I look for in a good book writing software. Overall, this is one of the best book writing software programs out there for Mac users. But if you’re not sure if it’s worth the price, you can actually try it for free for 14 days.
Book Writing Software Cost: $39.99/year Free Book Writing Software There’s not much we love more than getting stuff for free – especially when it comes to our aspirations. You don’t have to doll out a ton of cash just to use highly beneficial book writing software. In fact, there are many best free book writing software programs. #1 – FastPencil is a nice little platform with lots of tools. You can also use it for distributing your ebook. It is free to start writing with, but they offer paid services as well.
Everything happens online in your browser, which means you can access your files from any computer (as long as you’re connected to the Internet). Here’s what the word processor looks like. You can customize the image in the background to suit your project to help inspire your writing. It’s simple and effective. If you need a lot of features, it probably won’t work for you.
But if simplicity is your thing, then you may have found your perfect free writing tool. Book Writing Software Cost: Free #3 – yWriter is a really popular word processor (intended mainly for novelists) with some impressive features (especially for a program that’s completely free).
It helps keep your project organized by giving you space to include notes on all sorts of things, like character notes, scene notes, scene goals, etc. You can specify whose point of view each scene will be written in, and you can see the word count of your entire novel broken out by chapter—all at a quick glance. One thing that yWriter does differently than a lot of other writing programs is focus on scenes rather than on chapters. A lot of writers prefer this since scenes are usually fun chunks of story to work on.
And using yWriter, you can rearrange all those scenes to compose a compelling novel. I’d call it a Scrivener alternative that’s free to use.
But one downside is that it only works for Windows (at least, for now). Book Writing Software Cost: Free #4 – Evernote is a note-taking app. It’s a great way to keep track of your thoughts—like brainstorming ideas, outlining chapters, and jotting down inspiration when it strikes. The mobile app is particularly useful for capturing new ideas when they strike, since most people have their phone with them 24/7.
This is what it looks like on a mobile device. While Evernote has been around for a little while, they seem to always be expanding on their features, making it one of the best writing softwares out there. Here’s are some of the extended features Evernote offers: While you can use Evernote to write content—I’ve used it for writing blogs and other small sections of books—you wouldn’t want to use it as your main word processor. Its functionality is a bit too limited.
But as a way of keeping track of ideas, it’s a great find. Book Writing Software Cost: Free, but there is a cool upgrade for $5 a month that gets you #5 – Hemingway Editor The is a unique kind of writing tool. It’s a style checker that’s designed to help tighten up your prose and make your writing clear and bold. Simply paste your writing into the editor and scroll through. You’ll notice that the program highlights certain words & passages—like long, hard-to-read sentences, passive verbs, and phrases with simpler alternatives. It’s basically your own personal editor rolled into a writing software.
Here’s an example of what it looks like: (Yikes. Too bad Dickens didn’t have this app.) What I love about this tool is how easy it is to use. Everything is color-coded and super easy to understand, so you can see at a glance where your writing could use a little elbow grease. Book Writing Software Cost: Free, or you can purchase the desktop version for $19.99. #6 – Dropbox Reading this, you may be wondering: Dropbox?
How is that a writing tool? Trust me—it is! While it’s true that Dropbox isn’t a word processor like Scrivener or yWriter, it is a very helpful writing tool. Especially for writers who write on more than one computer, who need to collaborate with other writers or editors, or who want an easy way to back up their work. Here’s how it works: When you set up Dropbox and install it on your computer, it will create a new “Dropbox” folder on your machine.
Any files that you save in this folder will be automatically backed up to Dropbox’s servers in the cloud, which will be automatically downloaded to any other computers that are synced to that same Dropbox account. A lot of writers choose to save their book on Dropbox, so that it will be automatically backed up.
And as you can see, it looks the same as any other folder on your computer: Using this strategy, you can make it easier to share and collaborate on your files—even if you aren’t using Google Docs. Book Writing Software Cost: Free for a basic plan, or $9.99/month for extra storage. #7 – Open Office You may know of this software, you may not. Essentially, it’s a free version of a word processor much like Word or Pages. If you don’t have Word on your computer and can’t afford to buy it, this is a great alternative that’ll get the job done.
Here’s what this book writing software looks like: The capabilities are pretty limited with Open Office but if you really only need the basics and don’t want to spend any money, this is the perfect writing software for you. Book Writing Software Cost: Free #8 – PauseFor If you’re someone who needs incentive to stay off your phone (and actually write), this is a perfect writing software. Technically, it’s not for writing.
Is a productivity app designed to motivate you to stay off your phone. That means you can get more writing done by spending less time scrolling through Twitter or whatever your social medial of choice is. PauseFor is designed for YOU to set a time, and then not pick up your phone until that time is done. But what’s the incentive? The longer you stay off your phone and the more sessions you complete successfully, the more you’ll have to DONATE. That’s right. You can be a philanthropist AND a writer at the same time.
Simply set your time, don’t touch your phone, and collect your Kin. When you a certain amount, you get to choose where the donations go. Book Writing Software Cost: Free + the added benefit of feeling great about donating How Much Does Book Writing Software Programs Cost?
I would recommend not worrying too much about the cost of these programs. After all, dropping $100 or less on a program is not that big a deal if it is going to help improve your writing for years to come. That said, I know you work hard for your money—and you want to get the best deal you can!
