- Best Software To Write A Book Mac
- Best Software To Write A Novel Mac Download
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- Novel Writing Software Mac Free
Are you looking forward to starting your next novel? Or is it your first novel? Well whatever it is, you must get hold of a novel writing software now to ease the text organization, editing and formatting process for you. Which one to go for?
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Well, no need to search any further as here we have come up with a great list of a number of best novel writing software programs that would be really handy for you.
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Scrivener is certainly one of the best Mac apps out there for creating novel manuscripts (amongst other things). Other options include Mellel- available for £27.49/$38.99 - and which is favoured by many for writing long and complicated documents, and StoryMill (which retails for £34.99/$49.99). Both are designed with authors in mind,. Nov 01, 2015 Storyist (Mac, $59; iOS, $14.99) is nipping at the heels of Scrivener, focusing on fiction writers with specialized tools to track the plot, settings, and characters of your novel. On the desktop.
Best Novel Writing Software. Novel writing has its own unique joys and challenges, as I learned from top authors like James Patterson and Margaret Atwood, from outlining to character development. The book writing software below were specifically designed to help fiction authors create their next masterpiece. Mar 05, 2020 Write for Mac ($9.99) resembles Ulysses even more closely. The app doesn’t offer a trial version, so the screenshot below is from the developer’s website. But although I haven’t used the Mac version, I am familiar with the iPad version, having used it for a while when it was first released. Jan 30, 2019 Best eBook Creator Software: Make and Publish Books. After researching and signing up for eBook creator services, we think the Atavist platform is the best option, and it is versatile enough to help you with most of your web-publishing needs. Since it isn’t exclusively an eBook creator, it can also help you publish photobooks and magazines. Mac Software Features. How to write a novel: 6 writing apps & inspiration apps. Read on to find out how to write a novel using your Mac, iPad or iPhone (plus a splash of imagination too of course). Bad news/good news: writing a book will always be hard, and the best piece of writing software in the world won’t write your book for you. But the good news is there is book writing software that can make the process a little easier. In this post, we will cover the ten best pieces of software for writing a book and look at the pros and cons of each.
The software is especially designed for creative writers and novelists and comes with amazing functional features. It organizes your work the way which suits you, helps with plot outlines, character summaries, scans the work for the overused words & phrases- and would also enable you to work multiple novels simultaneously.
WriteRoom
The software is claimed to offer distraction-free environment for writing. You will get a host of amazing text formatting features here with ribbons, toolbars, dialogs etc. You can have color-coordinated heading fonts, customized page margins & line spacing, multiple columns and the software program also helps you to draw pictures.
yWriter
This is another great tool for the novelists in the sense it enables them to keep tab on the work that has been done so that they can easily connect the dots later. The world processor program breaks the manuscript into scenes & chapters so that you can have an effective track of your work.
Ulysses
Ulysses is one of the most sought after novel writing software programs today but it also caters to any type of writers. The software can transform the text into stunning eBooks, PDFs and Word documents- properly styled & formatted. It will even export the works into HTML format so that it can be used readily over the web.
WriteRight
Quite literally, the novel software is here to ensure that you are writing it right. This is a text editor software packed with synonyms, antonyms, phraseology & additionally perked with Markdown. The software boasts a robust grammar engine that will recognize the conjugated words, suggest synonyms and in short- will keep your grammar right.
StoryMill
Best Software To Write A Book Mac
StoryMill assures a distraction-free writing environ for writers and also an organized work so that you don’t get lost in midway. It can even set your writing goals everyday & will monitor it with its Progress Meter. Another great bit about this novel writing software is that it will identify the overused words in your writing.
DEVONthink
The list would be incomplete without the mention of this professional novel writing software program. The program is equipped to save all the text documents, keeps everything organized & will also recall them as you need them suddenly to connect with your latest documents. It is available in a wide range of versions to choose from.
Novel Writing Software for Various Platforms
This is to note here today you have a versatile range of novel writing software applications for various platforms. Your chosen one should be compatible with your system’s OS as otherwise it won’t work for you. Not every such software applications would work for all operating systems as there are some software applications that only work for specific OS.
Free Windows Novel Writing Software – Focus Writer
If you are looking for a good free Windows novel writing software, FocusWriter (https://www.downloadcloud.com/out/6425) would be a great thing for you. The software helps you to stay focus with your writing by removing all distractions through hiding apps, customizing the appearance of text on the screen & through keeping tab on the progress.
