12 Online Writing Tools To Help You Write Your Book & Publish It.

Okay, so the idea hits you that you have a book inside you, that you could write a book, that you have a story to tell. And the story will not let you go until you tell it, and you want to write it.

You are fired up a bit about it. You are inspired. You hold it in your head for a while, and days go by. Now, you are wondering what to do about it. But you don’t take action. You say maybe later…

Now dust is beginning to collect on the surface of your drive and your ideas for the book. Your inspiration is waning slowly.

But you know that life happens, and you could end up not writing it at all — the book stays silent inside you forever.

But what if you took action right away when the idea hit you?

After publishing my first book and a free eBook (that I wrote in 10 days), I know how vital a sense of urgency is to get it done. Don’t wait.

Founders of Basecamp, the project management software, put it perfectly in their book Rework:

If you want to do something, you’ve got to do it now. You can’t put it on a shelf and wait two months to get around to it. You can’t say you’ll do it later. Later, you won’t be pumped about it anymore…Inspiration is a now thing, if it grabs you, grab it right back and put it to work — Jason Fried & David Heinemeier Hansson

Never forget the saying: Inspiration is perishable.

To help you put your inspiration to work and bring your book to life, here are a few tools to help you write that book!

To actually write your book:

1. Scrivener: The king of all writing software that authors like Neil Strauss and Tim Ferriss use. Though it could be complex, it has some cool features like their corkboard feature which ‘storyboards’ the organization of the contents of your book and makes logical sense of it all. I’m new to this one, but I have it downloaded onto my computer.

5. Ibooks Author: The beloved writing software that mac owners use. I don’t know much about it ( because I use a PC), but have heard good things about it from people I respect like Nathan Barry, founder of Convert Kit. If you have a mac, give it a shot.

6. Leanpub.com: I also recently came across Leanpub through an article by Tracy Osborn. Leanpub combines 2 important things in publishing — a writing software (publishing workflow) and a storefront for your book.

You can start writing your book — in plain text — in Leanpub, and with one click offer it for sale to your readers all over the world, and they can read it on their computer tablet, phone, or ebook reader. You can create your book in PDF, EPUB, and MOBI in one click .

7. Draft: Created by the CEO of highrise, Nathan Kontny, Draftin is another simple writing interface that many love.

To edit your writing:

4. Grammarly: An online editing software that beats even spellcheck. I use it on my computer. Grammarly has a paid version but there’s a free version that comes as a Chrome browser extension and another one that’s a free integration with for Microsoft Word. Take a look.

To share sample chapters leading up to launch:

1. Medium.com: Medium gives you access to a writing community that will give you feedback on your samples and possibly suggest ways to improve as they critique your work. You can also share your sample on Facebook, Twitter, or copy and paste the link to places like LinkedIn to get feedback.
2. LinkedIn Pulse: Again, this is an outlet that all LinkedIn users have to share their thoughts and ideas. Feel free to share your samples here and invite readers to sign up for updates to your book towards the end of your sample. For those who like your writing, they’d be happy to stay in touch as you build the whole book.
3. Facebook Writing Groups: There are countless writing groups on Facebook who welcome new writers. You only have to find a writing group that favors the general theme of your book and join. Within this group you can chip in by giving feedback to other writers in the group — in a sense contribute first, and then share your samples, too. And needless to say, you own timeline is a valuable place to share your sample chapters so your friends know what you are working on and can support you.

To collect emails and build an audience leading up to the launch of your book:

1. Upscribe — One thing about Upscribe, you can only use it on medium.com. But if you do a lot of your writing on medium, and have a lot of readers and followers, they give you a free link that you insert/embed into medium’s writing page, click enter, and then it instantly becomes an email collector that your readers can submit their emails to, and you can see all the signups in your back office on their website. Like most tools online, there’s a paid version and a free version.
2. Launchrock: a launch pad to gather emails and start your thing. More than books, Launchrock is for all kinds of upcoming products — retail, Saas, mobile apps, and more.

To find free photos to use for illustrations & book covers

1. Unsplash: Check out Unsplash for beautiful high resolution pictures that are royalty free and can be used by anyone for whatever.

2. Deathtothestockphoto: Death to stock is a site started by Dave and Allie to help the creative community. For your email, they send you free photos every month. Though they do have a subscription tier, the basic free tier should work out just fine.

Bonus tool:

Pay What You Want: This tool is only available with Gumroad. In the lead up to your launch date, you can upload a mini-version of your book (a PDF will work) to Gumroad’s servers and get a dedicated page that comes with it. But what’s nice about Gumroad, you can offer you book for the unique price of “Pay What You Want.”

Yes, your readers are invited to pay whatever they want for your book, from $0 and up. The price is set at “0+” and then buyers get to decide. Here’s mine for example. But since you will get to describe the contents of the book in the description section, fair minded people will pay something for it, since paying requires leaving their email address to receive the download link, they can subscribe to your work. And even for those who don’t, or simply pay “$0” for it, they will leave their email as well, and all that only goes to build your audience. It’s a win-win, plus helping to validate the idea behind your book. Give it a shot.

Though most people may not these book outlets already, let me share them anyway: Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Smashwords, Bookbaby, Ingramspark, Kobo, Booksamillion, Noise Trade, and Clickbank, are all places you can upload your book for sale and get paid.

Closing thought

Again, let’s not only talk about things having an expiry date when we talk about vegetable, fresh fruit, or milk. Our own inspiration has an expiry date. Write that book now!