Here is a breakdown of the most recent prices f or all of the tools in this article along with their comparative features. What’s Your Favorite Book Writing Software? Take some time to check out each of these tools if you aren’t already using them. Stay focused on crafting your next book and stick with the book writing software that gives you the best results in terms of saving you money, time, and frustration. Keep writing. Keep it simple. Best of all, enjoy the creative process!
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Now that you have these awesome tools at your disposal, what is your favorite writing tool? What best suits your needs as an author? Can you speed up the writing process with any particular tool? What to do Next Writing a book takes a lot more than discovering some helpful book writing software. Here’s what you can do right now to head in the right direction with your book. #1 Join your free training! The process of learning never stops when it comes to writing and publishing a book.
And just because you have a fancy piece of software doesn’t mean writing a book will come naturally. In fact, it hardly ever does.
#2 Try a few different options Don’t just pick one of these writing software options and be done with it. Sometimes you really need to try them out before you can determine which will fit your needs with your current project. Make some notes as you work through a few and be sure to put together a pros and cons list to ensure you’re choosing the best option to propel you forward on your writing journey. #3 Nail down your book information I know it might seem fun to get started once you have a super helpful writing platform to use, but you need to nail down your book idea first. Have you created your?
How does look? Without these two necessities, you won’t get very far – even with some beneficial writing software. Do you use one of these writing software programs?
Let us know how they are below! Scott Allan Scott Allan is a bestselling author who has a passion for teaching, building life skills, and inspiring others to take charge of their lives. Scott’s mission is to give people the strategies needed to design the life they want through choice. He believes that successful living is a series of small, consistent actions taken every day to build a thriving lifestyle with intentional purpose. By taking the necessary steps and eliminating unwanted distractions that keep you stuck, you are free to focus on the essentials. Scott currently lives In Japan where he resides full time, and is at work on several new writing projects. You can connect with Scott at scottallanauthor.com.
. 66 shares. Writing is a deeply human art. Whether it’s a WordPress blog post, news story, ad copy or even an or social media caption, writing requires personality and feeling that comes from your heart. But that’s no reason technology can’t play a role in helping make you a better writer.
To help, we put together a list of the eight best writing apps (that go beyond just spellcheck and word count) that will no matter what writing project you’re working on, whether you’re mind-mapping or getting copy ready for a new webpage.: Ambience is everything when it comes to a productive writing session. And that a moderate level of ambient noise is ideal for creative cognition. This free app, a white-noise-machine-meets-soundboard, lets you curate your own soundscape by combining any of 10 themed settings. (Also check out:, ): How can you be expected to craft a compelling narrative or tight, clean copy with social media on in the background? You can’t (at least without an incredible amount of willpower). Enter: Freedom, an app- and website-blocker that gives you the gift of focus. You can block specific apps or websites, or the entire Internet, for however much time you want.
Begin a block on the fly when the writing process strikes, or create a schedule that automatically initiates your blocks during the times you know you typically write. (Also check out:, ): Calmly is a simple distraction-free writing tool with an insanely easy-to-use interface that blocks out all the bells and whistles of a typical word processing interface and lets you zero in on just the words. Tons of keyboard shortcuts, markdown formatting and “focus mode” (highlighting only the paragraph you’re currently working on) makes it a fruitful note-taking and editing tool (and maybe one of the best apps out there!). (Also check out:, ): Confident with your ability to weave a compelling story, but sometimes shaky with subject-verb agreement or dangling modifiers? This free writing app scans your text for grammatical mistakes and not only prompts you to correct them, but explains why so you can learn for the future. (Also check out:, ): This wouldn’t be a roundup of writing apps without Scrivener.
This tool is like a digital three-ring-binder, gathering all of your notes, research and writing in one easily manageable place so you can move between your manuscript and reference materials with ease. Scrivener’s text editor is like a word processor on steroids, with easy-to-use formatting, annotation, style and footnote settings that save time and stress. You can even set writing targets for yourself and track your progress, and when you’re ready to share your writing project you can print using formatting automatically tailored to or else export to a wide variety of file formats like a PDF. (Also check out:, ): Do you ever wonder if something you wrote only sounds good in your head, but won’t quite resonate when someone else reads it? Try Readable.
It’s a text analyzer that and easy to understand using powerful readability algorithms that look for measures like keyword density, sentence length, syllable count and more. (Also check out: ): Draft is a streamlined word processing platform that takes the nightmare out of version control. If you’re collaborating with anyone on a piece of writing, be it a co-writer, an editor or just a friend or colleague who’s giving your work a sanity check, tools like Google Docs or Microsoft Word make versioning difficult. You can’t super easily accept individual changes, or refer to previous drafts that have since been edited over.
With Draft you can. Two other cool features: Hemingway Mode, a “write first, edit later” setting useful for rough drafts which temporarily turns off your ability to delete anything; and Ask a Professional, which lets you solicit edits from a staff of reviewers. (Also check out:, ): Writer’s block got you stymied?
Check out Writing Challenge, a writing app that kick-starts your creativity by prompting you with any of thousands of different story starters (example: “Begin with the sentence ‘The letter was from his father.’”). You can even set a timer and challenge yourself to write against the clock. (Also check out: ) Whether you’re on a mac or windows, or an android, iphone or ipad user, there’s an ios app or web app out there for you that is sure to improve your writing process and writing style in no time.
Next time you whip out your notepad or open up a document in Google drive or a web browser, take a look at some of these writing apps to ensure distraction free-writing.