Free Android Novel Writing Software – JotterPad
If you are on the lookout of a standard free Android novel writing software, JotterPad would be a nice option. Made for creative writers, the software comes with neat typing interface and helps with distraction-free writing, in-built English dictionary, keyboard shortcuts, extended keyboard, phrase finding, Word & character count, undo and redo etc.
Free Mac Novel Writing Software – Jer’s Novel Writer
When you are looking for free Mac novel writing software, mention may be made of Jer’s Novel Writer . This popular word processor comes with several features to support creative writers – such as automatic outline, margin notes, separate formatting features for screen and print, bookmarks, full-screen mode, can keep tab on the story issues & ideas and so on.
Most Popular Novel Writing Software for 2016 – Scrivener
Scrivener has got everything a writer would need to structure, write & edit long documents. It allows you to easily navigate in between various sections of the manuscript easily, break the text into large or small pieces as you wish & restructure the draft simply. In simple words, it enables you to keep everything in order.
When it comes to the most popular novel writing software for 2016, Scrivener is one of the most recommended names. The powerful software stays with you from the start and will help with – outlining & structuring of ideas, storyboarding the manuscript with virtual corkboard, help with keywords and will also help with many editing functions.
What is a Novel Writing Software?
A novel writing software is a software program that will help you to write your novel. No, it won’t help you with the creative thinking but would aid in the overall process of writing and organizing it. A good novel writing software would assist you in organizing the scenes & chapters, help you with the formatting and editing tasks. Some of the most advanced ones help you to set a daily goal of writing and have even got tools to monitor your progress. Many of them assure a distraction-free environment so that you can have your 100 percent focus on writing.
How to Install Novel Writing Software
To install novel writing software, you would simply have to download it first from the download link it shows. Check out beforehand the novel writing software’s compatibility with system’s operating system before you download. Then, as you download it, you will get the installation link followed by the needed installation instructions.
Benefits of a Novel Writing Software
Writing a novel is always a huge deal. There is the pressure to think about a creative storyline, create fitting characters and sync the chapters. Apart from the creative process, you have the burden of writing it which can get really messy, especially when it’s a long novel.
But the major benefit of novel writing software is that it will work to keep your document, chapters, and scenes organized in order so that you are never lost midway while compiling a long 600-page novel. These software programs will keep track of your work, help with editing & grammar and proper formatting to ensure an aesthetically pleasing text in proper order.
The importance of the novel writing software lies in the fact that it brings an order in your work making the entire project management way easier and simpler for you. These programs often speak of a user-friendly interface and anybody, with any level of computing knowledge can use it.
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Writing a book is hard. I’ve written seven books and at some point during each one I had the thought, “There has to be a tool, a piece of book writing software, that would make this easier.”
Bad news/good news: writing a book will always be hard, and the best piece of writing software in the world won’t write your book for you. But the good news is there is book writing software that can make the process a little easier.
In this post, we will cover the ten best pieces of software for writing a book and look at the pros and cons of each.
Click the links below to get our review on the best writing software.
Best Writing Software: Contents
Worst Pieces of Software for Writing a Book
First, though, let’s cover software you should avoid, at least while you’re writing a book:
- Video Games. Especially World of Warcraft (always always always!) but also Solitaire, Sudoku, Angry Birds, and, for me right now, Star Wars Galaxy of Heroes.
- Facebook, Twitter, and Other Social Media Software. Do I really need to say more? Fortunately there’s a piece of book writing software for avoiding this very distracting software (see Freedom below).
- Other Productive Software Not Directly Associated With Your Writing. Yes, it’s good to reconcile your bank account on Quickbooks or make sure you’re up to date on your calendar app, but responsible, well-meaning work can easily be an excuse for a quick distraction that turns into a major distraction from writing your book.
Set aside time for your writing every day and then stay focused!
If you need a game, make writing your daily word count your game.
If you want more “likes” on social media, imagine how great getting five-star reviews on your book will be.
If you need to check your bank balance several times a day, think about what your bank balance will be when you stop checking it constantly, finish your book, and become a successful author.
The 10 Best Pieces of Book Writing Software
No piece of writing software will write your book for you, but these ten will help. Let’s look at the pros and cons of each.
1. Scrivener (Word Processor)
Scrivener is the premier book writing software. It is made 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 let you create word count goals and then track your progress daily. Its composition mode can help you stay focused by removing all the clutter. Plus, it allows you to format for publishing (e.g. on Amazon or Barnes & Noble).
There are some problems with Scrivener. Formatting is more complicated than it needs to be and collaborating isn’t easy, meaning it loses its effectiveness as soon as you bring on an editor. But it more than makes up for that by being so helpful in the early stages of the writing process.
