A Round-up of Writing (and Layout) Tools

I haven’t written about writing tools for a while. I haven’t written about them all in one place. Here’s a round-up of tools that take me from first draft to publication-ready. (Note for all my International readers — these are all English language programs):

• Scrivener. This is the program I use to compose my writing. Think of it as a writing environment that organizes your work by chapters, allows a way to outline your work, take notes on it, set goals, and many other things. Even those people who compose using pen and paper will eventually have to transcribe their work on the computer, and this program is the one you want to use. Competitors in this function are programs like Storyist and online services such as Campfire. Skip those; use this full-featured program. You can find Scrivener here; they also have versions for your iOS gadgets.
• ProWritingAid. ProWritingAid will point out your misspellings, your poor comma usage, and much more. I have learned many writing habits over sixty years, some of which I didn’t know were bad habits. For example, I sometimes use too many adjectives, rely heavily on adverbs instead of the perfect verb, or write subjects and objects that don’t agree. All of those grammar rules I failed to absorb in grade school come back to haunt me in my writing. ProWritingAid has matured my writing these past couple years, and I don’t regret getting a lifetime membership. You can find ProWritingAid here.
• Atticus. Although you can use Atticus for composing your text, that’s not its strength unless you find Scrivener too complicated. Where Atticus shows its strength is in formatting for publication. You can import a Word document from Scrivener into Atticus, and give it proper page size, section breaks, and chapter titles. It takes a Word document and turns it into the look and feel of a proper book. You can find Atticus here.
• Photoshop. As an indie author, I design my book covers. I use either stock photos (and pay for them) or original pieces by my talented niece (I pay for those as well). I need to design these into a 5×8 book cover with a front cover, a side spine with book information, and a back cover with a blurb and author information. Adobe Photoshop does this very well. There is a bit of a learning curve, because Photoshop has so many features that are beyond my skill set. But it also does what I need to do. Photoshop is expensive, so maybe you’d be better off hiring someone for cover production, but that adds up after a while. Here’s the link to Photoshop.
• Amazon KDP. Publication platforms will depend on what publishing platform you wish your book to be on. I use Amazon KDP, which means I place my books on Amazon and occasionally other platforms. I find their interface pretty easy as long as I have done my due diligence on Atticus and Photoshop. The biggest challenge has always been tweaking my book cover to fit the number of pages/width of the book. Here’s a link to Amazon KDP.

Buying these at once can get expensive; I recommend prioritizing these and deciding based on your budget and needs. Scrivener only costs $60 US and KDP is free; the others are priced with annual fees and, often, lifetime purchases. In the US, these are eligible as work-related tax deductions if you are working to sell your books, so you save roughly 25% of your expenditure in taxes.

After publishing eight books (mostly the Kringle romances), I don’t know where I’d have gotten without these.