• Scrivener—this is a popular writing program that allows you to keep all of your notes and information in one file. It also lets you break your story into scenes/chapters/or whatever works for you. This is a great program for everyone but will be especially useful for those writers who like to plot out their stories.
  • Storyist—this is a Mac only writing program. It’s similar to Scrivener in a lot of ways.
  • Ulysses—this is a Mac only writing program. The one downside is that it requires a yearly subscription of $39.99. But it syncs across all your Apple products as long as they are all using the same Apple ID. It’s easy to use and you can nest groups inside of other groups as well as create tags to make it easy to search for items. I’ve found this especially useful for writing a series. It’s kind of like Scrivener and Evernote combined into one program.
  • Bear—is a note app that allows you to use #hastags to make your notes easily searchable. It’s like an electronic three ring binder.
  • Evernote—is a note app that allows you to organize notes and information into easily searchable files. You can add tags to make it easy to find specific items. It’s available in both free and paid options.
  • ExpoBoard—this is like a giant cork board that allows you to have different boards. I like to use this for my inspiration board when I’m working on a book. It sometimes helps me to have images of the places I plan to go in the story. It also helps me stay consistent with my physical description of a business or a town.
  • Sigil—this is an open source Epub creation program. It allows complete control over the coding of the Epub file, therefore creating a cleaner Epub. This is the program I use to create all of my digital books.
  • Pixelmator—this is a Mac only photo manipulation program with layers. It’s similar to Photoshop in a lot of ways and is a great tool to begin learning the basics of using layers and masking without the high cost of Adobe Photoshop.
  • Photoshop—this is the industry standard for photo manipulation. Photoshop has a higher learning curve than other programs, but that’s because it is a powerful tool in which the limitations are almost nonexistent. If you can dream it, odds are it can be done on Adobe Photoshop.
  • InDesign—this is the industry standard for layout designs. Like Photoshop, InDesign has a pretty steep learning curve. However, the finished product is well worth the time and effort. This is what I use to design all of my print book interiors as well as any printed promotional materials like bookmarks, bookplates, and postcards.
  • Scribus—this is similar to InDesign, but lacks a lot of the more advanced features that InDesign has. Scribus is open source so it’s a great choice if you want to learn how to design print interiors without investing a lot of money. If you plan on doing print books, I would suggest starting out with Scribus and then graduating to InDesign down the road.
  • Word—while some authors and editors still prefer to print out their manuscript and pass it back and forth writing notes in the margins with their red pens, most have embraced the digital age and use the track changes feature in Word for their edits. This allows the author and editor(s) to make changes and notes that will appear without changing the actual manuscript itself. Some authors also prefer to write in Word instead of using another program like Scrivener, Ulysses, Storyist, etc.
  • Pages—this is the Mac version of Word. One great thing about Pages is that it now has track changes that work in much the same way as Word. Another is, you can use Pages to write or edit and then simply export it to Word.
  • GoodNotes—this app works great with iPad Pro and the Apple Pencil. It allows you to use it just like a physical notebook, scrapbook, binder, planner, etc. I use this to keep my journal, my story bible, notes and story ideas, as well as my planner.
  • Nebo—this is the app I use to write blog posts, notes, story ideas, etc. It works with the iPad Pro and Apple Pencil, to turn your handwriting into text. If you’re like me and like to write things out by hand, but hate having to then type them up later, this is the app for you.
  • Kriswrites.com—this is the blog of author Kristine Kathryn Rusch. She has been writing and publishing for many years, as has her husband, Dean Wesley Smith. This blog is full of information and advice. If you search the archives you will find a lot of useful information about the industry and the business of writing.
  • Susan Kaye Quinn’s Blog—this is the personal blog of author Susan Kaye Quinn. The archives are full of information and advice about publishing. You will find most of the publishing advice in the older posts since she has decided to shift the focus of her blog away from giving advice and more toward her own writing and interests. But I still recommend that you check it out.
  • Jane Friendman’s Blog—this blog deals a lot with the industry and what’s currently happening. She also has a paid newsletter call the Hot Sheet that gives even more industry information.
  • David Gaughran’s Blog—this blog deals a lot with advice for writers as well as current happenings within the publishing community. He also has a newsletter you can sign up for.
  • The Creative Penn—this is the blog of author Joanna Penn/J.F. Penn/Penny Applegate. If you’re into podcasts then I highly recommend listening to The Creative Penn Podcast as well, but if not then you can still find a lot of useful information on the blog.
  • A Business Plan for Indie Authors—this is a three part post that was written by author Denise Grover Swank. If you’re serious about your writing career then I think it’s important to have some form of a business plan in place. This blog series gives you a great idea of how to write a business plan, as well as giving you a basic outline that you can adapt to meet your own needs.
  • Evergreening Your Links—this is a great post written by Carolyn Jewel about what it means to evergreen your links and why you should.
  • Book Binding Options—if you’re planning to do print books then you need to educate yourself on the different types of binding and printing methods. Print Ninja has detailed description of the different types of bindings.
  • The Perfect Year—this is a video series by author J.A. Huss about marketing and planning your perfect year. It’s basically a publishing and marketing plan all in one. There are a lot of great takeaways from this series. And one of the best parts is that most of it is relatively inexpensive. There are a lot of videos so this one will take you a bit to get through but it is well worth the time spent.
  • Your Book Launch Timeline—this was a post on the Book Baby Blog that I found helpful. It gives you an idea of how to create a launch plan for your book.

