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Have you decided to start writing your book? Do you need book writing software?

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,. Ulysses - Pro Writing Software for Mac. I’m writing this article using Ulysses. It’s the app that, by far, best fits my needs. It’s great for writing longform content as well as keeping dozens of shorter articles organised. I know quite a few other writers who use Ulysses as well, and that’s the key.

Creative writing and the publishing process have changed forever. It doesn’t matter if you plan to take the route with a traditional publisher or if you want to self-publish your book.

Digital publishing, sometimes called e-publishing, is where everything starts and stops now for publishing books.

If you are ready to write your book, make sure you have the best writing software and tools to do the job.

In This ArticleHideWriting a book todayQuality writing countsWriting your bookThe best book writing software and programsScrivenerShaxpirWriting checkers and editingProWritingAidGrammarlyStart writing your book

Writing a book today

A pen and paper are great tools for note-taking, and a typewriter is romantic and nostalgic.

But today, you use electronic files from the beginning to the end of the writing and publishing process.

If you check your app store for free book writing software, you will find hundreds for Mac, PC, Android, and iPhone or iPad.

The only part of the process that hasn’t changed is that you need to have the time to write.

Indie authors are having success and competing with traditional publishing companies. Some are achieving bestselling author status.

You only need to take a quick look at the bestselling books on Amazon. Many self-published authors are in the top 10 for some genres. In particular, for ebooks and Kindle Unlimited readers.

If you are ready to start your book project, there are a lot of ways you can publish.

But before you start, make sure you have all the tools you will need to do the job.

Choosing the right writing software is the best way to write a book. They will help you stay organized and focused and help you to write a better book.

Quality writing counts

A lot of people have a great book idea.

Writing and publishing a book with today’s technology is easy. All you need is a great idea and the writing time to finish your book.

The reality of writing fiction books or nonfiction books is that only good writing and outstanding books stand a chance of selling.

If you are new to writing and electronic self-publishing, it is a good idea to practice your writing before you start your book project.

It is not that successful authors today need to be professional writers. But writing good books requires competent grammar and writing skills.

There are a lot of resources and tools available now for a new book writer to help you learn and improve your writing skills.

It might seem odd today to recommend that you read a book. But On Writing by Stephen King is still a great place to start for all new writers.

Writing your book

It starts with a few chapter titles. Then, once you’ve written between forty and eighty thousand words, you can say, “I wrote a book!”

Then the process of carefully preparing your manuscript for publishing begins. For most writers, it means finding an editor and a competent proofreader. It might also require the services of a book formatter as well.

All that is for later, though, because first, you have to write your book.

No one writes a book on the kitchen table with a pen and paper anymore. And the days of sitting down at a typewriter are long gone.

The tools that an author needs today are electronic and digital. Most are very easy to use. But as with anything new, you might have a short learning curve at first.

The two essentials for a book writer are a multi-layered word processor and editor designed specifically for writing a book or novel.

You also need a first-class spelling, grammar, and writing checker.

The best book writing software and programs

Word processors like Microsoft Word, Apple Pages, or Google Docs are excellent for writing letters, articles, and essays. But writing a book is a long and complicated process.

When you write a book, you need to work on individual parts of your story.

You will need to have notes or perhaps mind maps about your characters, events, and story timeline. This is much more than simple word processing can do.

At times, you might need to reorder scenes or even chapters or make changes to your plot.

Scrolling back and forward through one long text editor or word processor document is a painful process.

With a good tool, you can easily drag and drop your chapters or scenes into a different order.

The best and most productive way to write a book and stay focused is to use software that is made specifically for the purpose.

Here are some of the best book writing software and program suggestions for you.

All of them will help you in the writing process and, later, in publishing a quality book.

Scrivener

Scrivener is one of the most popular premium creative and book writing tools. For many authors, it is the best program to write a book.

It is feature-rich with all the writing tools an author needs. It is tailor-made for very long writing projects.

Scrivener has everything you need to write a book.

It has an outliner, corkboard, side by side viewing, word count targets, and a full-screen editor for distraction-free writing along with print, export, and publishing tools.

It has all the tools that a writer could ever need. About all that is missing are writing prompts and instant cures for writer’s block.

Scrivener offers a 30-day free trial period. But only days that you use the software are counted. If you use the software every second day, your free trial period will run for 60 days.

Scrivener is available for download for both Windows and Mac. There are also iOS apps for iPhone and iPad.

Shaxpir

Shaxpir is an online book writing program.

It comes with all the features you need to write a book.

But it has one significant advantage. You can use the program for free to get you started.

There is a premium version available on a monthly subscription basis. Your choice will depend on what you need.

Here is a quick look at the differences between the two choices.

You can find out more about Shaxpir in this quick one-minute video tour.

Other choices:

Writing checkers and editing

When you finish writing a book, you are going to need grammar software programs and editing tools. These will help you to improve your writing.

Your intense editing and proofreading will start after you finish. But you still want to make sure that what you write is as perfect as possible after each writing session.

The best way to do this is to use a premium writing checker to help you find ways to polish your writing style, grammar, and consistency.

There are many free online grammar checkers, such as the Hemingway Editor. But most are not suitable at all for working on a long document.

There are only two I use and would recommend for working on a manuscript. These are ProWritingAid and Grammarly.

ProWritingAid

ProWritingAid calls itself a personal writing coach, grammar guru, style editor, and writing mentor.

From my experience with using it, I can certainly say that it is not an exaggeration.

Most grammar checkers can find passive voice sentences, incorrect prepositions, and plurals.

But ProWritingAid goes so much deeper into analyzing long-form writing.