In fact, we believe in Scrivener so much, we published a book about how creative writers can write more, faster using it. It’s called Scrivener Superpowers. If you’re using Scrivener or want to save yourself time as you learn how to use it for your creative writing, you can get Scrivener Superpowers here. The next edition comes out on Tuesday!
Cost: $49 for Mac, $45 for Windows
You can get a copy of Scrivener here, or learn more about how to use the software with one of these resources:
- Scrivener Superpowers by M.G. Herron
2. Google Docs (Word Processor)
While Scrivener is the best book writing software, once you get to editing and getting feedback, it begins to fall short.
That’s why Google Docs has become my second go-to piece of book writing software. It’s free, very easy to use, and requires no backups since everything is in the cloud.
Best of all are its collaboration abilities, which allow you to invite your editor to the document and then watch as he or she makes changes, tracked in suggestion mode, and leave comments on your story (see screenshot below).
Cost: Free!
3. Google Sheets (Spreadsheet)
If you’d told 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.
But now, as I’m finishing my twelth book, I realize that I’m using spreadsheets almost daily.
Spreadsheets allow you to get a sense of the elements of your book at a glance, and when you’re working on a 300-page document, distilling it down to useable information becomes very necessary.
You might use spreadsheets for:
- Character tracking
- Scene lists
- Outlines
Google Sheets is perfect for this because it’s free and you can quickly share your documents with your writing partners, editors, or beta readers to get feedback. Microsoft Excel is another great option, but for writers, I suggest Google Sheets.
Cost: Free!
4. Vellum (Book Formatting/Word Processor)
If you want to turn your book into an eBook, it’s not that hard. Scrivener, Word, Pages, they all can make eBooks. But that doesn’t mean they’ll look good. In fact, it takes a lot of skill and effort to make an eBook look good on any of those word processors. That’s why I love Vellum so much.
Vellum makes beautiful eBooks.
Vellum picks up where Scrivener, Word, and Pages leave off, giving you a tool to make great looking eBooks every time.
The most important part of this is the previewer (see the image below), which lets you see how each formatting change or book edit you make will appear on Kindle, Fire, iPhone, Nook, and other eReaders.
It also has stripped-down, option-based formatting, which is perfect for designing eBooks.
I really love this app!
UPDATE: Vellum recently expanded into formatting for paperback books! I haven’t tried it yet but it looks awesome!
Cost: $199 for eBook generation, $249 for Paperback Formatting
5. Freedom (Productivity App)
One question writers always ask me is, “How can I stay focused enough to finish what I write?”
I have too many thoughts on this for this article, but as 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 can also schedule recurring sessions, so that at a scheduled time (e.g. Mondays from 6 am to 10 am), you won’t be able to access the sites on your blocklist, even if you try.
There are other apps like this that we’ve written about before, notably Self-Control for Mac and StayFocused for Windows. But Freedom goes further, allowing you to block sites on both your computer and your phone, and enabling recurring sessions.
You can learn more about how writers can get the most out of Freedom on our review here.
Cost: $29 / year for Pro version, which I use and recommend (Free trial available)
6. Microsoft Word (Word Processor)
Again: no piece of book writing software is going to write your book for you. If you’re looking for the next “shiny new toy” to help you write your book, it might be an excuse to avoid doing the hard work of writing.
Most of us learned how to use computers by using Microsoft Word, or a program like it. Word gets the job done. Sure, Scrivener is a little better for books, but I wrote my first book on Word and it’s fine.
Best Software To Write A Novel Mac Download
I wrote a long review of the pros and cons of using Word to write books—the main problem is that as your document grows, it becomes more and more difficult to work with, whereas with Scrivener, it becomes easier—but the point is, if Word is what you have, don’t let that stop you from finishing your book.
As Jeff Elkins said in his review of Word, “If you aren’t already putting in the hard work to be the kind of writer you want to be, it doesn’t matter what new writing software you invest in. It is not going to help.”
Cost: $69 / year from Amazon (includes Excel, Powerpoint, Outlook, and other Microsoft software)
7. Ulysses (Word Processor)
When I’m writing for a long time, I like to get up and go for a walk. Sometimes, I wish I could continue writing while I walk. Other times, I come up with an idea while I’m walking, type it up on my phone, and then want to easily move what I wrote to my laptop without having to go through the hassle of emailing it back and forth to myself.
That’s where Ulysses comes in.
