10 Apps I Used to Write My Book

I recently released my first book, I used a variety of apps to go from idea to print. I put together a series of apps to manage the development of the book. This is how I worked during the writing of my book.

1. Keynote — Great for organizing thoughts, laying out the structure for each chapter and creating drafts. These slides will also come in handy later if you give a talk on this material.
2. Byword for Mac — Byword is a simple text editor with very few distractions. There are only three text sizes and a few fonts. My favorite features are the fullscreen mode and the word count at the bottom.
3. Google Sheets — Writing a book can be a long and seemingly endless process. A simple spreadsheet that tracks your daily progress can go a long way. Tracking the total words written each day will provide you with some context and motivation. Then you can create a chart to show your progress.
4. Git — Tracking changes not only helps if you have to rollback, but it’s also a really great way to backup your project on an external site. Protip: Make each chapter it’s own text file for easier diffs and navigation.
5. OSX — I know a lot of people love to download screenshot software, but OSX’s built-in CMD+Shift+4 works perfectly. Images can be sent directly to a folder and named accordingly.
6. Preview — There are hundreds of apps for resizing photos and cropping photos. However, OSX’s built-in app gets the job done. CMD+K to crop, but I wish there was a similar keyboard shortcut for change image size.
7. Sublime Text — Once you have completed the first draft of the book, the real editing will begin. Sublime Text has a great built-in search function that can be used across multiple files. There are also great packages available for markup formats like LaTex and AsciiDoc.
8. Menu Timer — Keeping track of the time you have spent working is a great habit, even if you aren’t being paid by the hour. Combine the number of hours worked with the number of words written to calculate an average “pace”. This way you can estimate how much longer it will take you to finish the work.
9. Dropbox — If you don’t use dropbox already, I’m not sure why you are reading this, either way, sharing text files and PDFs couldn’t be easier.
10. Adobe Reader — I’m not a fan of Adobe Software and only use it when forced. In this case, the my editor recommended we use the Comments function in Adobe Reader. After downloading the Download Manager, then downloading Adobe Reader (Yes, this is really how it works in 2014). I found out the Comments function is very helpful, you can use different colors to strikeout, insert, rewrite, or append the document. Users can have conversations for each individual proposed change. Almost like a pull request on github, but with an Adobe bloatware spin. Lucky once you are done you can completely uninstall Adobe with this handy tool.

All of these apps are free or under $10. There is little to no barrier to entry. Anyone has the tools needed to write a book from start to finish. I was never limited by software. I never felt the need for an author-specific or writing-specific app. Byword is nice to have, but not required. Any text editor will do. The tools don’t make the product, you do.

What is your favorite Text Editor? What alternatives do you recommend to the apps above? @stevederico​ me on Twitter.

Originally published at blog.stevederico.com.