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You are here: Home / being an author / What is the Best Book Writing Software?

July 18, 2013 by Tricia Goyer 14 Comments

What is the Best Book Writing Software?

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Looking to write your first book or better your next? Here’s a look at the best book writing software.

I get asked writing questions all the time. Here is one I get asked often by those who want to start their first novel.

I am about to start my first book and was wondering if you had any advice to share on what software to use or best system for starting a new book?

I don’t use any specific software to write a book. I only use a normal word-processing program. I have used Microsoft Word before. Now, because I have a Mac, I use Open Office.

When submitting a manuscript it’s important not to make it too fancy. A publisher will strip away all the extras like italics, bold print, and fancy fonts. Any fancy formatting is just a waste of time. I’ve submitted 40+ manuscripts to more than a dozen different publishers, and here are the basics: <click to tweet>

  • Times New Roman
  • 12 point font
  • Double Space
  • Indented
  • 1-inch margins

In fiction, I use italics for direct thoughts. I also use bold print for chapter headers and subheadings in non-fiction.

Some people write their manuscripts with each chapter as a separate file, and then they compile it into one document before submission. I sometimes do this for non-fiction books where each chapter has a unique theme, but for my novels I simply write the whole thing in one file. I then save it as a final document, with the complete book’s name when I’m done before submission.

When I submit my manuscript to my publisher I save it—and submit it—as a Word document. It is the preferred submission for publishing companies.

Other articles for writers by me:
Marketing 101
Switching Hats Between Fiction and Non-fiction

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Filed Under: being an author, Words Tagged With: Best Books, Book, Book Writing Software, Books, E-book, Emphasis, Fiction Books, First Book, Manuscript, My First Book, Publishing, Software, Specific Software, The Best Books, Writing Software


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Disclosure of Material Connection: Some of the links in the post above are “affiliate links.” This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive an affiliate commission. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will add value to my readers. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.” Read full privacy policy here.

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Laurel says

    July 18, 2013 at 10:41 am

    I’m a Mac user too, but was a teacher for years, so I discovered that Microsoft makes Office for Mac, which has Word, PowerPoint, Excel, Entourage and a few other things bundled. Fully compatible w Word and a lot less buggy than Open Office, which I have to use on my work computer (Pc) bc our work platform isn’t Mac compatible but I didn’t have Office for that computer. Just wanted to mention it. I actually like Office for Mac better than the one for Windows! It’s prettier:)

    Reply
    • Tricia Goyer says

      July 18, 2013 at 8:12 pm

      Laurel, Thank you for letting us know! That’s great information!

      Reply
  2. Andrea Cox says

    July 18, 2013 at 4:05 pm

    Thanks for the info, Tricia. I use Word and find it does the trick pretty well. I’m learning to hate headers, though!

    Reply
    • Tricia Goyer says

      July 18, 2013 at 8:13 pm

      Yes, I don’t use headers.

      Reply
      • Andrea Cox says

        July 19, 2013 at 12:54 pm

        I have to for my proposal. The agency wants my name, title and page numbers in a header. What a pain headers are! But I finally figured it out. Then I had to re-figure it out when I copied the first three chapters over into the end of the proposal… Oh the joys of working with technology!

        Reply
  3. Carolyn Arends says

    July 18, 2013 at 6:16 pm

    Thanks for the insight into your process!, Tricia. I primarily use simple word processing as well (Word for Mac) but I’ve been playing around off and on with Scrivener when I have a really big project with lots of research. You can make it work kind of a like a virtual index card system and it can be really helpful when you’re trying to corral lots of ideas and info. They let you try it free for a while to see if it suits your way of working – might be worth checking out for some people … (https://www.literatureandlatte.com/)

    Reply
    • Tricia Goyer says

      July 18, 2013 at 8:13 pm

      I’ve heard many wonderful things about Scrivener. I might try it some time!

      Reply
  4. Jennifer Sikora says

    July 19, 2013 at 6:49 am

    Thank you so much for writing about this. I am always curious what I need to do to get started.

    Reply
    • Tricia Goyer says

      July 13, 2015 at 8:04 pm

      You don’t need much. Just start typing!

      Reply
  5. Elentarien says

    July 20, 2013 at 4:31 pm

    If you have Microsoft Office, OneNote makes a good writing program as well. Not as wonderful for ‘fun’ fonts, and fancy setups, but for keeping stuff together, yet neatly separated, its a great way to do it. It saves automatically. You can have one file for the whole project, including research, separate chapters, etc. Can even put in photos, though, personally, I don’t care for how it handles images, but then, I don’t use them a lot anyway. But yeah, it can be great for sorting larger projects without having files all over the place.

    Now, if we could just find something to make writing on an Android tablet a bit more convenient. . .

    Reply
    • Tricia Goyer says

      July 13, 2015 at 8:05 pm

      So true!

      Reply
  6. Macie Robinson says

    July 27, 2015 at 11:26 am

    I will soon begin my first book.

    Reply
  7. P.D. Workman says

    December 22, 2015 at 7:01 am

    If you are writing your first novel, then yes, I would recommend Word. You don’t need the distraction of trying to learn a new program while you’re learning to write.

    But if you are an experienced author looking to optimize the process, then I recommend Scrivener all the way! And yes, you can compile to Word for your editor.

    Reply
  8. christine says

    May 17, 2016 at 8:12 pm

    So what you’re saying is that you write everything in Word and submit to a publisher then? How do you know how many pages the book will be? These are probably stupid questions but I’m really starting from scratch. Thanks for any advice.

    Reply

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