Ulysses is a word processor for Mac that allows you to sync between all your devices, so you have what you need wherever you are. Scrivener recently released their iOS app which allows you to do this as well, but the process is clunky and requires you to purchase both the desktop and iOS apps. Ulysses’ sync makes the process much more seamless.
Like Scrivener, it has a binder-like sidebar that allows you to move documents around. Ulysses is not designed specifically for books so it takes a little configuring to make it work for you, but once you have it set up the way you want it’s very intuitive.
And while I hate Markdown, I actually like the paired-down formatting options Ulysses gives. Overall, I’m not going to convert from Scrivener to Ulysses any time soon, but I think it’s a great option for most writers.
Cost: $45
8. Microsoft Excel (Spreadsheets)
As Jeff Elkins says in his review of Microsoft Excel, it’s great, but “it’s a little like bringing a bazooka to a knife fight. You will need only a small fraction of its capability.”
If you have Excel and love it, great. Otherwise, use Google Sheets, especially if you’re sharing your sheet with a collaborator or editor.
Cost: $69 / year from Amazon (includes Word, Powerpoint, Outlook, and other Microsoft software)
9. ProWritingAid (Grammar/Spell Check)
Can book writing software replace an editor?
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Definitely not. But if you ask Alice Sudlow, our in-house editor, she’s tell you, “If you don’t have access to an editor (or if you do, but you don’t want to hire them to edit your emails or Facebook posts), grammar checking software like ProWritingAid is an accessible, affordable alternative.
If you struggle with grammar, sentence structure, spelling, or even writing style, ProwritingAid can help. It goes far beyond your built-in spell-check.
You should still learn grammar skills, but ProWritingAid can help you start to see the patterns and grow as a writer.
There’s a free version that’s very good. It can even be installed into your browser or Word processor, so you can check your grammar wherever you write. The paid version, just $60 a year (less than half of what Grammarly costs), gives you additional support on sentence structure, style, and vocabulary.
Learn more about how writers can get the most out of ProWritingAid here.
Cost: Free! (Premium version is $60 / year)
10. Hemingway App (Grammar/Style Checker)
Most writers think their sentences are easier to read than they are. You think you’re coming across clearly, that your writing makes sense, but then someone reads it and comes away with something totally different.
Hemingway App helps with that.
Hemingway App is a free website that checks readability. You can copy and paste your writing into the website’s input box. Then it will grade your writing based on your used of adverbs, passive voice, and sentences as units.
Hemingway App is useful, but even the best book writing software can’t replace a good editor.
Cost: Free!
The 7 Tools Every Writer Needs
Every professional has a set of tools at their disposal that not only makes their job possible, but makes them better at doing it. Writing is no different, and while the right software is important, it’s just one of the many tools you need as a writer.
That’s why we published a free 22-page eBook, 7 Tools to Help You Write a Novel. In this short guide, we’ll cover some of the basic tools that form the foundation of a writing life.
You can download it for free here. Enjoy!
The Most Essential Book Writing Software
Imagine it’s three thousand years ago. You’re sitting around a campfire with some of your family and friends, tired from the day’s work. You begin to tell a story. It’s one you’ve told before, told a hundred times. You can see faces around the fire, the children with their eyes wide, the men and women who have heard the story before but still enjoy it because it brings meaning to their lives.
Storytellers—writers—have existed since the beginning of humanity. They didn’t always have book writing software. They didn’t have the printing press or the internet. They didn’t always even have the alphabet to write their stories down.
Instead, storytellers had their imaginations, their voices, and a rapt audience.
You don’t need book writing software to write a great story. Book writing software can make the process a little faster or easier, but the truth is great stories will always exist, no matter what kind of software we have.
The only three things essential to writing a great book:
- Your imagination
- Your words
- A desire to tell your story
That’s all you need. Do you want to write your book? If you do, then do it. Write it. Nothing is stopping you except you. So go get writing.
What pieces of book writing software do you use? Let us know in the comments.
PRACTICE
The world is full of powerful software to help you write your book. In the end, though, all these tools are just that—tools. The stories you imagine and your discipline to put the words on the page are far more important.
So for this practice, set aside all the fancy software. Eliminate all the bells and whistles and open up your computer’s native text editor (TextEdit for Mac or Notepad for Windows). Take fifteen minutes to write without any distractions. Continue your work in progress, or start a new story based on this prompt:
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Novel Writing Software Mac Free
A student discovers one of their teachers is not what they appear to be.
When you’re done, share your writing practice in the comments. And if you share, be sure to leave feedback for your fellow writers!