There are twenty-five different in-depth reports that will give you so many suggestions on improving your text.

You can read about all the features in our review of ProWritingAid.

It also has a very big advantage of being compatible with Scrivener.

There are a lot of free and premium grammar checkers. But ProWritingAid is the only one that has all the tools that are essential for authors.

There is a free version available for you to try.

But if you are serious about learning how to write a book, you will probably choose the reasonably priced premium version with all the tools you need.

Grammarly

Grammarly is, by far, the most popular online grammar checker.

It’s my second choice for authors, but you won’t go wrong. It is, though, better at helping correct online writing, such as for a blog post or social media entries.

I use it a lot. But only for short-form writing such as short stories and checking that what I write and post online is as accurate as possible. You can read my full review of Grammarly.

It works exceptionally well with the WordPress editor when you use the Chrome extension. For bloggers, it is almost always the best choice.

You don’t have a lot of time when you have a deadline to publish an article or blog post. So it’s always reassuring to have it on hand to help make sure that your text is error-free.

Again there are free and premium versions available.

Start writing your book

Yes, there is a lot of free writing software available online now to help you with many time-consuming tasks.

If you are serious about writing your book well, a small investment in the best book writing programs you can find is a small price to pay.

If you decide to use Scrivener and ProWritingAid together, you will have the best two tools available for the long, and enjoyable, task ahead of you.

All you need now is your brilliant book idea and the passion and energy to turn it into a fantastic story.

When asked about the best writing apps or software, I used to say, “Just use whatever you have and are comfortable with.” But recently I’ve been focused on upping my productivity and wordcount, so I’m testing everything to see if anything helps. Here’s a quick review of some of the things I think are cool, and what I actually ended up using.

NOTE: none of these will actually help you write a better book, unless they’re helping with a suggested outline or content. They can help you stay organized, and some may help edit or polish your writing, but they won’t improve the commercial value of your work.

What I’m looking for…

I just upgraded my writing tools and keyboards, so now I need a system for doing quick writing sprints for the rough draft, and adding them into my main software for organization and editing. Here are some of the features I want or am looking for, which won’t all be satisfied by one program:

• easily open and save files in dropbox, so I can switch devices easily or copy+paste into main file
• display word count as I type
• set project word count goals and deadlines
• keep track of long-term writing habits and data
• make it easy to rearrange, organize notes, and keep everything together
• distraction free writing

WRITING SOFTWARE

• Microsoft Word

Microsoft Word is fine in most cases, and I like it for organizing my outline and pulling the whole thing together… though it does freeze up and crash a lot when you have a large file.

For people who need more organization and to have everything in the same place, with mood boards, notes, character profiles etc – there are some great features in Scrivener… but it’s a better experience on Mac and a steeper learning curve than MS Word. I never got the hang of it so I don’t use it.

Great for making sure your writing is always saved and protected, and you can switch between devices easily; also good for cowriting or working with an editor.

The point of Ilys (pronounced “eye-less”) is to simplify and make it difficult to backspace of correct – you must keep writing forward and you can only see a few words at a time. I need more practice to get used to it, but I really like the idea of this for writing sprints and getting the first draft done.

There are other online writing apps and programs, and I almost referred to a couple here, but the truth is most don’t have enough advanced features to make them worth using. However, I recently met the founder of Shaxpir and saw a demonstration, and it looks awesome… I signed up so I could make this video.

Basically, I don’t need a program to add all my content.

What I want is a program where I can add/organize my content into a book that ALSO offers some advanced tracking, so I can see long-term progress. Something that could help with the editing, or improving my writing, would be really valuable too. Shaxpir is beautifully designed and has some really impressive unexpected features.

(video coming soon)

I’ve only shared my favorites, but if you need more options here’s a bigger list of writing software and apps.

However, I’m actually not going to be doing my writing in any of these programs, because I’ve found I can boost my wordcount during writing sprints when I’m using a bluetooth keyboard and an iphone or ipad. So what I need is a writing app that helps me focus and boost wordcount without distraction.

WRITING APPS

What Mac Program Is The Best For Writing A Booklet

• iA Writer (WINNER) – the focus mode + display word count makes this awesome.
• ByWord
• Dropbox
• Wattpad

Tracking apps:

These let you record typing sessions, add word counts, set goals, and track progress. I’d rather have something simple I can use on my Desktop though (I’m hoping Shaxpir has this ability, will confirm soon). The main thing is you want something you can actually use… even a calendar where you can draw an X and record daily word count would work, though I really want something that can make pretty graphs and bars.

• Wordly
• Wordkeeper
• 5000 WPH

PRODUCTIVITY SOFTWARE

The other big missing feature is accountability and motivation; this can be social – get some friends to do writing sprints with you, or even just a daily check in with word count. Some of these apps match you up with partners (focusmate) or gamify writing to give you long term rewards (4thwords).

EDITING & FORMATTING SOFTWARE

Once you’ve FINISHED the rough draft, you’ll want to get started editing it. Here are some tools that help.

After your editing is done, you can Vellum to format or download my book formatting templates.

OUTLINING / CRAFT

What Mac Program Is The Best For Writing A Book Cover

This should really have been earlier, but these apps may help you organize your outline. NovelCreator is based on the Marshall Plan, which helped me when I was figuring out plotting. The Novel Factor guides you towards five key story elements: “character, situation, objective, opponent, disaster” (for more about basic story, read this).

What Mac Program Is The Best For Writing A Books

• The Novel Factory

SELL MORE BOOKS (without spam).

What Mac Program Is The Best For Writing A Book Underlined