Novel writing is a challenge. That's why choosing the right book writing software shouldn't be. To help make it easy, here are 10 tools to get you started!
Increasingly, those who dream of writing and publishing their first book have a dizzying amount of tech at their disposal. An abundance of online writing tools and apps can help you complete specific aspects of a book (or any multitude of writing projects).
Corkboard, mind mapping, and note taking software like Milanote, Evernote, MindMeister, and Temi help writers stay organized and inspired.
Word processing tools like Microsoft Word, Pages for Mac, and Google Docs are industry workhorses, handling the basics that writers need. And an increasing amount of free word processing options cater to specific needs, preferences, or writing styles.
Grammar checkers like Grammarly, ProWritingAid, and the Hemingway Editor help authors hone their writing and find their voice.
And self-publishing tools like BookBaby, Smashwords, and Kindle Direct Publishing make it easier for authors to publish their books or even connect with editors.
But some authors don’t have the desire or ability to conduct an entire orchestra of writing tools as part of their writing process. So we’ve put together a list of software tools that can each help you tackle multiple aspects of the book writing process.
This way, you can keep your literary tech stack simplified.
Book writing software offers a range of benefits to authors looking to streamline their writing process and enhance their productivity.
These tools are specifically designed to cater to the unique needs of writers, providing features such as organization tools, distraction-free writing environments, and formatting assistance.
Authors can create outlines, track their progress, and easily navigate between chapters, helping them stay focused and motivated throughout the writing process. Most software options also offer built-in grammar and spell-check features, saving authors time during the editing phase.
Source: Medium.datadriveninvestor.com
Jasper is an AI writing assistant trained by expert copywriters to generate content from scratch. It has 52+ writing templates, including a Long-form Assistant designed for writing long-form content like books.
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Pricing: Jasper offers several flexible pricing plans ranging from the $39/mo Creator plan to custom Business plans for an enterprise-level solution.
Content Repurposing
Using Jasper Chat, you can easily transform existing content into content for your next book! Simply provide a brief overview of your content for context, and then let Jasper Chat efficiently convert it into a chapter you can be proud of.
Brand Voice
Jasper’s Brand Voice feature is incredibly powerful for busy authors like yourself. You can create a custom Brand Voice by copy and pasting content, uploading a document or letting Jasper scan any website (yours or others’). Jasper will be able to match the tone and style of your content, making it highly effective for creating any kind of content—not just for writing books.
Instant Translation
Jasper has support for 30+ languages, including German, French and Spanish. This allows you to write books no matter who your audience is. With Jasper Chat, you can easily create books in different languages by using our translation feature.
yWriter is a solid example of how excellent free book writing software can be. Developed by prolific author and programmer Simon Haynes, yWriter users benefit from its accessible word-processing functionality. However, yWriter uniquely shines thanks to Haynes’ background in organizing and handling code.
Unlike other writing software and tools, scenes are emphasized over chapters. And yWriter users can easily break scenes down into manageable chunks, and reorganize them through drag and drop functionality as needed.
Snapshot backups also allow users to roll back their progress just as programmers can, meaning an author can access specific moments of their novel along any point of its development, from a few minutes before back to moments after the writing began.
Source: Pcmag.com
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Billed as an alternative to Microsoft Word for technical writers and those in academia, Mellel is a word processor exclusively available to macOS users.
Source: Mellel.com
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Once upon a time, in the not-too-distant-past, FastPencil was a standalone, cloud-based novel writing tool. But now this tool (still referred to as FastPencil) is bundled as part of the comprehensive book writing and publishing platform Opyrus.
While some users feel other products provide more writing-specific options for less of an investment, FastPencil may be worth a look simply due to the fact that it’s been catering to budding authors since 2008.
Source: Fastpencil.com
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Atticus is a hybrid—part word processor and part book formatting tool. A unique dashboard allows the author to set up the high-level details of their book.
You can then toggle back and forth between writing your book in a more traditional word processing format and using the dashboard to shape it as you bring it to life.
Source: indieauthormagazine.com
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bibisco aims to give authors a writing tool that can also support other critical stages of the book writing process, such as structuring characters, locations, and the story timeline.
Source: bibisco.com
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While Novel Factory has features to support authors of any experience level, newer authors may appreciate the features designed specifically for them.
For example, the Roadmap feature guides you step by step through the writing process, from laying out your premise through writing, editing, and ultimately publishing your finished novel.
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Scrivener is book writing software designed to handle long projects, in whatever order the author chooses.
Scrivener helps you integrate everything you write into a single, user-friendly outline. Doing so allows you to easily toggle back and forth from writing to manuscript views.
Source: Literatureandlatte.com
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Squibler bills itself as a writing program that gives authors an edge through its collaboration, project management, and publishing capabilities.
Source: Squibler.io
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While Squibler was designed around the idea of faster writing, Ulysses was created to provide a distraction-free writing environment.
Exclusive to Mac users, this markup-based editor offers feature parity across macOS and iOS, allowing writers to seamlessly shift their book writing efforts between laptop, iPad, and iPhone as needed.
Source: Blog.ulysses.app
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All the writing tools we’ve discussed so far are excellent for supporting the creative writing process, but none of them actually write for you. If you’d like a tool that isn’t afraid to work with you to reach your writing goals, try Jasper, an AI writing assistant that will change your entire writing process.
AI powered tools are excellent for writing books as they provide support for the creative writing process, making it easier to generate content.
Here are three ways Jasper can help you write your book:
Instead of brainstorming all your book’s chapters and facing the dreaded blank page alone, use the Jasper Blog Post Outline template. One of 52+ writing templates, it breaks down your subject matter in chunks you can tackle over the course of a chapter. Here’s an example:
Jasper’s Long-form Assistant was made for long-form content. It works with you to create content from scratch — even if it’s an entire book.
All you need to do is provide some information about your book and then it’ll write the first 100 or so words before passing the baton back to you. Then you write a few more words and it continues for you. If you need help figuring out the Long-form Assistant, check out the Jasper Jumpstart training.
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