Write Easier, Write Faster, Write Better, Part 2

I hope you checked out Rev from yesterday’s article. Today, I want to help you organize your WIP (work-in-progress). Manuscripts can range from 15,000 to 80,000 words in a nonfiction project, usually landing in the 40,000-60,000 word range.

In book form, everything is organized, easy to find, read, and review.

Putting it all together in book form can be a beast! Scrolling through hundreds of pages of content in a WIP can be confusing and overwhelming, even if (especially if!) it is your work.

While I’ve refined my own process after many years of writing books, there are a few standouts and tried-and-true options.

Let me first say that if you are easily frustrated using new systems or processes (that’s me! Party of one!), you’ll need to build in a few hours to learn what you’re going to use so you aren’t tempted to throw the baby out with the bathwater.

Here are the top 3 resources I recommend for writing your book:

1. Keep it simple, and use Microsoft Word. You already know how to use it, and if you work within a template (I provide mine in Publishing Ph.D.), you’ll find writing your book is fairly straight-forward and simple.
2. Evernote comes in a close second. The aforementioned book I’m writing is housed in Evernote—I created my outline, made a list of businesses to interview, keep contact information, and transcriptions all in different subfolders of the main folder. You can email documents to yourself in Evernote, create tags and all sorts of other goodness to stay organized (including importing a template). The great news is it is available on all of your devices…so you, like me, can leave your computer at home and still have access to everything you need. I suggest the book Master Evernote by my co-author Steve Scott (The Miracle Morning for Writers) to fully understand the power of this tool.
3. Last but definitely not least is Scrivener, the writer software by writers for writers. You’ll want to get the Course, Learn Scrivener Fast, and take it. You’ll want to budget several hours to get comfortable with it, and it might still leave you frustrated in some moments. However, Scrivener is the most-used software by writers of all kinds all around the world, and you just might love it, too!

Hopefully one of these options has provided hope. I'll be back tomorrow with another tip!

To Your Success! Honoree Corder | [email protected] | HonoreeCorder.com

If you'd like to schedule a Discovery Call to see how I can help bring your book into the world, go here. If you want more in-depth help on publishing your book, grab my comprehensive Course that takes you from pen to published: Publishing Ph.D. To receive this newsletter in your inbox, please go here. Want to review my previous newsletters? Click here to view my newsletter feed!