In the past couple of years, I’ve sort of become a one-stop shop for producing books. I write them. I do the covers. I format them. I create my own promotional social media graphics. The only thing I outsource these days is editing, and that is an expense I’ll continue to pay for because I have no confidence in my own ability to edit myself properly, plus I have an editor who has been with me for ten books so far who gets my style and does a really good job.
So, today I thought I would talk about the tools I use to plan, write, format, and create covers for my books. I don’t use anything super obscure, and this is a mix of analog and digital tools. Also, I use a Windows PC. I’m sure it would be an entirely different set of tools if I were on MAC, but I will never be able to afford that. It is what it is.
The Planning Stage – Moleskine notebooks, post-its, white board
In the past I have used digital tools for this, such as Plottr. But I could never find anything I could customize in the exact way I wanted to, so in recent years I have gone back to the old-school tools. I tend to brainstorm in moleskin notebooks. I jot down thoughts and plot points and character summaries in a completely unorganized way. Sometimes I assemble these in Notion to make story bibles, but mostly I leave them where they are and refer to them when I need to.
Once I have a pretty solid idea of what I am doing, I take those plot points and write them out on 4×4 lined post-it notes, which I then assemble into a plot map on my huge white board, color coded by plot thread. Then, while I am writing, when I get to each plot point, I rip down its post-it. This gives me a great physical marker of progress that I find very motivating. And this is how I plan and get through a draft. The planning tools are mostly analog, which tickle my creative brain in a way that digital tools don’t always do.
First Draft Stage – Scrivener
I’d heard for years about how great scrivener was as a tool for novelists. It sounded interesting, but was only for Mac computers, so that was irrelevant to me. A few years ago, they released a windows version, but I was committed to still using MS Word, so I didn’t think much of it. Eventually, however I tried a demo, and I really liked how it arranged your book in chapters for you, but the thing that really sold me was the ability to set Project and Session Word Count targets. This really hit the bullseye in how my brain works, so I went ahead and purchased the app and have used it exclusively for first drafts ever since. The good news is it was a one-time purchase of $49, which is really cheap for something I get so much use out of. It has a lot of other capabilities too. You can make a directory for your research material and outlining and it will keep it there a click away. I’ve done this with the Ascension Apocalypse books (the world building not the outlining) and it’s been helpful. It does have so many bells and whistles that figuring out how to use all of them, or if you even want to, can be a challenge, but there are numerous tutorials on YouTube as well as Facebook groups. It can do just about anything you want it to do when it comes to writing a book-length manuscript, though I primarily use it for worldbuilding notes and First Draft composition.
Editing Stage – MS Word
I could edit in Scrivener and be fine, but I’m more used to the tools in MS Word, so once I complete a first draft in Scrivener, I compile it into a .docx and make a cohesively formatted draft that I then print out and do a pass with a pen and paper. Once this is done, I put the edits into the document and send it to my editor. That’s primarily why I’m still using MS Word, because it’s what my editor uses and it’s easier to send editing passes back and forth in the same software, especially sharing things like comments and tracking changes between us. I don’t usually use the built in editor in Word for fiction because its not built for that really and marks things incorrect that are actually correct. I do use it for blog posts and other nonfiction, but we’re talking about the books here. It is also easier to format the word document for the final formatting software I use than it would be in Scrivener, so Word remains a necessary part of my process.
Covers – Photoshop, Illustrator, Firefly, Leonardo, Adobe Stock
Since getting my certificate in digital art and design, I have designed my own covers, and I use a mix of tools to do that. Any art created by me usually starts out in Adobe Illustrator, though I’m not super good at digital sketching yet. I also use stock and generative elements to find and/or create images that I then combine into a cohesive whole in photoshop, adding my own special effects and text. I use stock whenever possible, mostly from adobe stock, but for things I absolutely can’t find any other way, I generate them either in Leonardo and/or Adobe Firefly. Those stock and generated images are then heavily modified and adjusted in Photoshop, which I use to build both the eBook and paperback covers. Every cover I make is the result of my own vision, choices, and craftsmanship — the tools just help me bring it to life.
eBook and Paperback Formatting – Atticus
Once I have the final edit back from my editor, and I’ve accepted and approved it, it’s time to format the book for actual publication. Vellum is the gold standard for this, but so far it is only available on mac, so I use the next best thing, which is Atticus. Atticus can also be used to draft and edit and all steps of the process, but I find its suite of tools for composition is less powerful than Scrivener and Word, so it’s my final stage in making the book real. It has a variety of attractive formatting templates and is infinitely customizable. I usually just go with a preexisting style and that has served me well. It easily produces eBook Epub formats and paperbacks in pdf. Theres a little bit of a learning curve to making sure your word document is properly formatted so it converts seamlessly into the Atticus document with all chapters and headings intact, but it’s not hard to fix it when things go wrong. It previews everything for you in different templates with one click so you can test out a variety of options. You can do all of this in Scrivener and MS Word, but it’s a lot harder. Atticus really makes it simple. I also haven’t had any format errors upon uploading to the retailers since I started using Atticus, which was not the case before. Atticus is not a subscription. It is a one-time purchase price of (at the time) $147, which ends up paying for itself within a couple of books if you don’t have to pay for an outside formatter.
So, that’s my workflow, from planning through writing through the actual production of the book. I recommend all these tools. They’ve saved me a lot of time and hassle in publishing ten books in the past four years.