I have used a lot of programs and software throughout the years, trying to find what works for me. I am an organic writer, meaning I don’t plot out my stories ahead of time, or at all really. So there are some programs that have far too many features for me, since I will never use them.

In 2022, I set out to better organize my writing business and future proof it since I’ve already had some things I started using early in my career, disappear. Technology and software, has changed a lot in ten years.

So I’ve been focusing on finding solutions I can control. Ones no dependent upon subscriptions or proprietary formats.

This is what I’m using: 

  • Storyist—this is a MAC only writing program. It has an outline function and uses digital index cards, as well as bullet point style outlining. It creates separate files for your chapters, allowing you to easily skip to one or to move them around as needed. But it also has split screens and allows you to have your manuscript in one screen and then have a characters list along the side. Which is a feature I use for nearly all my books.
  • Sigil—this is an open source Epub creation/editing program. Open source means it’s free. It allows me to have total control over the coding of the files, creating cleaner ePubs. It requires basic knowledge of CSS and HTML. This is the program I’ve used to create every ebook I’ve ever formatted.
  • Affinity Photo—this is a photo manipulation program, similar to Adobe’s Photoshop. One definite positive about this program is that it is a onetime purchase. It has everything you need to create social media graphics, design book covers, or any other kinds of graphics you need.
  • Affinity Designer—this is a vector program, similar to Adobe’s Illustrator. It is great for creating vector graphics, designing custom texts, or editing vectors. It is also a onetime purchase.
  • Affinity Publisher—this is a layout design program, similar to Adobe’s InDesign. This is what I now use to design all of my print interiors, as well as any printed promotional materials like bookmarks, bookplates, postcards, etc. It is also a onetime purchase.
  • Obsidian—this is an open source (free) program you can download to your desktop or use on your tablet or phone. Obsidian is a markdown program that’s like a virtual binder. I chose this program, not only because it’s free but also because markdown in a language that’s been around for a long time and one that’s not likely to go away. It allows you to create vaults (which is basically a master folder) and then you can create folders and files within each vault. I have a vault for each pen name. Inside those vaults I have business information, website design information, passwords, book information. Each book series gets their own folder, then each book gets a page where I have the title, series number, tagline, blurbs, publication date, imprint, list price, retailers where the book is listed, and any other relevant information. I have a vault for general business information. And then I have begun to create series bible for each series with all the information I could possibly need. One great thing is that you can make it searchable and apply hashtags to words, phrases, etc. then Obsidian links those together.
  • Pages—this is the word processing program that comes with a Mac. I used to pay for Word for Mac, but I only ever had issues with it and when they switched to subscription services, I switched to Pages. It allows for track changes, just like Word. It also has capabilities to format and export your files as an ePub. You can also export it as a Word file to send to editors.
  • Numbers—this is Mac’s version of Excel. I use this to keep track of book sales numbers.
  • Nebo—this is a note-taking app for iPad that works with Apple Pencil. It allows you to write notes by hand, then it converts your handwriting into text. You can then copy and paste into another document if you would like. I use this when I’m writing to keep track of information, or jot down things that I plan to add to my story/series bible later.

With all of these programs, I constantly backup the files on my external hard drive and thumb drives. I also export files to RTF formats when I save them, since that format is a universal one that should be able to be opened in almost any word program.

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A writer is a person for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people.

—Thomas Mann